A guaranteed great vacation
Written: Oct 10 '99 (Updated Oct 25 '99)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: beautiful, tropical weather, essentially guaranteed
Cons: can be expensive, especially with the lure of the casinos!
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| redrover's Full Review: Aruba |
Guarantee a luxurious beach vacation at Aruba, home to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.
WHY THE WEATHER GUARANTEES A GREAT VACATION
Because of Aruba's western Caribbean location, Aruba is outside of the traditional hurricane belt, so this island is a great place to visit year round. As a result, during the height of hurricane season, August and September for the U.S., many vacationers choose Aruba because other tropical islands are too risky. In fact, during our vacation in late August 1999, Hurricane Floyd struck or dumped excessive rain on many eastern Caribbean islands while we never saw a drop of rain in Aruba.
In addition, the weather is consistently pleasant at about 75-90 degrees with an extremely low average rainfall. According to local residents, the little rainfall that does occur falls in the late evening or early morning, although we never saw any in the five days that we were there. This means that every day of your vacation will be filled with sunshine, blue skies, and a strikingly beautiful turquoise ocean.
The downside to the beautiful weather is that, unlike plush tropical paradises like Hawaii or many eastern Caribbean islands, the island is a desert. If you venture outside of your resort, you will find an Arizona-type setting with cactus and lizards.
DAYTIME ACTIVITIES
Daytime beach activities are abundant from snorkling, scuba diving, water skiing, banana boat rides, etc. If you snorkle or scuba, don't miss the dive of the Antilles, an old shipwreck just off the coast of Palm Beach. Because the ship sunk relatively close to shore, pieces of the ship are still above ground. It is a spectacular site. In addition, you can most likely watch pelicans diving for fish since there are schools of fish all around the diving site.
Aside from beach activities, there is shopping downtown. There is also a golf course near the lighthouse, about 5-10 minutes from Palm Beach. You really get a feel for the desert setting here. This course is definitely not a PGA Tour quality course and the fees seem high, however, it may be the only one on the island.
EVENING ACTIVITIES
Aruba has an abundance of restaurants ranging from casual to formal and of almost all cuisine types. Most of the restaurants seem to be downtown or near the strips of resorts. Taxis are usually waiting outside of the resorts and restaurants in the evenings. Aside from restaurants, there are plenty of casinos to fill the evening hours. Some of the casinos are large stand-alone buildings while other smaller ones are located in the big hotels. Minimum bets at the hotels will be higher during the daytime but go down to $5 per bet in the later evening hours.
The island has limited night clubs.
RESORTS ALONG EAGLE/PALM BEACH
This beach strip is exactly what one would expect to see on a commercialized Caribbean island, a line of about a dozen large American-style resorts placed one after the other. Some, like the Holiday Inn, make you feel like you are back in the 1970's, while others like the Hyatt and the Marriott have been modernized. When planning your vacation, just remember that old adage that you get what you pay for. We found this to be quite the case with Aruban resorts where special deals meant lower quality.
If we were to plan another short trip where a 3-day tropical storm or even a day of rain would ruin our vacation, then I would certainly choose Aruba again.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
redrover
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Location: Stamford, CT
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 7 members
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