No Matter How Perfect the Island, the Hotels Aren’t Always Paradise on Earth…
Written: Jul 15 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Great beach! Tons of watersports...
Cons: Some wear and tear, lifeless food...
The Bottom Line: Not too bad if you get a cheap rate, but the place is dated and has some problems, so shop around...
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: Holiday Inn Sunspree Palmbeach |
The Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort is one of the Aruba's largest hotels with some 600 rooms spread across 3 high-rise towers (dubbed the Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao towers). Most of the rooms have balconies affording some semblance of an ocean view. I'd guess the resort is about 20 years old, and it seems a bit dated and worn in places. It also seems to be among the more popular places for the bargain-hunter crowd as I know (from personally searching rates) that the prices are among the most affordable for the kind of amenities that you get.
Come take a stroll around the property with me and let me share a few viewpoints that might help you decide whether or not this is the kind of resort you want to stay in. Awesome beaches are the biggest draw to any Caribbean island, so let’s start the tour by strolling along the beach and around the recreational facilities…
Rest and Relaxation: The Resort Amenities...
Chances are pretty good that you're here to relax and to have some fun on the beach. This hotel provides so many things to do, and ways to spend your cash without ever leaving the property, that I could easily see a person (especially a family with teenagers) never wanting to stray far from the hotel. Here's a sampling...
The Health Club and Spa:
The hotel offers a large gym, open to guests 24 hours a day. Want to work off the calories from that overindulgence at the churrasceria? No prob -- head down to the weight machines at 2am if you wish.
There is also a complete spa available (called Intermezzo Spa), offering massages, facials, and other services. The spa and gym are located in a low, 1-story building along the back of the beach, next to the Curacao tower.
Tennis:
Three hard courts are available across the parking lot. I like playing tennis, but I didn't find these courts especially inviting -- they weren't in an attractive setting and they looked like an after-thought, baking under the fierce tropical sun on the other side of the parking lot, without so much as the saving redemption of overhanging shade trees.
Kids Play Area:
Small and uninviting, tucked back at the side of the Aruba tower. A few plastic toys don’t make a great kids area. No biggee. If I were a kid, I’d rather play in the sand, or maybe around the pool…
The Pool:
I don't especially care for the pool at this hotel. It's small, crowded, and too shallow (never more than 5 feet). Kids seem to like ducking under the big round thing that showers water down on their heads, but I thought it looked hokey and dated, like satin disco suits and mood rings.
The Watersports:
Aruba is a great place for watersports -- almost every hotel (Holiday Inn included) seems to offer just about anything you could possibly want to do on the water, from scuba to kayaking to water skiing to banana boat rides. Parasailing? No problem. Snorkling? You got it!
The soft white sands of the beach and the deliciously warm turquiose waters of the Caribbean are too enticing to stay locked to a beach chair, and how much you want to do is simply a matter of your own energy level and the size of your wallet. Of course, you could just loaf on the beach, doing a little tan maintenance...
The Beach:
There's no pleasing everyone. I know that the hotel is trying to provide as many of those palapa shelters as they can, because people want to have a little shade to sit under and a table on which to rest their beers and margaritas. But as I stroll along the beach in front of the Holiday Inn, I can't help but wish there weren't so darn many of them.
The little shelters are packed tighter than a Mexico City subway car at 9:30 on a Wednesday morning. Unbelievable as it might be, the chairs are even more tightly crammed in there. The beach is, of course, overcrowded no matter when you visit.
Cramped, crowded beachfront sunbathing isn't a complaint I have against this hotel alone. Lots of Aruba's hotels have uncomfortably overcrowded beach areas. As I strolled along the beach, I noticed that quite a few of the hotels -- especially around the Palm Beach area -- were chock-a-block chairs and umbrellas. The exceptions just prove the rule (especially the Aruba Grand, which stood out in my mind as being quieter and saner than its neighbors).
It's enough to make a guy yearn for the wider, more open spaces of Eagle Beach to the south. I plan to talk a little more about Eagle Beach in another review, but suffice it to say that next time I visit Aruba, I'll probably stay at Las Cabanas, or one of its neighbors, which face out onto Eagle Beach, but that don't have a monopoly on chairs and palapas.
