Hello everybody,

The american economy has been said that it is not doing well recently and going into recession.

Has this affected you and your decisions to visit Aruba?

How has this affected Arubas Tourism and business activity on the whole?

Anybody care to give me some of your views?

Thank you.

Personally I can tell you that I've had my plane tickets booked for almost 6 months now, a bit before the worst of the economic distress hit, so it was a little easier to afford then.

As far as spending money goes, I've been sitting on some for a while and the rest, well, we've cut back on other extravagances to ensure that we can go as comfortably as possible.

I do worry that with the dollar as weak as it is, that we are going to find things to be terribly expensive, and that will be a bummer. I try to look at things with a positive attitude, however, and know that this is only one year (so far!) out of many many years to come that we will be going to Aruba, so if one is spent eating more pizza then steak, well, so be it!

It's the water, weather and warmth that I would be willing to bet that 99.9% of the people on this site go there for, as do we, and after your fixed costs (i.e. airfare, hotel) are paid, that part is free. Yes, we crave our favorite restaurants, but again, if we can't afford it, then we can't afford it.

And once you go, you have to go back. It gets in the blood!

I would imagine that there are some people not going because of the economy and that stinks.

As far as Aruba itself goes, I haven't been there yet this year, but will take a look when I get there and see what I think. I have no idea if they are hurting or not.

May I ask, where are you from? Seems your question was posed from an foreign perspective...

Shawn

Shawn!

Nope...will still go no matter what the economy is...we save in advance.

Cindyo
View of Rennaissance Island
Daughters dining at El Gaucho

Next Aruba trip in

Actualy we are looking to go more often and maybe buy another timeshare or two

The USA's current "state of recession" (greenspan says we are there) influenced many of our vacation decisions.

Let's face it everything is so expensive here at home. Between heating oil, gas and groceries we are at an all time HIGH on spending just for essentials.

This has affected our decision to visit Aruba. We are not going in early September as we usually do.

Our upcoming trip beginning Apr 23 will be very different from the other Aruba trips. We plan on eating out only 5 nights instead of the 10. MJs will probably not be on our list for dinner. We plan on only a few runs to the casinos and cut our slot and craps allowance in half.
We are not doing any "extras", no horseback riding and no shopping other than for groceries. We are not broke and i do not intend to imply poor mouthing. This is a difficult time for us as we are selling this house soon and moving and retiring. We are being cautious and careful.
* disclosure- we are in the process of renovating our home in maine and will be all moved in there and not carrying 2 houses after july. 2 heating oil fill ups last week.....$987 in maine and $863 in ma. ....................yikes. carrying these 2 houses, paying for renovations and occupancy costs are adding salt into the recession wounds.

I have no idea how well or unwell the Aruban economy is holding up. Aruba thrives on the USA tourist as well as tourists from any other places. But, with the USA economics in such a state of affairs, the trickle down effect has got to be affecting all tourist destinations.

Many of us save and save for our time in Aruba. Paul and I actually have an automatic withdrawal of $75 every pay check (mine and his) to fund vacations. We usually use FF miles to travel between home and aruba. Our vacation savings this year have been redirected to house renovations.

thank you for this thread.
what a good idea.
i want to hear other's opinions!
andrea

We save during the year for our annual Aruba vacation. We don't really spend a lot of money (separate from air fare and hotel). We don't go out for three meals. If we eat a decent lunch then it's just snacks for dinner. We go to the grocery store and buy beer and some snacks. Shopping is minimal - Aruba Aloe, Gouda Cheese and Dutch chocolate for a few close friends and our pet sitter. Our reason for going to Aruba is to relax, enjoy the beach, and just be away from it all.

May 2 will be our first trip to Aruba. It is our understanding that Aruba can be quite expensive. With the help from this site I have uncovered many ways to cut corners. For instance, we are going to have a delivery made by Ling and Sons to the Hyatt actually a few days before we arrive (due to public holiday on our arrival date). Mostly, Balashi, Water,Soda and I will bring snacks for the beach from home. We would rather cut costs a bit and have a Balashi sitting on the beach than paying a small fortune sitting at the bar. Snacks from home will keep us from ordering pricey alternatives at the swim up bar.

To save a few when connecting with our children who will be staying behind, I have set up with T-mobile for the 5 days we are away, unlimited text messaging, video and picture messaging. Less than $6 for the five days. They prorated the monthly fee for this service. Unless the kids want to hear our voices this is how we will communicate. We can record a message with a video and send it. This way they get to see were we are. This will cut back on the expense of making costly calls back to the States. Note, you do have to make sure that you sign up for World Class Service (gives you permission to use cell phone, internationally).

Search the internet for discounted aiport parking sites. We are parking at Thrifty car rental at Logan Airport. Found a 10% off coupon on line. Made free of charge advanced reservations and they have shuttles to Logan every 5 minutes. Upon return, the shuttle driver will take your parking ticket, call ahead and your car will be started and waiting for you when you arrive at the lot. Have done this before and it is sooo much better than paying premium prices at airport, Economy lot shuttles run every 20 min.

It has not effected us in our travel to Aruba at all. We always make sure we have enough money set aside for emergencies in the event of a job loss, etc., we have no credit card debt, both of our cars are paid for, and our house is almost paid for. So there will still be two trips to Aruba this year as there has been in the past. Now if we were not able to find airfare for under $550 we may have reconsidered, but luckily, the airfares were still in our "comfort zone".

The only travel plans the economy did effect us on was our decision to not go back to Europe this summer since the exchange rate for the Dollar is so poor. It didn't make financial sense to "throw" that money away as we stepped off of the plane. So we are going to San Francisco and Napa Valley instead and spending our money in the U.S. where it's needed.

~Amy~®

19th Trip to Aruba: April 2009

I am hoping the failing economy drives down airfare and hotel prices! I would imagine it's only a matter of time before that happens.

With no one having $$ to travel, there will have to be some sort of drop in price or incentives one would think!

Being Canadian, I have a different take on how the Amercian economy has impacted my travel to Aruba. Indeed, when I first went to Aruba in January 2002 the exchange rate was about $1.50 Canadian dollars for $1 U.S. dollars. At present the Canadian dollar is almost on par with the American dollar. As a result, it is actually cheaper for me to take a tour/cruise/dinner in Aruba now than it was six years ago (i.e. even when taking inflation into consideration).