RumJunkie
Registered
This trip completes the ABC islands for us. Bonaire was 2003, Curacao in 2022 and most recently Aruba in August 2023. On the whole, Aruba was good diving and a positive island vibe vacation for us. I'm a vacation diver and can say with certainty that Aruba checked the usual boxes as a vacation diving couple.
Diving-
We dove with JADS Dive Center for 3 days, 2 tank dives for each. The first was a 2 tank shore dive guided by Rudolph on 08/23 at a local beach access area Google Earth calls Bao Baranca. This was a rocky beach area with an easy swim out then you go right or left once at the right depth, not deep. Good warm up for boat dives. Our second dive was a 2 tank boat dive leaving from Hadicurari Fishermen’s Pier on 8/24. This was Arashi area, and Antilla wreck dive. I didn’t make note of dive guide, but can say he took us on a good bit of enjoyable swim thrus here. Highlight for me was close up look of French Angelfish that didn’t get spooked at all. Our third dive was a 2 tank boat dive on 08/27. This dive was Airplane and Barrel Gardens. We left out of Varadero Marina, a close by easy drive close from our villa. Sue was our dive guide on our final boat dive. Airplane had fun swim thrus and was an interesting artificial reef. I was hoping back story on it was a ganja smuggler got shot down not quite making it to shore, but not the case here. Barrel Gardens is what I’d consider an easy drift dive over the giant barrel sponges. Out of our 3 days, I most enjoyed the last 2 boat dives. I couldn’t upload vid footage here but got plenty of it.
Diving with JADS was the way to go for totally hassle free Aruba diving. Also, a bit different than Curacao and Bonaire in that we only did self-guided shore dives on those 2 islands. But, can say we certainly would’ve been disappointed only shore diving self-guided in Aruba. But, you can do that. The wreck diving opportunities in Aruba were the highlight for us and I would say Antilla wreck was my favorite of all the dives. JADS checked all the boxes for us as vacation divers and I would use them again with zero hesitation.
Lodging-
We stayed at Aruba Beach Chalets unit 3 in Savaneta. I guess you’d call it a villa, but not sure. The lodging was super nice, and in a non tourist district location. There wasn’t much beach area here but good swimming and super easy drive to very good local restaurants and beaches. The villa was clean, comfortable, with all the modern accommodations you need for relaxing, cooking, ducking out from the heat, rinsing dive gear, wifi, etc. Good swimming beach but not much action for snorkeling. I’d guess there are probably 8 units on property and it wasn’t full for our stay. I floated on floats provided and washed down each sunset with local Balashi Beer in hand. ABC was excellent island lodging and most importantly was that wife enjoyed staying here. The attached pic is view from porch, where I had coffee every morning.
Food-
We ate breakfast and lunch at villa nearly every day. For dinner, we ate out every night except for leftovers a couple nights. For seafood places we ate at Zeerovers, Flying Fishbone, and Marina Pirata. For chicken, we ate at La Granja around corner from us, and Bambi’s Kitchen for takeout jerk chicken and oxtail. For baked goods and excellent coffee it was Bright Bakery. The only bar we visited was a tiki bar outside of JADS at Baby Beach, this was called Rum Reef. Grocery shopping was done at New Food Center, like 6 minutes away from villa. They give you a box here to put your items in for a big haul, but try and remember to bring a reusable bag with you for a small shopping trip. Local beer is called Balashi. I enjoyed it a good bit. I would buy it here in Florida, and put it up there with Kona Big Wave for quality.
Island Exploration-
Driving here wasn’t too complicated. They use roundabouts in lieu of traffic lights and slower driving which was fine by me. I used Google Maps offline for navigation. We rented a cool Suzuki Jimny mini suv from JADS. Nice iteration of the Suzuki Samurai from back in the day. Anyway, highlights for island exploration were the Butterfly Farm, Mangel Halto beach for snorkeling, and Rodgers’s Beach for swimming. I drove into tourist district twice. Once was for the Antilla wreck boat dive and then the evening before our departure. I purposely avoided tourist district, as we had no interest in high rise hotel tourist scene.
Some tips: Do a shore dive before boat dives if a while since last dive, bring Hydra Flask with you for drinking water on daily island exploration, duck out from mid day heat with a siesta, rental vehicle is needed for vacation here in my opinion and the small suv worked great; loved that rideJ, avoid tourist district unless you enjoy high rise hotels and jammed up parking and people everywhere, allot a couple of non diving days for island exploration and check Mangel Halto for chill out snorkel beach, use the MPC app for your return home to US (thx to a previous SBer) , bring some USD for tipping (I forgot) and ATM closest by us was Florins.