Around the Property...
The lobby area is more functional than opulent, and it's smaller than I'd usually expect for a hotel of its size. A small bar (the imaginitively named Lobby Bar) sits oddly close to the registration desk, where lines seem to be the norm since slow checkin and checkout are the order of business here. Some things are low class (aluminum blast doors leading out the pool) and other things are just a bit run down (like chipped concrete falling off the balconies on the Aruba tower). Nonetheless, the facilities are, on the whole, pretty enticing.
Shopping Arcade
Several shops line the hotel's somewhat 70's looking shopping arcade. Most strike me as fairly low-end, catering to budget travelers from south Baltimore who forgot their NoName sunblock and Suave shampoo back in their row house. The sole exception was a Little Switzerland shop that catered to travelers who really, really like to pay too much for their mufflers (well, watches in this case). Personally, I'd jump a bus into town before I spent too much in these shops...
Bus
If you want to go into town, but don't have a rental car and don't feel like paying for a taxi, take the bus. Aruba's bus service is affordable, even if it isn't as conveniently frequent as it is in bigger beach resorts (like Cancun). The Arubus stops right in front of the Holiday Inn -- just look for the little shelter with the little yellow sign saying "Bushalte, 12m" -- and no, the bus stop isn't 12 meters away, it's right at the sign. Buses never run more than half-hourly (hourly for much of the day), plus they don't go everywhere on the island, (they do go into Oranjestad, but not reliably elsewhere), so you might be better off renting a car...
Car Rental
Agents are on-site for both Hertz and National, so if you want to bomb around the island on your own, go for it. Rent a 4-wheel drive and you can cruise around the beach near the California Light, or into the back country around Arikok National Park. You can probably find rental cars cheaper elsewhere, if you look for them at all, but it's hard to argue with the convenience of having the on-site rentals.
Tours
Agents for DePalm Tours (Aruba's biggest tour operator) are on-site, booking everything from scuba drive trips, to horseback rides on the beach, to jeep tours of the deserts in Arikok National Park, to day-long sailing ventures on catamarans. You name it, DePalm will help you do it (for a fee).
The desks for both car rentals and tours are located next to the casino.
Casino
I think there must be more casinos on Aruba than there are Coastal brand gas stations. You can't turn around without bumping into either one.
The casino in the Holiday Inn is called the Excelsior, and it's got some measure of fame in gambling circles because it's the casino that invented Caribbean Stud. So if you're looking for a way to lose a wad of cash, and you can't find a deserving chap like me around to take it off your hands for you, well, you can always stop by the casino for some blackjack, roulette, or maybe just some action on the one-armed bandits.
Eating and Drinking...
The fact that the hotel restaurants were busy most of the time I was there leads me to conclude that there are a lot of people going for the all-inclusive deals that this property offers.
Bad choice, in my opinion.
I’m not a big fan of all-inclusive deals, for many, many reasons. The biggest reason is what I see here at the Holiday Inn. Sometimes you get to the resort and find that the food stinks! If that’s the case, and you’ve already paid for “all inclusive” you have two choices: put up with it and eat lousy, or pay for palatable food after you’ve already paid for all your meals. Neither is particularly palatable…
There are several restaurants on the property, and if you’re on the all-inclusive plan, you can eat at any of them. Fortunately for me, I wasn’t, and after one meal, I didn’t eat at any of them.
The one meal I had was at their Bongo Beach Club. It’s a nice, inviting, palapa style beachfront dining room, with brisk sea breezes wafting through the spacious airy room. The view was wonderful. I ordered a fish sandwich. Big mistake! It tasted like a mix of cheap canned tuna with cheap canned salmon, formed into patties without the benefit of spice or other ingredients, then deep fried in greasy vegetable oil and served up on a stale white supermarket brand hamburger roll with generic brand pickel slices. If that sounds as unappetizing to you as it does to me, then I accurately conveyed the qualities of this US$8 “sandwich”.
