Hot, desert-like landscape, but breezy and fun
Written: Oct 23 '05 (Updated Oct 23 '05)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Friendly people, interesting main town, constant warm weather with nice breezes
Cons: Not really tropical, more desert like.
The Bottom Line: Not a bad little island. Friendly people. Expensive though.
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| blankfromva's Full Review: Aruba |
We went to Aruba this summer for a week. The first thing we noticed was that we felt like we were still in the states. Very US in mood and style, despite this being a Dutch island. Everyone pretty much speaks English, but you do hear people speaking papiemento (sp?) or Dutch.
We stayed at the Marriott which is at the far end of the hotel strip towards the NW tip of the island (I think).
The Marriott is a great hotel. The rooms are clean and well appointed. They have balconies of a reasonable size such that you can go out on them and admire the views (or have your morning coffee, read a book, etc.). There are a number of good restaurants that span the price scale. We ended up eating at the sports bar a few times, the food was good and relatively inexpensive. The beach outside the hotel is ok, but not fantastic. Its quite shallow for a while and then gets weedy. You are roped in to a swimming area and they don't recommend you go outside the ropes. We actually spent more time in the hotel pool. The pool is fun. It has a waterfall and a swim up bar. Drinks are outrageously expensive (but most food and drink is on Aruba). Overall a great hotel.
The best part of the beach activities are the same things you find at most tropical resorts: tubing, parasailing, etc. Check out the flyers you get when you arrive as they contain some good discount coupons.
There is no question that this is a tropical island. If it wasn't for the constantly cooling tradewinds you would roast! Its quite barren, except for the palm trees planted wherever the tourist go.
Activities include jeep tours around the national park. Very dusty! One of the best ones involved going to a really nice little swimming hole on the "rough" coast. It was protected from the waves and the little cove was full of beautifully colored tropical fish. Kind of bone-jarring getting there though. Some real off-roading (the kind that you really really need to have a landrover for).
Don't bother with the gold mines.
The ostrich farm is kind of fun (yes I know it sounds kind of goofy), but the tour guide makes it fun. For the price its kind of fun. The butterfly garden is also good, but mainly because of the great guided tours.
I wouldn't bother renting a car since you can get around most of the island on the jeep tours. We used the buses to get into town. They were convenient and inexpensive. There is a fair amount of good shopping down town, as well as the usual trinkets to satisfy those coming off the cruise ships for a few hours.
We spent 7 days there, but after about 5 had enough and were looking for something else to do. We had thought about taking a side trip over to Bonaire, but it was a little too far to go.
Recommended:
Yes
Best Suited For: Families
Best Time to Travel Here: Jun - Aug
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Epinions.com ID:
blankfromva
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Reviews written: 8
Trusted by: 0 members
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