My day began at 2am. Last week, my friend taught me how to make kombucha and last night I needed to tend to my fermented tea. It was too hot to bottle last night so I went to sleep for 3 hours then woke up to finish the job before I headed to the airport.
The airport process was quick today. Checking my bag was a breeze and I was on my way to tsa at 3:40am. The main TSA line opens at 3:30am, but the TSA pre-check line doesn’t open until 4am. I decided to wait in the normal line thinking it would be faster. Do pre-check privileges like keeping your shoes on carry over to the normal line? The answer is no. I took my shoes off and pulled my laptop out, but was told to put the laptop back inside my bag. I had the normal x-ray scan which shouldn’t be standard in tsa-precheck, but I’m normally “randomly” selected so it is pretty standard for me even with pre-check. The next wait was for The Club to open up. It opens at 4:30am. I enjoyed my “free” breakfast which included some oatmeal with brown sugar and coconut flakes and a bagel.
My last few trips have been on Frontier because I like nonstop flights, but curaçao is not a nonstop destination from Cleveland. Today, I’m flying American Airlines. I’m boarding group 5 and think I’m basically last to board, but to my surprise there are 9 boarding groups. The boarding process was really quick and the gate agents were quick to move the line. The plane has wi-fi with free entertainment and access to Apple TV. Also, the seats have a rest for your phone to conveniently watch them. And cookies and a drink. It all feels so luxuries after flying Frontier. No drama.
There aren’t that many flights to curaçao so I booking a decently long connection. It gave me time to checkout another airport lounge. This time it was the Turkish Airways lounge where I had a pretty sad looking French toast, but then the best coffee out of a machine. So good I got two which is a lot for me.
The second flight was mostly uneventful, but due to some weather we were delayed a little to take-off. We arrived in Curaçao and immigration was amazingly fast. I filled out my immigration form online and that helped with going through quickly. A man checked our forms and passports and then we processed to automatic machines. We had to insert our passports and then grab it back to open the gate. Luggage claim was on the other side. Immigration was so quick that we had a decent wait for bags. Then off to customs where all bags went through an xray. The airport is relatively small, but felt pretty modern for Caribbean airports.
It was a short ride over to Dreams Curaçao. I booked a shared transfer so the ride went quickly as we chatted. This is a very small resort and feels more like a hotel than a resort. It has many of the Dreams amenities and shares many similarities, but it feels more like a mini-Dreams that hasn’t grow up to be a real Dreams.
It has a very diverse set of clients. I sort of had a conversation with a women. She was speaking another language, but I don’t know what it was, but I did understand her and answered back in Spanish even though she wasn’t speaking Spanish. She seemed to understand. I’ve heard Spanish, English, Dutch, and French. My guess is the women was speaking Portuguese. I’m impressed with the language skills of the resort staff as well. It seems like almost everyone speaks at least three languages: Dutch, Spanish, and English. I would guess English is the third language they learn. The Spanish I’ve heard sounds more fluent to the staff than English.
I spent my evening walking around the resort, made a quick stop for a snack, and then changed for dinner. Most of the restaurants here are outdoors. It’s very casual. I changed into a dress, but there was literally a women walking through in her bathing suit. The a la carte restaurant had a buffet for appetizers and desserts and then you ordered the entree with the server. The woman in the bathing suit came up to the buffet part. The restaurant is right next to the pool. There was a beautiful sunset and my food tasted good. Off to bed early to get ready for a weekend of adventures!
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