Relaxing and laying around... Aruba, Day 2

Now that's what I call a vacation. Wouldn't you like waking up to this sight every day?

I woke up at 8:00AM feeling completely recharged after the day before.  Charlotte and Allan were still asleep, so I turned on the TV and switched the channel to whichever one had the NY feed going and Good Morning America was on.  I don't know what it is about the islands here. but this is the second time I've traveled to an island in Caribbean and it had a NY channels.

Charlotte and Allan finally woke up shortly before 9:00AM and we didn't make it out to breakfast until around 10:00AM. We weren't in much of a hurry, it was a vacation after all.

Just lounging around

Now, as we walked to breakfast, Allan was quick to point out the wildlife that was roaming the grounds.  These guys are everywhere, on the rocks and roaming around. If you're not careful, one could be walking next to you as you're going by the pool. It felt a little unnerving at first, but we all got used to it after the first day.  They seem pretty harmless and Allan tried feeding a grape to one of them. He seemed to not want it. We saw one lounging on a ledge while standing on our balcony. A bird was attacking it, as if to say "Hey! You're in my spot!"  The iguana didn't care.

Just chillin' on the roof which was directly below our balcony. We were on the third floor, the roof is outside the second floor.

This one was being attacked by a bird.

We ended up at The Palm again, since they had a daily breakfast buffet.  The place is nice, but I wish they air conditioning was a little more evened out.  We were seated in a corner of a restaurant where it was very warm.  The food was okay, as it was breakfast food after all.  I need to mention one thing I enjoyed so much and it was their waffles.  I'm not sure what was in them, but the waffles were so good.  Allan thinks there was probably brown sugar and cinnamon, which made them taste oh so good. I snatched two more and wrapped them in a napkin to bring back to our room for snack later on in the day. And they lasted until the evening, still sweet, still tasty.

We took a short walk around the pool after  breakfast and surveyed the beach, which was already full.  It was already very warm and just looking at the pool, I could have jumped in at that moment. Since we just finished breakfast, we weren't ready for the beach so it meant we had to go back to the room. Cue Charlotte being upset we were back inside, but we immediately promised her we'd head back out in a bit. That little bit ended up being lunch time at The Beach Club, which resulted in cheeseburgers, hot dogs and fries for lunch.  Oh and nachos too. It wasn't the best food, but it hit the spot.

Charlotte went down for a nap not long after and our trip to the pool wasn't until 5:00PM.  Of course, by that time the sun starting its slow descent and the wind was picking up a bit.  We went into the pool anyway and the water was pretty warm.  The breeze when you got out of the pool was a different story. This now answers my question about why the pool clears our at 6:00PM. It's because the sun is starting to set and there's no sunlight left to keep the pool warm.

 I kind of figured this already, but Charlotte loved the pool. She was content just to sit on the steps and play with her little bucket, filling it up with water and then pouring it out.  She was in love with the water.  In fact, she loved it so much that when it was time for us to get out because it was getting cooler and sunlight was diminishing, she was upset.  Again, we promised her we'd head back out tomorrow and this time it'd be earlier.

I forgot to take the photo when the food arrived.
So this is my dinner as it was half eaten.

Our dinner reservation wasn't until 8:30, so we lounged around the room for a little bit. I checked some e-mails and responded to a few.  Luckily, it was 7PM by the time we all finished showering, so it didn't leave us with a huge block of time to wait around in our room.  8:15PM came and we headed out to L'Olio, the nice Italian restaurant on the property.  We were seated outside, which was refreshing with the night time breeze.  It was also Charlotte's first experience with outdoor dining.  Allan ordered the lasagna and I had roll wrapped in prosciutto and spinach.  The lasagna was shared with Charlotte, who of course loves her pasta.  Dessert was tiramisu for Allan and panna cotta for me. Both were yum. It was my first time eating panna cotta.  It was okay, but I'm not sure I'd order it again.

Again, I forgot to take the photo when dessert came.
So, here it is half eaten.

Afterwards, we let Charlotte burn off some energy by letting her roam the hallway leading to the lobby, as well as the lobby itself.  She needed to burn off some energy after all. Then we explored downstairs and walked into a show that was going on in the ballroom. We stood off to the side and Charlotte started bouncing the to beat of the tribal music that was playing.  It looked a cross between a tribal dance and a Cirque du Soleil performance. I'm not very sure. All I know is that it entertained Charlotte and that was enough for me.  We didn't want to stay too long because the drum beats were pretty loud and we didn't want it to affect her hearing.  Ten minutes later, we headed back to our room, despite Charlotte's protest about having to go inside.  She calmed down a bit later and got lost in the hole that is YouTube Kids on the iPad.  Other than that, it was the end to another relaxing day at the resort.

Ah, my kind of vacation.

All in all, a good day.