If I’d have had to eat another meal like this, I’m sure my stomach would have talked my hands into strangling myself. I’d have thanked for putting me out of misery.
There’s a ton of great food and drink available on the island of Aruba. I don’t think any of it has ever seen the inside of the Holiday Inn.
Step Into My Beachfront Lair...
I'm pretty happy with the creature comforts of my room. Its got more space than usual, and it seems to be of good quality. I have zero complaints with the housekeeping staff, who did a great job cleaning up after me, even after I tracked powdery white sand all over the place...
Hey! Bottle opener built into the sink! How did they know I was bringing brewskis with me???
The bathroom is fairly ordinary, but more spacious than in a lot of the newer hotels.
There's a mini-bar, but all the overpriced liquor bottles were removed and the refrigerator is now humming away, ready and waiting for all those brewskis I'm bringing in! (Sure can't afford to drink in the hotel bars too often -- not at almost US$4 for a 7-ounce bottle of Balashi!!)
No work desk, but the very spacious table and chairs are plenty adequate for setting up a laptop or even eating a quick carryout or room service meal.
The furniture is a dark wood colonial style -- ubiquitous but functionl.
The TV is nice (25 inch color), but it gets only a handful of channels, and nothing particularly great.
The sliding glass doors open out onto a small balcony. From my second floor room, I have a view of some trees behind the bar. Looks like the guys below me have a view of some rocks. The five floors above me probably get a peek of the ocean...
As long as you have quiet neighbors, you'll sleep well. The morning that my neighbors got up at 4:30, I knew about it. I also got to hear about their itinerary for the day, their plans for breakfast, the fact that their toothbrushes were packed, their poor uncle's sore leg, and Ernesto you idiot, you lost the coupon for the airport transfers.
Location, Location...
Aruba is weird. Pretty much all the hotels on the entire island are clustered on Palm Beach, or across the road from Eagle Beach. Sure, it's the nicest, longest beach on the island, but I kind of miss having true budget beach bum digs -- and those are very rare beasts on Aruba. The Holiday Inn is towards the northern most stretch of Palm Beach -- in fact, the Marriott is the only major hotel further north than the Holiday Inn, and it's not much further away than a strong hurl from left field to short.
All of the hotels are convenient to the beach. None are convenient to the airport.
Only the Renaissance Hotel can claim to be convenient to downtown Oranjestad. Roads around the hotel are wide, easily navigated, and the island is too small to get lost on. If you're tired of hotel fare, there are some restaurants within easy walking distance. I'd skip the Tony Romas across the street since you can get that anywhere in the U.S. Instead, stroll down to Tango Argentinian Grill and get something a bit different (and good). If you do stop in, ask for one of Abuelo's tables, then tell him he looks familiar -- like someone you knew in Houston. He'll wonder who you are...
Bottom Line...
I've got mixed feelings about the Holiday Inn SunSpree Resort. Some aspects of the place are really quite nice -- like the range of watersports and the extent of the beach, or the generally clean and comfortable feel of the rooms. Other aspects are not quite so nice -- like the slow front desk service, the dark and grungey feel of the Curacao building, and the mediocre food service. The shopping arcade feels dated. The casino is fairly nice and comfortable. The pool is small and shallow. But the beachfront bars and restaurants are pleasantly casual, even if the food hurts to even describe. For every complaint I have, there's something about the place that I like.
On the whole, this resort is fairly average. There are nicer, newer, more luxurious accomodations on the island, but at higher prices. I'm aware that some of the tour promoters rank this hotel fairly highly (Apple Vacations lists it as a 4-apple property). In my opinion, the amenities might justify that kind of rating, but the overall quality of the property doesn't -- I think this is really a hotel that works more comfortably at the 3-star level, and I could even see it hitting someone wrong on a bad day and coming up even lower than that. It's not a luxury property, but it's acceptable -- especially for a seaside retreat with such utterly sublime scenery and mellow attitude.
If the price were right, I'd definitely consider staying here again.
Recommended:
Yes
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