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Aruba Hotel Scene: Forget Breakfast in Bed, Try Breakfast on the Beach

Where: LG Smith Boulevard 55-B,, Oranjestad, Aruba, 1347

[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.

Related Stories:
· Golden Tulip Bucuti Beach Resort reviews [TripAdvisor]