SundaySunday morning we had a submarine tour scheduled for 11:00 am. I went to the De Palm Tours desk around 8:30 am (which is not in the Hyatt, but you can walk along the beach to get to the desk one hotel over) and exchanged our voucher for actual tickets. The lady at the desk advised us to get to the location a half hour early, so I raced back upstairs and started packing up.
We left the hotel and were at the bus stop at 10am. Around 10:15, I started to panic and began insisting that we should just take a taxi. One of the locals sitting under the bus stop with us, informed us that on Sundays the buses run much more infrequently and might take another 10-20 minutes. Way to make me feel better, missy! A minute or so later, we spotted the bus and I felt a sense of relief all too familiar to anyone who spent time waiting for a bus in Israel (especially that last one of the day on an Erev Shabbos).
Once aboard the bus, it was a short ride to the downtown main bus terminal, where we jumped off the bus and raced across the street and down the block to the Atlantis Submarine tour building. Huffing and puffing, I handed our tickets over and we received our boarding passes. We then stayed in the cool air conditioned store until it was close to 10:45 – the real time that the tour instructions began.
After receiving our instructions in both English and Spanish, and having our picture taken (which, according to Lou, was so that if the submarine never came back up, they’d know who was lost at sea – a fact he wisely chose to keep to himself until we were safely back on shore)(Lou: luckily i only said it after we got back or we wouldn't have gone in. Totally made it up
), we got on board a ferry, which took us out to the diving site. The boat ride there was very pleasant, with a cool sea breeze and a little spray of water in our faces. We even passed the airport and saw a plane take off right next to us. Some 15 minutes later or so, we stopped in the middle of the water and were met by the submarine, coming up for air and for more passengers.
The submarine already had passengers inside, so we had to carefully switch places with the people onboard who were boarding the ferry to head back to shore. The process took some time, but eventually we were all securely inside the sub and they (hopefully!) were all securely onboard the boat. The inside of the submarine is narrow (definitely not for the claustrophobic) and lined with seats, each with a viewing window in front of it. Different sides of the submarine are better or worse at different times, but the captain always made sure to turn around, so we’d all end up with the same views. The submarine goes to a maximum of 135 feet below sea level, lands on the bottom of the ocean for a few seconds, and then continues along.
Overall, the submarine was a fantastic activity (though a little on the expensive side at $210 for the two of us). We got to see an array of fish, and three shipwrecks, though the coolness of that was slightly marred by the delivery of the fact that the ships were deliberately sunk for tourism purposes. The entire trip, including the ferry ride both ways, took about two hours. After we got back on dry land, we flagged down a taxi and took it back to the hotel. (Note: on Sundays and holidays, taxis will charge an extra $3 surcharge).
We got back to the hotel, ate lunch, and packed up the rest of our belongings. To my disappointment, when I called asking for an extra half hour of time before check-out (which we had extended until 2 pm), the hotel not only refused, but they came knocking at 1:55 to see if we were out! We had been warned that the airport was a madhouse on weekends. That coupled with the fact that we’d have to clear US customs in Aruba, made us decide to give ourselves a full 2.5 hours at the airport. Well, let’s just say it was overrated… we probably could have arrived an hour later and still had no problem. The security line was pretty long, but it moved fairly quickly, and we were sitting at our terminal soon thereafter. Luckily, the customs guy only looked through our snack bag and not through my ginormous purse – since perched at the very bottom of it were our meat sandwiches.
We stopped off in the duty-free lounge, where Lou spent a while messaging all our friends and family to see if we can bring anything back for them. Alas, we left empty handed since they were out of most things. They had lots of Cuban cigars, but refused to sell them to us since we were headed back to the US. (Apparently, that deal is not fully set in stone yet, or something like that. Sounded like a lot of bull to us, but we didn’t push.)
AUA airport has one lounge which they call the VIP lounge. Star Alliance Gold will get you nowhere here. They accept Priority Pass (which, to my shock, they actually swiped, so the membership attached to a cancelled Plat did not work) and Lounge Club. The actual terminals were crowded and warm, and there seemed to be a number of delayed flights. Luckily, we were only delayed by about 30 minutes, and around 6:30 pm we waved goodbye to the pretty island of Aruba from 10,000 feet above ground – and utilized the next 4.5 hours to brace ourselves for the 32 degree weather waiting to greet us back in NY.
The morning view:The ferry:Takeoff:The submarine rising out of the water:The submarine:You can’t see the color red below sea level (I’ll spare you our blue lipped selfies):A car Lou went gaga over back on shore, so it must be of some importance:Notice how low the clouds are? (#nofilter … just taken through a tinted window)AUA airport:No TSA Precheck here: (pretty sure the security lady wanted to confiscate my phone for taking this pic!)Duty free (also no pics allowed):So long Aruba!