[drtaft]

Just returned from 7 day stay at the Radisson resort on Palm Beach. I'll start from the beginning, we flew Jet Blue which was a direct flight from New York, took about 4 and a half hours. Our first time flying Jet blue and the flight to and from went very smoothly, no delays and very comfortable seats. We took a taxi ride to the hotel which was about $30, the taxi driver was very friendly and readily welcomed us and explained a few things about the island, which was helpful.

The Radisson hotel grounds were great, one of the best, I thought, of the many high rise hotels. We had a garden view room with a small balcony and wonderful view of some of the gardens. The only complaint of the room was, it was a little small as well as the bathroom. On the 4th day my husband opened the bathroom door and one of the ceiling tiles came crashing down, almost on his head. Housekeeping and maintenance readily came up and cleaned up the mess and fixed the ceiling while we were out. The hotel also credited us $100 towards some of our room charges. The hallway to the rooms also had this very strong musty smell, almost as if the floors had gotten wet at one time. Overall, we really didn't spend much time in the room, and the grounds and the pools certainly made up for the other things. We loved both pools at the Radisson, and the beach area was great with many huts available for guests.

After about two days of taking taxis, we decided to rent a Jeep Wrangler for 3 days, which was well worth it, it cost about $100 a day to rent the jeep. With the jeep, we drove to baby beach and went snorkeling, which was great. We also drove up to the California lighthouse, saw the natural bridge ruins and tried to find the natural pool. One thing I was looking forward to was going to the natural pools, the rental places do not want people taking the jeeps there, but the locals say you can get there by jeep. After contemplating how to get there, we decided to venture on our own with the jeep. After a couple of hours of driving and trying to get directions along the way, we could not find it. I was disappointed, but we ended up seeing alot of the island which was great. I would definitely recommend either having a guide or renting an ATV tour to find the natural pool. Overall, the jeep was well worth it, I would recommend it for at least a couple of days.

The food overall was good, we ate at three, what I would call top of the line restaurants- The flying fishbone, which was absolutely wonderful, we had a table right next to the water. The sea bass was the best my husband has ever had- Gianni's Italian restuarant, which was absolutely wonderful-the Aqua grill, which was absolutely wonderful. All three were very pricey, for three of us, me, my husband, and my daughter cost about $150-180. We also ate at L.G. smith's steak house, the Bucaneer, Smokey Joe's, and Moomba beach at the Hyatt, which were all pretty good. The food definitely was more expensive than I thought. I had originally counted on about $200 a day for the three of us, but it was more like $300 a day. On the 3rd day, we requested a small refrigerator for the room and went down to one of the supermarkets and got bottled water and sandwich meats and bread and ate sandwiches for a few days, which did save us some money.

We decided on the last day to go on one of the sailing and snorkeling trips. We decided on the Octopus, which takes only about 20 people. It was $80 for 3 hours of snorkeling at Catalina Bay, it also provided free drinks and a light snack. It was truly amazing, actually one of the highlights of the trip. At Catalina Bay there were tons of fish and great coral also. It was a great end to the trip.

The beaches were wonderful, sand soft and white. The water was wonderful, clear all the way to the bottom, cool and refreshing. Baby beach had beautiful water, only complaint was it was very windy there, which made it a little chilly. On our way back from California lighthouse we stopped off at one of the beaches which I think was Arashi beach, that was truly beautiful. Actually, it didn't matter what beach you were on, Eagle beach, Palm beach, Manchebo beach, they were all truly beautiful. One of my favorite things to do was to walk on the beach at night, listening to the wind and the waves, it was truly amazing. During the day, it was very windy which made the sun very deceiving. We went through 3 bottles of sunscreen in an attempt not to burn and we all actually ended up with very nice tans, none of us burned at all.

The locals on the island were overall very nice, they were very willing to help and to please. It was very obvious that they make their money off tourism. Just a helpful thing for anyone, the Radisson does cash traveler's checks, US cash is good anywhere and almost every where takes credit cards. I think it was the Flying Fishbone that did not take American Express. Overall it was a very relaxing, wonderful trip. I actually was a little depressed on the last day, and found myself tearing up when our plane left the island. I tried to add things that might be helpful for anyone interested in going to Aruba. I would definitely recommend going there and we will be returning.