I just got back from a trip to Aruba, 12-17 December 2007 (arriving night, leaving morning, so actually 4 days on the ground). A lovely trip, some plusses and minuses. I'll do the diving stuff last:
Air stuff: Flew American from Chicago through Miami to Aruba. The trip down was uneventful. With regard to the trip back....The good thing: They have US Customs/Immigration at the Aruba airport so you don't have to deal with it in Miami, which has notoriously bad transfers from foreign countries. The bad thing: It is a complicated silly procedure in Aruba. First you check in in the US Departures building, at which point they take your checked luggage and put it on a belt. (I was in the business class line because I travel a lot. Good thing; we never would have made the flight if we were in the regular line, and we got the the airport over 1.5 hours before the flight. Leave plenty of time.) Then, you leave that building and go next door into the main terminal. You pass through Aruba immigration and security. Then you go into a room to pick up your checked bags off a conveyor belt to bring them through US Customs/Immigration. (Yes, I am serious.) You then put them back onto a conveyor belt to get to the plane. Then, you pass through another security screening before you get into the terminal to the gate. It's almost comical if it weren't so annoying. Made it through just in time to board. No other complications getting home.
Lodging: There were four of us (myself and my significant other, and two friends), so we wanted a 2-bedroom villa. We ended up at the Aruba Beach Villas, which is on the west side of the island just north of the high rise hotels. It's known as a windsurfer's place, but it suited us just fine. Accommodations were nothing fancy, but perfectly OK. We had the most expensive villa in the place ($189 for the first 4 nights since it was in the off season, $372 for the last night since it was the beginning of peak season), but the prices for the studio villa goes down to $78 per night in the off-season. King size bed in our room, two twins in the other, decent kitchen with all of the necessities, cable TV in the living room, wireless Internet, deck with table and chairs. Only 1 bathroom, but we survived. The beach is nothing to write home about (they don't rake the shells and coral out of the sand, and you really need beach shoes to walk into the water), but you could certainly lay on the beach, and it's just 200 feet out the front door and across the road. It has a couple of umbrella tables and benches to sit on, and fancier beaches are just up the road. Groceries are 5 minutes down the road. (Ling & Sons is the biggest grocery store of the bunch.) Just fruit and coffee for breakfast is provided, and the office is only open between 8 and 6. The staff was perfectly friendly. If you want to be a little more remote than the big hotels, a good place. All in all, nothing special, but just fine.
Food: We only ate out a few times, but came away with a few good recommendations. Cuba's Cooking was terrific. On Wilhelminastraat in Oranjestad, it's a nice little place, good food, and live music (a man on guitar and a woman singing the night we were there). Well worth it. We also hit up two places closer to the south side of the island that were great. Brisas Del Mar is a lovely place right on the water in Savaneta, and the food was great. Savaneta is quite a drive from the west end, but Brisas is worth the trip. Also in that direction, in Santa Cruz, is a sweet little place called B55 (its address is Balashi 55). Nice food out on the deck and clearly a place for the locals.
Top-side sites: While my buddy and I were diving, the other two went to The Butterfly Farm. They said they had a lovely time, but that's all I've got on it. But I have one site that is not to be missed: On Sunday, we went out to Dos Playas in Arikok National Park on the east side of the island. OMFG! This place is gorgeous, with monstrous waves crashing into the ancient coral cliffs. The chap at the ranger station said, "Please, no swimming, very dangerous." At least at the time we were there, swimming would have been unimaginable, let alone unsurvivable. Pictures will not do this place justice. Well worth the drive. (4-wheel drive recommended.)
Diving: Finally, the diving. We dove Friday and Saturday morning with Romeo at Native Divers and I dove Sunday morning dive with Unique Sports. ("But you arrived Wednesday?", you ask. More on this below.) First on Native Divers:
Native Divers is a small operation. One boat, would hold about 8-10 people comfortably. We had 6 including ourselves both mornings. As for staff, it's Romeo, who is captain and divemaster, and a first mate who stays on the boat. Romeo himself is a fun guy, very happy-go-lucky, will willingly chat about Aruban politics, and is quite a blast. (He lived up to his name, flirting with my dive buddy, but then again she started it!
