Aruba - April 2016

For this year's timeshare trip with John and JoAnna, we chose Aruba.  John and JoAnna had been there twice before but they were willing to "sacrifice" and go a third time since that is where a room popped up during the week we were interested in.

Accommodation:
We stayed the entire time at the Marriott Ocean Club.  This is one of four Marriotts all adjacent to each other - from north to south are the Ritz, Resort, Ocean Club, and Surf Club.  The hotel is a horseshoe shape with a pool in the middle - complete with swim-up bar and a separate hot tub area.  The hotel is on the beach with a ~100 foot walk to the water.  The ocean was gorgeous, with a small decline going out so we could stand in the water ~50 feet out.  The room was great - a one bedroom with a pull out sofa in the living room.  We got the bedroom this time as John and Jo had the bedroom during the St Maarten trip the year before.

Marriott Ocean Club

Beach by Marriott

Activities:
Fortunately there was a Southwest flight from Baltimore to Aruba direct, so we were able to buy Shawna's ticket and get Keith's on a companion fare.  John and Jo got the same flight as us and flew into Baltimore the night before to stay at our house since the flight to Aruba left early on Saturday morning.  When they arrived in Baltimore, Jo had some work to do so we just had a few beers at the house before going to bed.

Lunch at Pelican Bar

The flight to Aruba was at 7am so we got to the airport early and grabbed bagels.  The flight left on time and 4.5 hours later we landed in Aruba.  Keith had rented a car with Dollar so he went to get that while the rest waited for the checked-in bag.  The car was more of a rent-a-wreck but did the job for the week at a great price.  We got to the hotel at 1:30 though the room was not to be ready until 4pm.  So we dropped the luggage with the bellhop and headed down the beach for lunch.  The room was ready when we got back so we moved in and opted for a quick nap.  After showering, we headed out for dinner and drinks.

Before "Big Betty"

Most of the days had a consistent pattern.  We had breakfast (yogurt and soda) in the room, went for an hour walk along the beach, and ate lunch in the room of cheeses, meats and crackers.  We got the food at Super Food, a really good store on the island with lots of European food.  The afternoon was generally spent relaxing at the pool and or in the ocean, using the floats that John had bought at Walmart for $6 each (and John spent the last few days trying to re-sell the floats but that was a failure!).  We'd wrap up the day in the huge hot tub and then would relax in the room playing cards before heading out for dinner.

Snorkel Site

In addition to the above, we did a few other activities:

• Sailing on the Morningstar - John and JoAnna bought us all a day trip on a private sail boat (The Dolphin package) - just fantastic.  We met the boat at 10am and after a very quick orientation motored off to a snorkeling spot while nibbling (chowing?) on pineapple and grapes.  The snorkeling was really good - we were in the water for ~45 minutes.  Some of the water was really shallow and the fish were quite pretty.  The water was rough at times so we had to swim quite a bit.  Pizza was waiting for us when we got back to the boat and then we sailed to a local beach where we moored right off the beach and went for an hour swim.  An amazing lunch was waiting for us when we got back to the boat - tomato / mozz salad, steak and fish, potatoes, plantains and apple pie / cheesecake for dessert.  We then sailed back to the dock.

Morningstar Sail Boat

• Island Tour - we used the car for a half day to see some of the sights.  We started off driving north to the California Lighthouse, named after a boat that wrecked right off shore.  We then stopped by Alto Vista Chapel which is a tiny Catholic church with great views of the water from the outside seating.  We also went to Philips Animal Garden for rescued animals.  We went in with with very low expectations which were far exceeded. The setup was quite impressive - we were given a bag of carrots and pellets as part of our entrance ticket and were allowed to feed any animal with four legs.  We wrapped up the tour at the Casibari Rock Formation.  We tried to find it navigating on a paper map but that soon fell apart so we used GPS to get us the last 2 miles.  We wrapped up the tour with a great lunch before going back to the hotel.  

California Lighthouse

Alto Vista Chapel

Philips Animal Garden

Casibari Rock Formation

• Lazy River - the Marriott to the south of our hotel has a lazy river.  We grabbed our four floats and the cooler of beer and did a few floats around.  As we were in the river, we found that only residents of that hotel could use the river - as identified by special bracelets.  Fortunately, we were never caught!

