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Planning Aruba for October - any and all advice welcomed!

channimal

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oh.. before i forget.. I wrote an extensive review on Tripadvisor about our first stay at the surf club. The important part of it (my own words :) ) is relative to the beach palapas. If you are strictly a lazy river person disregard. If you do plan on hitting the beach read further:

Now.. for the beach palapas: there is no way there can be enough of them to make everyone happy... and absolutely no system that is going to make everyone happy.. so therein lies some of the issues you may read about in other reviews. Also, let me caveat my comments with.. thank goodness we were not staying during a truly "high season" as this would absolutely cause grief relative to pool chairs and beach palapas.
So... when you arrive check your papers/information they give you at checkin (and in the room) carefully as the palapas system is described in one of them... but my wife and I are the types to come off the plane running.. shedding clothes for our bathing suits and hitting the beach. Sometimes we even measure our vacation/trip locations with a "Plane to beach" time :) So.. anyway, we were completely ignorant of the process and hit the beach with eyes wide shut ;)

There is a hut..on the main walkway in the beach area of the Surf Club you should hit FIRST! Talk to the folks there and have them describe the process (Linda and Philip were 2 extremely helpful and nice employees there along with all of them.. oh and the security guy Rudy! nice and funny guy). Basically, when you arrive.. go there and you can reserve a palapas for 2 consecutive days (depending on proximity to beach $10=2nd row/$15=1st row)... then you skip a day and can reserve another 2 (for the same costs). ONLY select palapas are available through that system. Others are released during certain times. at 7am and at 4pm. The trick is there are lines that form to be able to queue up for these. I've heard the queue for the morning has started as early as 5:30am (sorry ain't going to be me :p ). I did the afternoon queue .. and some of the more aggressive folks will start queuing up at 2pm. Keep an eye on the bench right in front of the hut (thank goodness it's covered) .. and as soon as you see someone there grab a book, water (or Balashi beer) and go sit there. Make sure to confirm loudly and for everyone to hear what # you are in the queue so as to avoid any confusion and issues later. At about 3:50pm-ish RUdy (or some other employee) will come around and hand out small white numbers to everyone in line representing you # in the queue. And that's it.

My wife thought I was crazy .. but it was kind of fun.. you get to meet lots of really nice people (and just as crazy as you are for sitting in line ;) ) from all over.. I met a really nice lady from Virgina and also a lady from NY that is Portuguese (Portugal). Relax, get the palapa you want, meet nice people.. and by the time you've completed that (about 4pm-ish) there is still plenty of beach time for happy hour (which is completely outrageously overpriced 2drinks for $15 .. get a cooler on your first day.. go to the supermarket down the street at the first light on left and buy a case of balashi.. keep cold in fridge.. fill cooler with ice machine on several of the floors in the hotel and have all the happy hour you want ;) ) .. anyway, there's still plenty of sun, ,beach, water to enjoy even after your wait in line. Oh.. and before I forget .. when you have reserved your free palapas for the next day .. make sure you go down by 9:30am on that day and get the beach guys to unlock the chairs and palapas.. put you chair tags on them .. and go have a nice breakfast with the family. If you don't do this.. and show up at noon.. the free reserved palapas may be gone. Ok.. enough about that ... :)

I realized after my tripadvisor post that it was a huge run-on paragraph.anyway :hysterical: . but the meat in there is this: The day you arrive hit the palapa's reservation booth on the beach (again, main walkway.. follow around and hang right at volleyball court.. keep going veer to left and you'll see it). Ask them what they have available during the week(s) that you can reserve. Front row is $15 and second row $10. There might be some free avail that weren't reserved they can assign you. For the rest.. see the detail in quote above :D
 
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krmlaw

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ok. im going to pay to reserve whenever i can. i have no interest in waiting in line on my vacation
 

channimal

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ok. im going to pay to reserve whenever i can. i have no interest in waiting in line on my vacation

lol.. as my wife said (referring to me and my obvious glee to go sit by the hut in a queue), "it takes a special kind of crazy" :hysterical: We got lucky when we first arrived. Linda had been holding a "reservation" for someone who said they were going to reserve #101 but they hadn't shown for 2 days. Using all of my charming ways.. she was kind enough to allow us to get it. So, we were kind of spoiled at the start.

Like I said.. the key is to get down there asap. In fact.. if you have to wait in the lobby for your room to be clean before getting in to it.. I'd recommend going down to the hut and checking on what's available. Keep in mind, there is a one-day cool-off rule. If you reserve for the first 2 days you have to wait a day before reserving the next 2. That can be the pool day or you can go sit at the bench in line and meet other folks :wave:
 

enma

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We are here at the Marriott Surf Club right now. Just love it here. We found a great new restaurant called Soenchi's that have a fixed meal price of $29 including an appetizer, main course, a dessert and a glass of wine. Great Aruban food. Highly, highly recommend the place.
 

dbmarch

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How about any recommendations on dive operators / scuba sites?
 

hcarman

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We have been to Aruba a couple of times. We used Red Sail - they have a booth at the Surf Club. However, their boat leaves from the Hyatt. We also used Aruba Fly n Dive - they are located past the down town area but a free shuttle will pick you up. And lastly, we went out with Mermaid Dive Center - pretty close to the Surf Club - I believe they also would pick you up.
All the dive shops were nice, we based it on which dives they were doing, as we had some favorites that we really wanted to do. One was the Renaissance Airplane wreck off the airport and the other was the Antilla?
On the last trip we discovered another dive shop - don't remember the name - but they had a freshwater pool there where they also had exercise classes, a large shop, and a bar and restaurant complete with a stocked pond and parrots. They specialized in beach dives.

There are some other neat things off the beaten path - a butterfly garden, an ostrich and emu farm, and the wild donkey sanctuary. If you go, ask Desiree for Thunder the donkey - I won a naming contest when he was a baby. It was raining when we were on the island and he was grey - took after his Mom storm - so the name stuck. All the proceeds go to the wild donkey sanctuary on the island.
 

DKT

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We just got back from Surf Club, we loved the Bavaria restaurant, the staff was awesome and food was great. We had so much fun we went back the next day to watch the Germany soccer/football game. If you are picky about where you sit by the pool you need to go early and tag your chairs. People start going down to the pool around 6am, then sit there until 7a when they can then leave...you have to be back within 2hrs. We didn't have any problems getting seats at the beach, but we didn't care what row we were in.

We also rented a car, it was really nice to be able to go to the grocery store, see the island, shop, etc. We did the ABC jeep tour which was fun, and also went to Philips animal garden. The animals there are all rescue and Philip will take you around and tell you about them.

The food there is excellent, we had awesome meals at Barefoot, Bingo Cafe, Linda's Pancakes, Gari & Wasabi, Taste of Belgium, Bavaria and Texas de Brazil.
 

sail27bill

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krmlaw--Just returned from the Marriott Aruba Ocean Club and had a wonderful time. Rented a car for a few days and we definitely used it. Traveling around the island, food shopping, going to restaurants--it was definitely worth the price. We liked our day trip to Depalm Island. Beach, snorkeling and all food included (plus drinks). I mention this because it had a small waterpark that your 3 year old will definitely enjoy. Lots of fun and Marriott gave us a 10% discount off the price ($108 with the discount for adults, don't remember the price for kids as it was an adult only trip). You will definitely enjoy Aruba. Just remember to bring tubes for the lazy river if you are staying at the Surf Club.

Hope you have a wonderful trip.
Anita
 
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