{"id":3745,"date":"2025-11-13T20:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T20:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/?p=3745"},"modified":"2025-11-18T15:24:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T15:24:19","slug":"willemstad-curacao-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/willemstad-curacao-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Willemstad, Curacao"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today we arrived in Willemstad on the Dutch island of Curacao, alongside a massive Carnival cruise ship.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ve been here before, and seen the town and interesting swing bridge, so as the bulk of passengers turned right towards the town centre, we turned left, towards a beach we&#8217;d spotted on <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.me\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Maps.Me<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Our route took us past a mangrove swamp, which might be worth a visit on another occasion, along a long stretch of road right by the shoreline, sporting gazebos and barbeque areas.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3746\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"564\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_2.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_2-768x433.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At the end of the road was a public beach. There were no facilities however, and it felt a little grubby, and through a gap in a fence things looked much cleaner and inviting&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>After closer inspection we discovered the beach next door was privately owned by a massive Marriott hotel. After enquiring at the reception, we purchased a day pass for about \u00a375, which sounds a lot until you realise that it includes use of all the facilities and vouchers for food and drink at the poolside grill and bar.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_3.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3747\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"692\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_3.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_3-300x208.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_3-768x531.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_4.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3748\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_4.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"631\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_4.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_4-300x189.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_4-768x485.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3749\" src=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"644\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_1.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_1-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/willemstad_1-768x495.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>We subsequently spent a wonderful few hours snorkeling, relaxing in our loungers and enjoying pizza and beer for lunch.<\/p>\n<p>We were fully relaxed and snorkelled out by the time we walked back to the ship.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we arrived in Willemstad on the Dutch island of Curacao, alongside a massive Carnival cruise ship. We&#8217;ve been here before, and seen the town and interesting swing bridge, so as the bulk of passengers turned right towards the town centre, we turned left, towards a beach we&#8217;d spotted on Maps.Me. Our route took us past a mangrove swamp, which&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,28,38,37],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3745"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3750,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3745\/revisions\/3750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peterwoolley.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}