Here’s the first of a few recap posts from our family spring break trip to Aruba!
We had a wonderful family trip to Aruba over Spring Break!
My parents, my sister and her family joined us for a great and happy family trip. This was my first international trip with my parents since high school! We hope to be able to do more in the coming years.
We stay in the Hyatt Regency Aruba And I have a lot of good things to say about it! We would definitely return. I’ll save more thoughts from my review to go deeper into my recaps.
Travel with points or book with benefits!
My sister is a travel advisor. And he planned the entire trip for us! While our family used Hyatt points to book our room, all of her rooms were booked by her and had many perks (free breakfast, free drink coupons, etc.). If you are interested in going, you can contact your here!
We used points to cover both our flights and hotel, so all we paid for on this trip was food and activities. If you are interested in learning more about how we do this, you can check out my travel email series here or read this post!
Why Aruba?
Aruba has been on our bucket list for years and we listened to Kokomo 100 times the week before we arrived. It is far south of the Caribbean, near South America, which means it is outside the hurricane belt and has almost perfect weather year-round. I think it’s a desert climate (we saw a lot of cacti) so it doesn’t rain much either.
I will say it was VERY HOT! 85 degrees and direct sun were a shock to our winter bodies. We put on tons of sunscreen and wore spandex. I felt bad “complaining” about the heat, but it was fierce!
The hotel was a 15-minute van ride from the airport, and the Hyatt is located right in the middle of the developed area, so you can easily walk from the property to restaurants and shops. If we didn’t have kids who needed car seats, we could have explored the island a little more by car, so we stuck to things within walking distance. In addition to the hotel being walkable from the town side, there was an amazing beach front path that we could use to walk along the beach, where there were many more restaurants and bars to enjoy. So the location of our hotel couldn’t have been better.
Day trip
On our travel day, we got up at 4am and flew from Charlottesville to Charlotte, where we met up with the cousins. This certainly made our 4 hour layover more exciting!
We had some flight delays, but nothing serious, and we were very happy when we arrived at the hotel!
We continued straight along the path towards the beach, stopping along the way to watch the birds!
Beautiful, sunny skies!!
After dipping our toes in the ocean, we went to the pool and got some takeout since everyone was hungry. Plus some cocktails for the adults!
The kids got to swim a little in the evening, which they loved!
Kadushi Juice Bar
After a good night’s sleep, we headed to our favorite spot in the resort: Kadushi Juice Bar! This is where we drink smoothies almost every morning. (While my parents and sister/family went to their buffet). We liked having a lighter breakfast and the kids loved the smoothies. Shout out to MARY who was the friendliest on staff and smiled even when she had a line of 10 people!
I bought a green smoothie bowl that came with cucumbers (I didn’t eat them all!) and added peanut butter on top. So good!
Beach’s day
And then we spent most of the day like this:
The water was very calm in our cove and perfect for the kids to swim.
Lunch by the pool
Most days we had lunch at the beach bar by the pool. I enjoyed this power bowl of black beans and quinoa with pickled cauliflower, feta cheese, avocado, and lime cream dressing! We thought the food at the Hyatt was pretty good! We also loved Balashi’s local beers. I had a 10 ounce every day for lunch!
The pool
The pool area was very very nice (although a little crowded) with water features and even a large water slide which I tried. The kids loved the waterfall stairs and there was a nice wide area that was shallow for younger kids (although with hidden steps, so obviously watch them like a hawk).
We all loved the swim-up bar, and many kids made appearances to get virgin drinks and smoothies. Mazen felt fresh as a cucumber with his virgin daiquiri! I had an Aperol Spritz one afternoon!
Elegant dinner night
Our first full day ended with a belated celebration of Mom’s 70th birthday! Her birthday was March 20, but since we weren’t together, we celebrated it together on the island.
These B.Draddy polos that we got last summer are still a favorite for fine dining and, of course, the golf course. I love it when guys agree <3
We let the kids get special mocktails for the occasion. They were very happy!
Dinner in Ruins
For an elegant dinner, we went to the Hyatt’s nice restaurant. ruinsinspired by the ruins of the Bushiribana gold mill.
We enjoyed a delicious meal with a variety of seafood (red snapper and mashed potatoes for me!) and some wines.
When the children got tired of sitting, the staff brought them fish food to feed all the beautiful fish.
And then we ended the night with a buttercream filled cake for Mom – her favorite food!
