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Last Updated: 24-AUG-2018
Majority of the photos were taken with a Canon EOS-70D 20.2mp camera (White date), and on plane photos were taken with a Motorola Moto-X 2013 version
For a detailed description of the Canon EOS-70D 20.2mp camera setup I am using, visit my Camera Page
All underwater photos & videos were shot with a GoPro Hero 4 Silver camera. (Red date)
Any video from the three cameras was processed and converted with AWS Video Converter 8
This trip page has 741 photos - 8 movies - using 1.41 gig of space
REASON for this trip - We chose Aruba because Southwest now has a non-stop flight from/to BWI. It was an easy decision as Ken has a considerable amount of frequent flyer miles (used 43,000 miles down and back for two people) and decided to take a trip in late April. This was a little later than Mary wanted to go but Ken had just started a new job in late February and couldn't go earlier. In the end the weather was great and even with some return customs delays it was a relaxing and fun trip.
After another bad winter, we figured we could use sun, beach time and snorkeling. Mary found a "Home away" (VRBO) house to rent, which was $1350.00 for 9 nights and had a pool.
Looking back as I create this page in late DEC-2015, this was the first of three big vacations that we took this year and since Ken changed offices it was no longer a big problem and stressful to be gone a week or two. Also, being at the end of my working time I am not too worried about taking vacations.
Many of you know that we travel to look for places for possible retirement or extended stays. Aruba is not on any of our places for retirement and after spending 10 days here and seeing how when you go outside of the tourist areas, it's not really that nice I would probably not want to stay here more than a month or two.
Security - Outside the tourist areas I saw a cause to be concerned. We made sure we were not out at night. We never walked along our street at night as believe that there was some risk. I was a bit concerned with the house manager saying we need to keep things locked up and the security system on when we left. In the end we had no issues. I don't believe that there was much police protection where we were and home invasions were a major problem. We only ran the AC in the bedroom and left the rest of the house open at night. I did put all of our valuables in the master bedroom at night so we could provide some accountability at night.
WI-FI at the house was excellent, unlike other places we have rented we had no issues here at all.
Photos