We Just Returned This Past Weekend After Two Glorious Weeks On Our Favorite Island. Just A Quick Recap With A More Detailed Report To Follow. They're Doing Renovations At The Airport And Many Of The Duty Free Shops Are Closed When You Are Departing From Aruba. More Construction Going On At The Crystal Palace Mall With Many Stores Closed And Being Renovated. Dinner At Driftwood Was Excellent As Well As The Two Times We Went To Dinner At Amazonia. We Did The Whole Day Deal At De Palm Island With A Group Of 19 Friends And Family. Everyone Had A Great Time Snorkeling, Eating And The Water Park. The Rui Resort Is Almost Completed. They're Working Around The Clock To Finish The Property Using I Heard 600 Workers. The Renovations At The Marriott Resort Are On Schedule With One Tower Being Done Now.


More Details To Follow From Our Vacation

SPIDERMAN FROM CONCORD, MA.
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Well done, Spiderman.

(You work for a newspaper?)

Looking forward to the details.

Aruba Trip Reports

Welcome home! Cannot wait for the details!

Aruba Bound! ~ Hoosier Kitties ~ Our-Cruises ~ Blogging to Aruba
Back to paradise Trip #18
Christmas & New Years Aboard the Queen Mary 2

Ok, Here Is My Report From The Two Weeks Aug 17-31. We Are From Boston And Fly Out Of Logan Airport On Us Airways. We Had No Problems The Morning Of Our Departure. We Have A Change In Charlotte Which We Much Prefer. A Much Nice Airport And No Long Walk Compared To The Long Walks That We Have Been Through In Philadelphia. We Arrived Around 3pm In Aruba And There Were No Line At Customs. We Also Did Not Wait Long For Our Luggage. This Is The First Time We Were Through Customs And Then With Luggage Waiting For Our Driver Withing 1/2 And Hour. Our First Week Was At The Marriott Ocean Club And That Was Another Smooth Transition. My Wife And Mother In Law Then Went Grocery Shopping And My Father In Law And I Took The Kids To The Pool By 5pm. We Did Not Want To Go Out So We Went To La Vista For One Of The Great Buffet Themes That They Have. Since It Was Friday Evening It Was Seafood. We Had A Great Meal With Great Service. All Was Well During Our Stay At The Ocean Club. The One Issue Is That If You Are At The Pool You Can't Put Out Your Towels Before 7:30am Unless You Stay There With Your Things. The Pool Team/security Will Remove Your Towels If You Leave Them There. If You Put Them There At 7:30am You Can Leave Them Unattended For Two Hours Max. We Did Not Have Any Problems But It Seems Many Owners Either Do Not Read The Newsletters That Are Mailed Out Or Do Not Read The Big Board By The Towel Hut. So Some Folks Got There Feelings Hurt When They Returned To Find There Towel Removed. We Had Dinner At Amazonia Twice During Our Two Week Stay And It Was Superb Both Times. We Went To Dinner One Evening At Driftwood After Doing Out Usual Sourvenir Shopping And A Lot Of Stores Were Closed In The Mall Which Was A Downer. My Favorite Store Was Gone But I Found That They Had Relocated To Main Street. Dinner At Driftwood Was Very Nice. The Portions Are Small But Very Good None The Less. Our Second Week Was At The Surf Club And The Same Issue With Putting Out Towels Before 7:30am Happened There. Folks Need To Really Pay Attention To The Reading Materials That They're Sent During The Year. We Prefer The Ocean Club Because The Villas Are Slightly Larger There. The Plus With The Surf Club Villas Are The Larger Kitchen, And The Washer/dryer Unit In The Room. But All In All We Love The Marriott Properties. Great Staff And Great Facilities. To Handle The Opening Of The Other Two Towers At The Surf Club They Will Be Building Another Swimming Pool Between The Ocean Club And Surf Club. They Are Also Going To Build A Pool Between The Ocean Club And The Resort. We Spent The Day On Depalm Island With A Group Of 19 Friends And Had A Good Time. Lots To Eat And Lots Of Snorkeling And Feeding The Blue Parrot Fish. On Our Departure On The 31st We Had No Issues When We First Got To The Usair Counter. There Was No Line For Us But There Were A Lot Of People In Line At American Airlines. The Multiple Security/passort Checkpoints Went Smoothly. Most Of The Duty Free Shops Are Closed Due To Construction. There Doing A Lot Of Expansion And Renovations At The Airport. All In All It Was A Great Two Weeks And We Will Be Going Back The Last Two Weeks Of August In 2008. If Anybody Has Any Specific Things They Would Like To Know About Just Drop Me A Line.

SPIDERMAN FROM CONCORD, MA.
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Generally speaking, would you say the resort was crowded? Did you get a place at the pool/beach when you liked?

As for parking - were there plenty of spaces?

Linda

I am a Marriott owner - not in Aruba however, so I do not get their newsletters.

Do they give you some type of literature when you check in so you know the current "rules" ie) putting towels out early, reserving palapas, etc.

Thanks again!!
Linda

We Set Up Camp At The Pool And Never Had A Problem. The Surf Club Had More People Due To The Lazy River And Waterslide, But We Did Not Have Any Issues. From What I Could See People Also Did Not Have Too Many Problems Getting A Palapas On The Beach. You Just Have To Be There When They Open In The Morning To Put In Your Reservations. The First Few Days The Area Was Closed Due To The Very High Tides From Hurrican Dean And All The Seaweed That Washed Ashore. Since We Did Not Have A Car I Could Not Give You Any Input On The Parking Lots. We Have A Driver That We Call Whenever We Want To Go Out.

SPIDERMAN FROM CONCORD, MA.
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The Literature Is Also In The Resort Binder In Your Room Which They Keep Up To Date. I Think A Lot Of The Issues Arise From Friends Of Owners That Stay On The Property. They Tend To Be A Bit On The Clueless Side. The Owner Should Take The Time To Inform Them If They Happen To Know Of Any Changes Going On At The Property That Might Effect Their Stay. But The Properties Do Their Best Keeping Guests Informed Of Anything Going On At The Properties. They Now Have A Magazine With The Daily Activities Listed At The Ocean Club, Surf Club, And Resort. These Are Found In The Villas As Well.

SPIDERMAN FROM CONCORD, MA.
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Thanks for the review Spiderman. I enjoyed reading it but man, that's a lot of shifting!

~Dana & Dan~
20th Anniversary in Aruba - October 2007

Guess What, If You Type In All Capitals The System Will Adjust It Automatically For You.

SPIDERMAN FROM CONCORD, MA.
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