) He picks you up in the van if you want before 9am, picks up drinks and snacks at the store on the way to the boat, and you're heading out by 9:30am. We had one resort-course diver, so Romeo was in the water with her the whole time; I don't know if he normally leads every dive. On drift dives, he keeps the whole group more-or-less together (i.e., in eye-shot), and he does ask you to be back at a particular time. If you're into a more free-form setup, you might not like this. On the other hand, I never felt rushed and came up with well under 1000 each dive. (For the record, I'm a divemaster, and I never felt talked down to or treated like a novice.) My dive buddy got awfully sea sick at the end of the second dive. (In the water before getting on the boat. Weird!) Romeo was quick to get to her, calm her down, get her on the boat, and be an overall "good egg" about it. Sign of a good divemaster IMO.
However, being a small operator in the off-season has its disadvantages: We got in too late on Wednesday night to want to do a morning dive on Thursday, but even when trying to set it up in advance, Romeo didn't have enough people to make it worth doing an afternoon dive. (It sounds like 4 is his minimum.) In fact, on Sunday I would have been the only one diving, so he cancelled. This was quite a bummer. So, as much as the web site says "flexible schedule", this ain't happening unless you've got a big enough party to make it worth his time to go out. He also only takes cash; no credit cards. That's kind of....amusing. It was US$62 for 2 tanks. Overall, my recommendation would be, if you've got a decent bunch of people and want a relaxed fun time diving, Romeo's your man. If it's just one or two of you and you expect your dive op to drop you in the water and otherwise ignore you, choose someone else.
(Interesting side note about Clive of Dive Aruba. We actually ended up at the same site as Clive on Friday. Clive's boat is *much* smaller with no head or cabin, and it's a one man show. On the drift dive, apparently he normally goes down with the divers, swims back to the boat or hangs onto a line the entire time, and then ascends and picks up the divers. Since we were there, Clive tied off to us and our first mate towed his boat to the exit point, saving Clive the trip. He and Romeo seemed to be friendly colleagues if not friends, though Romeo's comment was, "He's more strict than me. Like a soldier." Who knows....comments on the competition are always of dubious validity. But Clive seemed nice enough. He doesn't dive Sunday at all, BTW.)
On Friday, we dove the Sonesta Airplane for the first dive and Sponge Reef as a drift dive for the second. The airplane was a cool with a decent amount of life. I liked Sponge Reef better; very healthy sponges of all different colors and varieties and lots of fish and little critters. (I came across several cleaner shrimp doing their thing.) Saturday we dove Harbor Reef, the Tug boat on the first dive and a drift dive on the second. The tug is in about 90 feet of water and had lots of nice growth. Again, the second dive had more interesting life as far as I was concerned, with several large green morays and an octopus (which was spotted by the resort course diver! Doh!). All of this was south side diving. 80-82° water, 60-80 foot vis, and even the drift dives were in a calm current. Overall, I was very happy with the diving.
Sunday, because of Romeo canceling, I dove with Unique Sports. I dove alone that day while my dive buddy slept-in. Unique Sports is a big commercial operation with multiple boats and young divemasters. Luckily, I was on a boat with only 4 others, and 2 of those were doing their checkout dives with an instructor. So it was me, a young couple who were pretty inexperienced, and a young DM. We dove 1 tank at the Pedernales, a wreck (well, more a bunch of pieces of a large boat) in about 25 feet of water on the west side of the island. We swam between the different pieces of wreck. So here's the thing: The DM is basically leading the parade, swimming to a section, pointing to one eel or one particular interesting fish, and then off to the next section. After cruising through 2 small pieces, looking at a few things and then dashing to catch up, I decided that I was not putting up with this anymore. From then on, we'd get to a section of wreck and I'd stop and explore. The DM would swim away for a bit, eventually notice that I wasn't following, and wait for me. This worked out OK, but I hate dealing with bored DMs who are just going through the motions. After I did this twice, he figured out that he should be spending more time and got with the program. Visibility was about 50 feet, and the life on the sections I got to explore was actually reasonably interesting. 2 octopi, 2 big green morays, a nice puffer fish. Overall, a decent assortment, but the water was a bit murky on this side of the island and I wouldn't feel bad about giving the Pedernales a pass. I did give the DM a decent tip in the end, which I think surprised him (the others didn't), and he ended up being exceedingly friendly (helped me with equipment, chatting on the way back to the shop, etc.). But this is the problem with big ops; the DMs get used to bunches of inexperienced folks who don't tip and therefore stop trying.
I never did do the Antilla, but everything points to sticking to the south side of the island and skipping the murky waters on the west.
