Curacao 2026 (page 9 of 9)

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Day 9,10 - Feb 15 & 16, 2026

Spoiler alert - we did not get home Sunday night as planned. It was a long, frustrating day to say the least.

The morning started out fine. First we had to return the rental car. We drove to the Avila Hotel to return it and then planned on walking back to the hotel and stopping for breakfast along the way.

A lot of restaurants and shops are closed on Sunday, but Greta looked up some beach-side hotels along the way back and chose Bij Blauw, which had beach-side seating and a good looking breakfast menu. We got there a little after 9 and sat right along the beach walkway. And sat. And sat. When we got there, it was not very busy, but no one came to take our order. After a while, sitting out in the sun by the beach didn't seem to be such a great idea as we were getting hot and didn't have even a water to drink. Eventually, Greta asked a waiter "do we have to order from the bar ourselves?" and he said he'd be with us shortly. He came over a few minutes later, apologized and took our order. And then we sat. And sat. And sat. No one ever came back, no food, no drinks, nothing. Eventually we gave up and left. We'd watched other people arrive and have orders taken and food arrive. But not us. We understand "island time" but this was ridiculous. We have no idea if they ever noticed we were gone or were just hoping we'd leave. We don't even know if our food was ever prepared - we just left.

At that point, we were going to try another beachside restaurant but decided to try find something in Punda instead. I had not noted this before but the area around the waterway is called Handelskade. Per Google, "Handelskade" ("Merchant’s Quay") is a famous, iconic waterfront street in Willemstad, Curacao, known for its vibrant, colorful pastel-colored 18th-century Dutch colonial buildings. Located on the Punda side of St. Anna Bay, it serves as a bustling, historic landmark for shopping, dining, and viewing the Queen Emma Bridge.

We saw a large ship pass as we were walking back to the Queen Emma Bridge - that's amazing to see as it passes behind the buildings. The Iguana Cafe had tables right along the water and it looked like it was open. We were immediately seated and given menus. The breakfast menu was small, but the service was great. They took our orders and the food came out extremely quickly. We both had ham & cheese omelets with croissants, plus mimosas and coffee. We were lucky to have arrived right when the bridge was opened for the ship because once the bridge was across the water again, lots of cruise ship people came across and sat down at the cafe. By the time we left, it was very busy.

From there, we walked back to the hotel and packed our bags. Check out was at noon and our transportation back to the airport was at 12:50. There's a nice area to wait for your buses in the lobby. Greta went to the casino to use the "$5 free play" plus a few more dollars and lost it all on some slot machines. The casino usually seems to be very quiet, but maybe later at night it's busier. Our bus arrived early and everyone who was scheduled to be picked up was already there, so we got on the road ahead of time. We stopped at a few more hotels on the way and the bus sat in a little bit of heavy traffic on the way to the airport.

We checked our bag and got through security within an hour, and then wandered the airport for a bit. The shopping/duty free area is all along the center of the airport terminal but the registers are right in the middle of the walkway, which made everything crowded. The airport is all inside, and while it was busy, there was room for everyone to sit near their gates. Other airports we've been at in the Caribbean have been very small and crowded but this was set up well. We boarded our plane and everything seemed to be moving along well.

Except for the plane, which wasn't moving. After a bit, the pilot announced that ATC was not allowing us to leave. For some reason, there was no flight plan. So we had to wait. The weather was nice, so that wasn't the reason. Eventually we were given a flight plan and allowed to leave but that put us an hour behind schedule. Mike pulled up our flight path on the way to Miami - typically the flight would take us directly over Cuba but our plane as routed around Cuba, so maybe there was something unknown going on.

When we landed in Miami, they announced that there were 32 people who had close connections (including us) and requested anyone whose flight was ending in Miami to allow the 32 people to get off first. Everyone was very helpful and we got off quickly (even from the back of the plane). There was a very long walk/jog through the airport to where we finally got to Customs. We got through that very quickly, thanks to having Global Entry plus they were alerted that we needed to get through quickly. But it took a long time to get our dive bag from the checked luggage. Then it was a race to go re-check the bag and go back through security. As we ran, we were directed by security to go through a special gate marked "Staff only". They took off the tag on our bag, and told us to keep going all the way to Zone 4 to recheck our bag. We eventually got there, put our bag on the scale to be rechecked and were told NO.

The woman from American Airlines absolutely would not let us check our bag. She questioned why the tag was gone (security had taken it). She questioned WHO would have told us our plane was being held (our original plane flight attendants had told us). She said they were already boarding our flight (which we already knew) and therefore would not take our bag. We begged to be allowed to try get on the flight and hope our bag made it but she refused and would only allow us to rebook a different flight home.

We never have good luck with AA, but chose that over Delta because the Delta flights were much more expensive. Now we were stuck booking a hotel for the night in Miami, flying through Charlotte and then to Minneapolis. Mike booked a room at the Sleep Inn, which looked fine on-line. But then it took at least 30 minutes for the shuttle bus to arrive. Once we checked in, there was a blower fan running in the room on the carpet. We're not sure why, and maybe don't want to know why. We walked a few blocks down the street to an Irish Pub for supper. The food was pretty good but the air conditioning was on full force. Once we got back to the room, we realized that the toilet was backed up, and Greta went to the front desk for assistance. They had no housekeeping on staff at that time of night and there were supposedly no other rooms available, so they just gave us a plunger. Fortunately, that solved the problem without and issues and we both collapsed into beds (two full beds was the only room they had left) for the night.

We were up at 6 the next morning and checked out. We got a quick free breakfast downstairs and then took the shuttle bus back to the airport. At first we tried to get into the normal security line, which was labeled as "15-20 minutes and bypass the "TSA Precheck" line which was labeled as "30+ minutes". But then all the times changed so we walked down to the TSA Precheck line and made it through security in around 20 minutes. Our gate was a Lego Store with a full-sized Lego Pilot at the front - that was pretty neat to see. The plane we took to Charlotte was a 777 - it was HUGE. Three seats wide on each side of the plane and 4 seats in the middle. As we were a last minute booking, we had middle seats but had at least been moved to middle seats with more leg room. That was a short flight, then we had a few hours layover at Charlotte.

We stopped at the Sammy Hagar's Beach Bar & Grill for lunch. Afterwards, we walked back to our gate, and Greta stopped and took a picture of another Lego Store, this one fronted with a Lego Boy going to the beach. Maybe this will be a new quest at airports - finding the Lego Store! The flight back to Minnesota was uneventful, thankfully. We'd arranged to have Remi stay at "camp" for the rest of the day (instead of a morning pick up). Cindy at "Back Forty Kennel" offered us a late pickup but we decided to have our friends Tom & Lori pick him up that evening instead. We got to their house around 6 pm, where he was busying working on a rawhide. We visited for a few minutes and then headed home.

Other than the long trip home, which took twice as long, it was an excellent trip.

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