Keith Floating in the Ocean

• Butterfly Farm - We visited this as part of our morning walk one day.  Our tour guide was excellent and we learned more about butterflies than we ever thought we would.

Butterfly Farm

• Big Betty - Shawna saw ski boats pulling "Big Red Mabel" - an inflatable that holds 4 people - and decided she just had to do it.  We ended up on the more luxurious sister Betty, which has the advantage of having inflatable spacers between each of the four "riders".  It was a 20 minute high-speed ride with the boat driver doing his best to get us up in the air and spinning us to the side of the boat.  It was a really wild and fun ride.  On the ride, John commented that we should tell his mom that he died near the Ritz (which is a hotel near where we did the ride)!

Big Betty

• Game of Thrones - the season 5 premier was on the Sunday night when we got home, so HBO was playing a 100 hour marathon of the series before the premier.  We had the show on almost every morning - fun to watch so many deaths over breakfast!  

• Cards - we used our free time to play two card games: we introduced John and JoAnna to Monopoly Deal, and they re-introduced Keith to Euchre.  Let's just say that John and Jo picked up on Monopoly way faster than Keith understood Euchre!

• Couples Trivia - Shawna signed us up at the pool for couples trivia.  We ended up the only people playing the game so we won the bottle of wine by default.  So, we created our own couples trivia game while in the pool and had a big laugh - and fortunately we found out we know each other well!

• Progressive dinner - one night, instead of a single restaurant, each of us picked a place to eat and we nibbled at four different places.  Needless to say we were a bit stuffed by the end of the night. 

On Top of Casibari Rock

We flew home late on Saturday afternoon, getting back to the house late in the evening.  John and JoAnna stayed at our house again that evening and Keith took them to the airport on Sunday as Shawna used that time to catch up with work.  It was the end of another successful time share trip - with the next one possibly being back to Cabo in '17!

Dinner at Gianni's

Restaurants:

• Pelican Bar - We ate here twice for lunch.  It is on a pier a short walk south of our hotel.  The first time we ate in the bar area and had the seafood ceviche and grilled fish which was fantastic.  The second time we sat in the dining room area and shared the fish tacos.
• Wacky Wahoo - This is a seafood restaurant about a 20 minute walk from the hotel.  It had expanded since John and JoAnna were last there - the food was excellent.  
• Sopranos - A piano bar on the main drag, we stopped by for a few drinks.  The musicians were quite good.  
• Moomba - A restaurant / bar between the Marriott and the Holiday Inn directly on the beach.  The atmosphere at night is great with a live band starting out the night followed by a DJ.  We stopped for a few drinks and some people watching.
• Gianni's - A huge restaurant in the center of the high-rise district that has amazing food for the size.  John and JoAnna had been here on each of their last two trips to Aruba and let us know this was not-to-be-missed and they were right.  While all the food was good, the highlight was the table side pasta flamed in a parmesan cheese bowl.  Each of the two times we went here, we shared the spaghetti and also one other entree.  

Gianni's Pasta in Parmesan Cheese Bowl

• Iguana Cantina - This was the most mainstream of the places we went (Mexican food), located on the second floor of the "mall" near the hotel.  We had views of the 'light and music' show in the middle of the mall.
• West Deck - A newer addition to the food scene located on the water. We had lunch here twice and we found this the most tasty food we had on the island.  It's a very cute place with tables on a deck.  We shared multiple small plates.  We especially liked the keeshi - which is similar to a lasagna but with a caribbean flare.
• Madame Jeanette - Another large restaurant, this one is off the beaten track and requires a cab to get there.  It has a huge outdoor patio where most of the tables are set and the food is very good.  We shared one of the schnitzel dishes where are humongous - we had leftovers for lunch the next day.
• Sea Breeze Restaurant - Located on the beach at the Holiday Inn.  This was our first stop for our 'progressive dinner'.  John ordered the goat cheese fritter with what he thought was beef carpaccio. Turns out it was only one fritter (so it didn't go very far) and it was beet carpaccio which none of us touched!
• Azia - One of the spots we stopped for our 'progressive dinner'.  Shawna wanted a bit of a change in cuisine so we opted for Asian and shared a few small plates.
• Hooters - Yeah, we went there ('progressive dinner').  The wings are great.  As are the tots.  And beer.
• Casa Tua - The final stop of the 'progressive dinner' was here for a pizza.

Selfie at Sea Breeze Restaurant