I hope that was informative. I may try to post some top side pictures if I get a chance. No dive pictures. If you've got specific questions, I'll be glad to answer.
Air stuff: Flew American from Chicago through Miami to Aruba. The trip down was uneventful. With regard to the trip back....The good thing: They have US Customs/Immigration at the Aruba airport so you don't have to deal with it in Miami, which has notoriously bad transfers from foreign countries. The bad thing: It is a complicated silly procedure in Aruba. First you check in in the US Departures building, at which point they take your checked luggage and put it on a belt. (I was in the business class line because I travel a lot. Good thing; we never would have made the flight if we were in the regular line, and we got the the airport over 1.5 hours before the flight. Leave plenty of time.) Then, you leave that building and go next door into the main terminal. You pass through Aruba immigration and security. Then you go into a room to pick up your checked bags off a conveyor belt to bring them through US Customs/Immigration. (Yes, I am serious.) You then put them back onto a conveyor belt to get to the plane. Then, you pass through another security screening before you get into the terminal to the gate. It's almost comical if it weren't so annoying. Made it through just in time to board. No other complications getting home.
Lodging: There were four of us (myself and my significant other, and two friends), so we wanted a 2-bedroom villa. We ended up at the Aruba Beach Villas, which is on the west side of the island just north of the high rise hotels. It's known as a windsurfer's place, but it suited us just fine. Accommodations were nothing fancy, but perfectly OK. We had the most expensive villa in the place ($189 for the first 4 nights since it was in the off season, $372 for the last night since it was the beginning of peak season), but the prices for the studio villa goes down to $78 per night in the off-season. King size bed in our room, two twins in the other, decent kitchen with all of the necessities, cable TV in the living room, wireless Internet, deck with table and chairs. Only 1 bathroom, but we survived. The beach is nothing to write home about (they don't rake the shells and coral out of the sand, and you really need beach shoes to walk into the water), but you could certainly lay on the beach, and it's just 200 feet out the front door and across the road. It has a couple of umbrella tables and benches to sit on, and fancier beaches are just up the road. Groceries are 5 minutes down the road. (Ling & Sons is the biggest grocery store of the bunch.) Just fruit and coffee for breakfast is provided, and the office is only open between 8 and 6. The staff was perfectly friendly. If you want to be a little more remote than the big hotels, a good place. All in all, nothing special, but just fine.
Food: We only ate out a few times, but came away with a few good recommendations. Cuba's Cooking was terrific. On Wilhelminastraat in Oranjestad, it's a nice little place, good food, and live music (a man on guitar and a woman singing the night we were there). Well worth it. We also hit up two places closer to the south side of the island that were great. Brisas Del Mar is a lovely place right on the water in Savaneta, and the food was great. Savaneta is quite a drive from the west end, but Brisas is worth the trip. Also in that direction, in Santa Cruz, is a sweet little place called B55 (its address is Balashi 55). Nice food out on the deck and clearly a place for the locals.
Top-side sites: While my buddy and I were diving, the other two went to The Butterfly Farm. They said they had a lovely time, but that's all I've got on it. But I have one site that is not to be missed: On Sunday, we went out to Dos Playas in Arikok National Park on the east side of the island. OMFG! This place is gorgeous, with monstrous waves crashing into the ancient coral cliffs. The chap at the ranger station said, "Please, no swimming, very dangerous." At least at the time we were there, swimming would have been unimaginable, let alone unsurvivable. Pictures will not do this place justice. Well worth the drive. (4-wheel drive recommended.)
Diving: Finally, the diving. We dove Friday and Saturday morning with Romeo at Native Divers and I dove Sunday morning dive with Unique Sports. ("But you arrived Wednesday?", you ask. More on this below.) First on Native Divers:
Native Divers is a small operation. One boat, would hold about 8-10 people comfortably. We had 6 including ourselves both mornings. As for staff, it's Romeo, who is captain and divemaster, and a first mate who stays on the boat. Romeo himself is a fun guy, very happy-go-lucky, will willingly chat about Aruban politics, and is quite a blast. (He lived up to his name, flirting with my dive buddy, but then again she started it!
