Aruba Vacation 2018: Part 1 (Traveling and Hotel)

Our family (including Grandma Barbara) just returned from a 5-day vacation in Aruba! Our vacation was so fun and restful. We slept and relaxed a lot, but we also swam in the turquoise waters, toured the island, and took a boat ride in the Caribbean Sea. We truly enjoyed our stay in Aruba...which is one happy island!

Caribbean Sea

On Easter Sunday, all of us left for our trip to Aruba! We woke up at 3 A.M., left NC at 7 A.M., and flew two hours to Fort Lauderdale, FL. After a two-hour layover, we flew 2.5 hours and arrived in  Oranjestad, Aruba at 2 P.M. During our flight, we flew over the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic. 

Grandma Barbara and Hadley in the airport

Aruba is a Dutch island that belongs to the Netherlands. It is 19 miles long and 6 miles across.  Aruba is only 15 miles from the coast of Venezuela. 

Aruba is not a tropical island. Instead, it is desert island that is covered with palm trees and cacti.

Aruba has four seasons: summer, summer, summer, and rainy. During our stay, the weather was sunny, warm, breezy, and around 85 degrees:

Why did we choose to vacation in Aruba?

• Language. People speak English. However, the country had some Spanish influence since it was close to Venezuela. We often heard Spanish music, saw signs in Spanish, and heard people speaking Spanish. 
• Money. We used American money in Aruba.
• Warm weather.  We wanted to escape NC’s cold weather. Aruba was sunny, breezy, and warm.
• Short flight. Aruba was a five-hour flight from Raleigh, which was tolerable for Savannah and Hadley (who were great travelers). 
• Time zone. Aruba had the same time zone as NC (Eastern), so we didn’t have jet lag.
• Clean water. We drank Aruba’s water.
• Budget-friendly. Tal and I used our tax refund to pay for our entire trip, which was $1,600 per person, including airfare, hotel, and food. We paid extra for excursions, international cell phone coverage, international health insurance, airport parking, airport food, souvenirs, and tips.

We stayed at Barcelo Aruba. It was an all-inclusive hotel, so we ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner at the hotel. All of our meals were buffet, except when we ate at the hotel's seafood restaurant one night.

Views from our room

Caribbean Sea (on the left)

We stayed in a suite that had two adjoining rooms. Grandma Barbara and the girls stayed in one room, while Tal and I stayed in the other. Having a suite allowed us to go back and forth between the rooms easily, as well as gave us some privacy, two bathrooms, and allowed us to watch different TV shows in each room.

After we checked into our rooms, we walked on the beach behind our hotel and dipped our feet in the turquoise waters of the Caribbean Sea for the first time!

Sunset on our first night in Aruba