We came late for embarkation on purpose because we had heard there was a delay in the previous sailing. No lines up at 1:30pm

We rented a jeep, booked in advance, from Hertz across the street from the airport. We opted to walk down the road from the port to pick up the car for the less than 2km walk to get our jeep but we could have had them pick us up.

We didn't end up taking the roof off as it was very hot and sunny so we were glad for the A/C break!

Aruba is very easy to drive around by jeep, we saw lots of the spots that are on most of the tours but on our own time. We decided to do the car rental at this port because we were here in port the longest. Aruba is such a small island that even if there were car issues, we would have no trouble getting back to the ship on time. The east side of the island, away from the resorts, is very scenic, lots of good photo opportunities there.

They dropped us off at the ship after we brought the jeep back which was good as we were quite tired at that point.

We again, pre-booked an excursion with Bonaire Vista Tours ( http://www.bonairevistatours.com ) but they also had a tent set up just outside of port that you can book on the spot as well.

The tour was great fun, only 15 people in our air conditioned van and great value for the $35 price. Our knowledgeable guide took us all around the island including a stop at a cactus liquor bar for tasting and purchase if we wanted.

We got back to the port in plenty of time to walk around the shopping area too if we wanted.

We pre-booked a power boat ride and snorkel excursion that we found online ( http://www.grenadaseafaris.com/index.html ) also highly recommended. They picked us up right beside the ship. This was great fun and very professional. We really enjoy our ride around the island to see the underwater statues. Our tour guides on board gave us lots of information on the area.

They had to drop us off a little bit further away from the ship into the inner bay because of the wind that day but one of the guides walked us back through the tunnel to our port so we wouldn't get lost. No troubles getting back in time to wander around the shops if we wanted to.

We came prepared for the rain forest with our rain jackets and it's a good thing because we got drenched walking through the forest. Dominica was a rain day for our ship. Luckily though, when our bus got to the Volcano sand beach, the rain stopped and the sun shone between the clouds, great for swimming!

We had a blast zipping down the lines in the forest. This was zipping for dummies as the guides did most of the work for us. On previous zip line tours at other ports, we had to stop ourselves, on this one, all we had to do was hold onto the bar, walk off the platform and enjoy the view!

We just rented a Clamshell for 2 here but there were a lot of empty chairs for people to sit at, only a few were under shade so you had to get there early to grab those spots.

We were happy to have cover from the sun but disappointed that we couldn't rotate our clam shell around as the sun turned to avoid sun on our legs, had to use a towel for cover. It was nice having a place to leave our junk (towels, books, backpack, nothing valuable) while we explored the island a bit.