Coming up over the Memorial Day Weekend is the Soul Beach Music Festival, taking place from May 21 to 26 on Aruba. It's the eighth year that this festival's been run--and the fourth year that it's taken place in Aruba--and some of the singers this year include Erykah Badu, Sinbad, Wyclef Jean and Sean Kingston.
A bunch of hotels are acting as hosts for the festival, and one of these is the Occidental Grand Aruba on Palm Beach. It's an all-inclusive resort with almost 400 rooms and suites, plus six restaurants and five bars; plenty of space for fun and action, and probably the right kind of resort to chill in during a soul fest.
The Occidental Grand still has rooms left for the whole festival week, and a deluxe room for two (all-inclusive, of course), starts at $2,280 for five nights. Along with meals, this all-inclusive price also includes activities like sailing, snorkeling, kayaking and tennis, in case you run out of steam at the music festival. Personally we might hang too long at the concerts to make the most of that, but it's nice to have the option.
If the place you seek your sunshine is the island of Aruba, then the Manchebo Beach Resort and Spa is a nice place to spoil yourself. The main reason is that the beach here has the reputation of being the most beautiful, and the biggest, of the island. And a good beach is a very important part of a winter getaway.
Manchebo Beach Resort is a relatively small resort, with only two story buildings and just 71 rooms (recently renovated), along with a Caribbean-Balinese style spa; the spa fits well with the motto of the whole resort: "Where Rejuvenation is Our Passion".
Being situated in a quieter spot, between the downtown center and the town of Oranjestad, the Manchebo Beach Resort is probably not the place to be if you are keen on lots of nightlife and plenty of activities. But if your warm weather break idea involves a lot of lying around on the beach and being pampered at the spa, then it's definitely suitable.
Winter room rates range from $239 to $295, depending on the view, and drop back to $159 to $185 in summer. It's also quite a popular spot for weddings and honeymoons, and plenty of packages are available.
You didn't have to be front row at the 50-yard-line of Dolphins Stadium to enjoy Super Bowl XLI. In fact with Sunday's constant rain, we're not sure any seat in the stadium was worth the money. Well, maybe if you are a Colts fan.
Anyways, the people down at the Hyatt Aruba were able to partake in the resort's Super Bowl Bash and watch the game on an 18-by-8 feet screen which looks as if it's rising up from the ocean.
The resort, which just underwent at $20 million renovation, was serving "bottomless" beer buckets for guests sitting in the 300 lounge chairs provided. Plus, the resort set up additional TVs--tuned into the big game--along the water's edge for guests to watch. It's kinda like a beach-side sportsbook and you didn't have to go home to a $799 a night airport hotel in Miami.
[UPDATE: Perhaps the word of "disassociate" when referring to Aruba and Natalee Holloway was not the best choice, but we weren't trying to make light of the tragedy. We are sorry. We simply wanted to see what hotels the island had to offer, nothing more. Also, we do not work for Aruba so if you want to write some hate mail to the island of Aruba, you might want to send it to the Aruba tourism office instead.]
In our effort to disassociate Aruba with the Natalee Holloway case (we blame Greta Van Susteren who is probably still talking about this girl's 2005 disappearance on her show tonight), We'll be taking a look at some of the island's hotels. While we will be writing about where to go or where to avoid, we always prefer your real-life experiences, so if you've spent some time in Aruba recently, let us know.
Aruba is located in the southern Caribbean and despite being grouped into the Netherlands "kingdom", the country operates independently, although it heavily borrows from the Dutch government set-up as we all learned during Natalee Holloway Mania.
The island, like others in the Caribbean, is best known for its white beaches and picture-perfect water. So when you go there, prepare to spend a lot of time in the water or laying on the beach or both. A perfect place to do this is the Golden Tulip Bucuti Beach Resort.
Aside from being ranked #1 on TripAdvisor in popularity, the hotel caught our eye with this review:
We stayed in a suite on the first floor which we loved because we had an awesome view of the ocean and direct access to the beach. The beach outside of our room was beautiful, quiet and very relaxing. We loved that we could stick a flag in the sand to signal to the wait staff that we wanted a drink or a bite to eat. We ate burgers, fries and frozen margheritas on the beach one day -the food was surprisingly good, the portions big and we were pleasantly surprised at how reasonably priced it was (we expected beach service to be much more expensive and food quality to be only fair).
The hotel also gets credit for showing movies (even crappy ones) on the beach at night, and for being a pleasant honeymoon hotel. It's also close to a casino which is never a bad thing in our opinion.
The downsides seem to be a so-so pool area, iffy service and a new no-smoking policy. But c'mon! You get to stick a flag in the sand when you're hungry! That's worth it for us.
Rates are around $200 now, but will jump to $325 starting Dec. 23, 2006.
