Okay, so I have some very strong opinions on the resort that we stayed at while in Aruba. Let me start by saying that this was our second trip to Aruba. We love Aruba. We love Aruba because it is out of the hurricane belt, the weather is always spectacular, you can drink the water right out of the tap!, it's so safe you could hop on the city bus right outside your resort and go shopping downtown, these are just a few of the reasons off the top of my head.
The first time we visited Aruba was almost 3 years ago. It was for our honeymoon and we stayed at the
Riu Palace Aruba. Over the last three years we had met many other people that have been to Aruba and love it as much as we do. A number of these people have stayed at the Holiday Inn Sunspree. Some of these people will only travel to Aruba after visiting many other tropical destinations and when in Aruba will only stay at the Holiday Inn. We thought if these people will stay at this place every year then it has to be good right? Well, partially. The Holiday Inn was much more reasonable than the Riu, so we thought we would go for it, and stay at the Holiday Inn.
Throughout my review you will find me compare the Holiday Inn to the Riu. This would be because this is the only other resort in Aruba we have stayed at to compare it.
Flight: Different carrier this time. The first trip we flew with Sunquest. This time our flight was through Canjet. What can you say? It's a long flight, between 4.5-5hrs each way. The food was better with Sunquest. The flight attendants were a little nicer with Sunquest too. Flight was on time going to Aruba, and was delayed over an hour for our flight home. This happened three years ago too.
Shuttle to Resort: AMAZING! We were in our shuttle bus to the resort literally within 30 minutes of the plane landing on the island. It was great. No complaints here.
Shuttle from resort to airport: DISASTER. It was chaos in the lobby, luggage and people everywhere, and it seemed very unorganized. To avoid the craziness we paid $25 for a taxi to the airport. I think it was money well spent, Andre complained about spending the money.
Check In: Organized. Above the desk there were labels organized via alphabet to tell you where to line up. We lined up and got our little booklet. Our key wasn't ready, so we went to have lunch, and came back an hour later to pick up our key.
Our room: We requested a king sized bed and instead got two doubles. I wasn't terribly surprised. I really wanted a bigger bed than at home, but we're used to a double, so it was not biggie. The room was clean and had a fridge to store our snacks and water, and satellite tv. We also had a balcony with two chairs and a little table.
My biggest complaint with our room was the proximity to the elevators. There was only one room that separated us from the main elevator. We would hear this elevator all night, every night. If it wasn't for me not wanting to pack up everything, I would have demanded they switch our room. Looking back, packing up our stuff would have been totally worth a good night's sleep. Live and learn.
The food: Hmmm, I think I'll start with breakfast. Breakfast was good. They had everything from fruit and cereal, to juice and eggs. They had everyone covered for breakfast. The one issue is that the island does not have skim milk. Their idea of "light" milk is 2%, I did not drink a drop of milk the entire week because of this.
Lunch-It was okay. They always had to meat choices. A fish (all was good except for the Mahi Mahi, way too fishy tasting for me), and a meat. The only time they had chicken was when they had chicken legs. I have not eaten chicken legs since I was five. I don't like dark meat. Otherwise they were always serving beef or pork. Only one day did they have turkey breast. There was always a rice or potato and veggie, and pasta and kiddie options as well.
Dinner-SUCKED!! I don't know whether it was the selection (or lack thereof), the cuts of meat, or what, but it was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Everyone that we talked to felt the same way.
The A la Carte Restaurants: The reservation desk opened at 8am, we never had a problem making a reservation for either the Cafe Di Vinci (Italian) restaurant, or the Seabreeze (outdoor grill) restaurant. Cafe Di Vinci was horrible. Service was slow, and the food just horrible. Andre's chicken was overcooked and tough, my lasagna was 1/2 cheese, and too rich to finish.
The Seabreeze was wonderful. The ambiance was wonderful sitting overlooking the beach and sunset. The food was always great, and the service good. We ate here three nights.
Hut Reservation: The towel hut opened at 7am. Andre would be in line every morning by 7:15 with our towel card to get fresh towels and reserve our hut. I love how this resort reserves huts. There is a board with a map of all the numbered huts. You pick a hut based on location (or availability) and they put your room number beside the hut number. It was so great to get a hut everyday. We also had the same hut, which was close to our room. I think this is the fairest way to get a hut.
The Pools: Honestly we didn't spend much time at the pools. The resort was crawling with families, and we just aren't ready to have to deal with cranky, hyper children yet, so we stuck to the beach for the week. From what we did see though during our travels during the day was that the pools were small, but there seemed to be enough loungers, and and adequate amount of shade available. The huts around the pool were first come, first serve. There were two pools, one for the kids, one for the adults. Every time we went by the pool, the adult pool was crawling with kids.
The Beach: Tons of huts, beautiful sand, beautiful cool water. It was great. It was our home the week we were there. The hut reservation process was super easy and organized, so we always had shade while we were on the beach making my stay that much more comfortable (Andre says "Thank GOD!!!"). There were always plenty of loungers available as well.
Evening Entertainment: Crappity, crap, or non-existent.
Casino: Didn't go.
Miscellaneous Complaints/Comments: There was no bottled water supplied with the rooms. When we visited the front desk she told me this was because you could drink the water right out of the tap. Well that's great, but because the water lines don't run that deep, the cold water from the tap is luke-warm. Ewww. Thankfully we had brought our Clean Kanteen's from home, but you would've had to buy bottled water otherwise. We bought a litre bottle of local bottled water, and between the three containers always had cold water available for the two of us.
Overall Opinion: Andre says that he would stay at the Holiday Inn Sunspree again in a second. I'm undecided. I think that if you're going to pay the price to stay at an All-Inclusive resort you shouldn't
have to eat off the resort (like we did one night) to avoid the shitty dinner buffet. The buffet is included with the price, and as such you should be able to enjoy it. We weren't the only guests that felt this way. The beach is awesome though, much better than the Riu, and more expansive than most of the other resorts that we walked past.
So there you have it. My review of Aruba!