) He picks you up in the van if you want before 9am, picks up drinks and snacks at the store on the way to the boat, and you're heading out by 9:30am. We had one resort-course diver, so Romeo was in the water with her the whole time; I don't know if he normally leads every dive. On drift dives, he keeps the whole group more-or-less together (i.e., in eye-shot), and he does ask you to be back at a particular time. If you're into a more free-form setup, you might not like this. On the other hand, I never felt rushed and came up with well under 1000 each dive. (For the record, I'm a divemaster, and I never felt talked down to or treated like a novice.) My dive buddy got awfully sea sick at the end of the second dive. (In the water before getting on the boat. Weird!) Romeo was quick to get to her, calm her down, get her on the boat, and be an overall "good egg" about it. Sign of a good divemaster IMO.However, being a small operator in the off-season has its disadvantages: We got in too late on Wednesday night to want to do a morning dive on Thursday, but even when trying to set it up in advance, Romeo didn't have enough people to make it worth doing an afternoon dive. (It sounds like 4 is his minimum.) In fact, on Sunday I would have been the only one diving, so he cancelled. This was quite a bummer. So, as much as the web site says "flexible schedule", this ain't happening unless you've got a big enough party to make it worth his time to go out. He also only takes cash; no credit cards. That's kind of....amusing. It was US$62 for 2 tanks. Overall, my recommendation would be, if you've got a decent bunch of people and want a relaxed fun time diving, Romeo's your man. If it's just one or two of you and you expect your dive op to drop you in the water and otherwise ignore you, choose someone else.
(Interesting side note about Clive of Dive Aruba. We actually ended up at the same site as Clive on Friday. Clive's boat is *much* smaller with no head or cabin, and it's a one man show. On the drift dive, apparently he normally goes down with the divers, swims back to the boat or hangs onto a line the entire time, and then ascends and picks up the divers. Since we were there, Clive tied off to us and our first mate towed his boat to the exit point, saving Clive the trip. He and Romeo seemed to be friendly colleagues if not friends, though Romeo's comment was, "He's more strict than me. Like a soldier." Who knows....comments on the competition are always of dubious validity. But Clive seemed nice enough. He doesn't dive Sunday at all, BTW.)
On Friday, we dove the Sonesta Airplane for the first dive and Sponge Reef as a drift dive for the second. The airplane was a cool with a decent amount of life. I liked Sponge Reef better; very healthy sponges of all different colors and varieties and lots of fish and little critters. (I came across several cleaner shrimp doing their thing.) Saturday we dove Harbor Reef, the Tug boat on the first dive and a drift dive on the second. The tug is in about 90 feet of water and had lots of nice growth. Again, the second dive had more interesting life as far as I was concerned, with several large green morays and an octopus (which was spotted by the resort course diver! Doh!). All of this was south side diving. 80-82° water, 60-80 foot vis, and even the drift dives were in a calm current. Overall, I was very happy with the diving.
Sunday, because of Romeo canceling, I dove with Unique Sports. I dove alone that day while my dive buddy slept-in. Unique Sports is a big commercial operation with multiple boats and young divemasters. Luckily, I was on a boat with only 4 others, and 2 of those were doing their checkout dives with an instructor. So it was me, a young couple who were pretty inexperienced, and a young DM. We dove 1 tank at the Pedernales, a wreck (well, more a bunch of pieces of a large boat) in about 25 feet of water on the west side of the island. We swam between the different pieces of wreck. So here's the thing: The DM is basically leading the parade, swimming to a section, pointing to one eel or one particular interesting fish, and then off to the next section. After cruising through 2 small pieces, looking at a few things and then dashing to catch up, I decided that I was not putting up with this anymore. From then on, we'd get to a section of wreck and I'd stop and explore. The DM would swim away for a bit, eventually notice that I wasn't following, and wait for me. This worked out OK, but I hate dealing with bored DMs who are just going through the motions. After I did this twice, he figured out that he should be spending more time and got with the program. Visibility was about 50 feet, and the life on the sections I got to explore was actually reasonably interesting. 2 octopi, 2 big green morays, a nice puffer fish. Overall, a decent assortment, but the water was a bit murky on this side of the island and I wouldn't feel bad about giving the Pedernales a pass. I did give the DM a decent tip in the end, which I think surprised him (the others didn't), and he ended up being exceedingly friendly (helped me with equipment, chatting on the way back to the shop, etc.). But this is the problem with big ops; the DMs get used to bunches of inexperienced folks who don't tip and therefore stop trying.
I never did do the Antilla, but everything points to sticking to the south side of the island and skipping the murky waters on the west.
I hope that was informative. I may try to post some top side pictures if I get a chance. No dive pictures.
If you've got specific questions, I'll be glad to answer.