Diving-
We dove with JADS Dive Center for 3 days, 2 tank dives for each. The first was a 2 tank shore dive guided by Rudolph on 08/23 at a local beach access area Google Earth calls Bao Baranca. This was a rocky beach area with an easy swim out then you go right or left once at the right depth, not deep. Good warm up for boat dives. Our second dive was a 2 tank boat dive leaving from Hadicurari Fishermen’s Pier on 8/24. This was Arashi area, and Antilla wreck dive. I didn’t make note of dive guide, but can say he took us on a good bit of enjoyable swim thrus here. Highlight for me was close up look of French Angelfish that didn’t get spooked at all. Our third dive was a 2 tank boat dive on 08/27. This dive was Airplane and Barrel Gardens. We left out of Varadero Marina, a close by easy drive close from our villa. Sue was our dive guide on our final boat dive. Airplane had fun swim thrus and was an interesting artificial reef. I was hoping back story on it was a ganja smuggler got shot down not quite making it to shore, but not the case here. Barrel Gardens is what I’d consider an easy drift dive over the giant barrel sponges. Out of our 3 days, I most enjoyed the last 2 boat dives. I couldn’t upload vid footage here but got plenty of it.
Diving with JADS was the way to go for totally hassle free Aruba diving. Also, a bit different than Curacao and Bonaire in that we only did self-guided shore dives on those 2 islands. But, can say we certainly would’ve been disappointed only shore diving self-guided in Aruba. But, you can do that. The wreck diving opportunities in Aruba were the highlight for us and I would say Antilla wreck was my favorite of all the dives. JADS checked all the boxes for us as vacation divers and I would use them again with zero hesitation.
Lodging-
We stayed at Aruba Beach Chalets unit 3 in Savaneta. I guess you’d call it a villa, but not sure. The lodging was super nice, and in a non tourist district location. There wasn’t much beach area here but good swimming and super easy drive to very good local restaurants and beaches. The villa was clean, comfortable, with all the modern accommodations you need for relaxing, cooking, ducking out from the heat, rinsing dive gear, wifi, etc. Good swimming beach but not much action for snorkeling. I’d guess there are probably 8 units on property and it wasn’t full for our stay. I floated on floats provided and washed down each sunset with local Balashi Beer in hand. ABC was excellent island lodging and most importantly was that wife enjoyed staying here. The attached pic is view from porch, where I had coffee every morning.
Food-
We ate breakfast and lunch at villa nearly every day. For dinner, we ate out every night except for leftovers a couple nights. For seafood places we ate at Zeerovers, Flying Fishbone, and Marina Pirata. For chicken, we ate at La Granja around corner from us, and Bambi’s Kitchen for takeout jerk chicken and oxtail. For baked goods and excellent coffee it was Bright Bakery. The only bar we visited was a tiki bar outside of JADS at Baby Beach, this was called Rum Reef. Grocery shopping was done at New Food Center, like 6 minutes away from villa. They give you a box here to put your items in for a big haul, but try and remember to bring a reusable bag with you for a small shopping trip. Local beer is called Balashi. I enjoyed it a good bit. I would buy it here in Florida, and put it up there with Kona Big Wave for quality.
Island Exploration-
Driving here wasn’t too complicated. They use roundabouts in lieu of traffic lights and slower driving which was fine by me. I used Google Maps offline for navigation. We rented a cool Suzuki Jimny mini suv from JADS. Nice iteration of the Suzuki Samurai from back in the day. Anyway, highlights for island exploration were the Butterfly Farm, Mangel Halto beach for snorkeling, and Rodgers’s Beach for swimming. I drove into tourist district twice. Once was for the Antilla wreck boat dive and then the evening before our departure. I purposely avoided tourist district, as we had no interest in high rise hotel tourist scene.
Some tips: Do a shore dive before boat dives if a while since last dive, bring Hydra Flask with you for drinking water on daily island exploration, duck out from mid day heat with a siesta, rental vehicle is needed for vacation here in my opinion and the small suv worked great; loved that rideJ, avoid tourist district unless you enjoy high rise hotels and jammed up parking and people everywhere, allot a couple of non diving days for island exploration and check Mangel Halto for chill out snorkel beach, use the MPC app for your return home to US (thx to a previous SBer) , bring some USD for tipping (I forgot) and ATM closest by us was Florins.
