Our anniversary trip this year was to no other than the one happy island- Aruba! The locals and tourists lived up to the island’s motto, which made our week here that much more enjoyable. Many of the resort guests we chatted with by the pool had even been to Aruba 5+ times! David and I have yet to visit somewhere more than once, but it’s a beautiful destination with loyal visitors.
The whole week we were there it was cloudy with maybe a couple hours of sunshine total. Although we were expecting it to be sunny for the most part, I’m glad we got the cloudy weather so we didn’t have to worry about getting too much sun or being uncomfortable during our long days outside. We still went through a good amount of sunscreen.
Like many others, I’m always curious about how much certain trips cost and whether or not something is a good deal. I also find it helpful to look back on, for my reference, to figure out budgets for any future trips we plan out.
Here’s the cost breakdown of our entire trip to Aruba (7 nights):
Trip Cost
- Southwest roundtrip flights for two: $1,404.50
- Barceló Aruba All-Inclusive Hotel: $2,614.70
- Breakfast at the airport (Cask & Larder): $38
- Mango smoothie at the airport: $8.21
- Random tip: $3
- UTV all-day tour: $299
- Bus ride to downtown: $6
- Iguana Joe’s quesadilla & dip: $22
- Magnet souvenir: $4
- T-shirt: $10
- Tshirts: $25
- Bus ride back to the hotel: $6
- Bus ride to Divi Links: $5.20
- Golf tournament including ride-along fee: $101
- Drink for Carlos: $10
- Taxi ride to hotel w/ tip: $13
- 2 pool games in lobby: $5
- Taxi ride to ostrich farm: $31
- Ostrich farm tour for 2: $30
- Tshirt & drink from ostrich farm: $22
- Taxi to aloe farm from ostrich farm: $30
- Aruba Aloe products: $188.40
- Taxi to the hotel from Aloe Farm: $15
- Goggles for UTV (qty2): $20
- Restrooms at the Natural Bridge: $2
- De Palm Tours: $6
- De Palm Island gift shop: $114
- Random tips: $13
- Sbarro pizza at the airport: $19.35
- Vending machine water: $4
- Jersey Mikes at airport: $33.87
- Lyft ride home: $49.79
Trip total: $5,153.02
The Hotel
We stayed at Barceló Aruba – All Inclusive, which you can read about here!
The Food
For the most part, we only ate at the resort. The all-day UTV excursion included lunch and snacks similar in taste and quality to the resort. The food overall wasn’t anything close to 5 stars but it was still enjoyable. To this day, the best food we’ve had on a trip was at Xcaret Hotel in Mexico and the worst food we’ve had was at the Riu in Cabo San Lucas, also in Mexico. As always, camera eats first…
The Activities
Besides staying at the hotel and enjoying the pool, beach, and late-night shows, we planned some time outside of the resort to see as much of the island as possible.
Downtown Shopping
The photo above is from the downtown area where we did some shopping. We took the bus from the resort and it stopped a couple of blocks from here. We honestly should’ve eaten something before leaving the all-inclusive hotel because, within the first 10 minutes of getting to the downtown area, we were already sitting down at Iguana Joe’s ordering a quesadilla and dips. 🫢 It felt silly spending an unnecessary $22, but the food and views were delish.
The store options in downtown weren’t enough to keep us there all day but enough to keep us walking for a couple of hours and this is also where we found our magnet for this trip. 🙂
Golf
David + vacation + golf course nearby = day booked.
We spent one of our days at The Links at Divi Aruba. They had a tournament going on where they paired you up with other players at random. We ended up with a few guys ranging in age and background and the day ended up being really fun! (Even though I only tagged along for the ride, I never play hehe)
Aruba Ostrich Farm
I loveedddddd this part of the trip. From the moment we reserved our flights and hotel, I started looking up activities on the island and this was one of the first ones I stumbled upon. It’s a quick 30-minute tour around the farm and different habitats, but you get to learn so much about them and have a couple of chances to feed them. Ostriches absolutely fascinate me now and I love looking back at the pictures and just staring at them.
Aruba Aloe Factory Museum and Store
Another super fun part of the trip was going to the aloe factory. We didn’t arrive during operating hours of the actual manufacturing portion, but we still got a tour and a look inside. The tours were very flexible. We arrived and within 10 minutes there was already a group that formed and one of the employees started the 15-minute tour shortly after (first outside then inside).
Once the tour was over, we did a little bit of shopping (and by “we” I mean “I”). 🙂
UTV Tour- All Day
At first, I wasn’t sure if we would book this excursion but I’m so glad we did!!! It was definitely a highlight in our trip and such a great way to see the island. The tour guides can really make it or break it when it comes to the overall feel of the day. The 2 guides we had were really fun and laid back but also made sure nobody got left behind along the ride.
Each UTV held a maximum of 2 people and we made about 4 stops before getting back to the station where we then got on a bus to head over to De Palm Island.
We were going to cheap out at first and skip on the goggles and bandana. That would’ve been the biggest mistake of the trip. Those 2 things kept us from having the most miserable experience. The UTVs don’t go at race car speeds, but with all of the dirt roads and each UTV being so close together, I’m pretty sure I had a serving of dirt for breakfast that day, even with the bandana covering my face.
All of the landmarks we saw were breathtaking.
A couple of things to note:
-For the first stop, we had to pay $2 for access to the restrooms.
-De Palm Island was a little bit underwhelming because it felt really small for the amount of people they piled on there and the food wasn’t very good. The drinks were ok and the nice flamingo exhibit was fenced off for VIPs. The advertising for the flamingo portion was a little misleading when we bought the tickets. We still got to see some, but the area they were in was so sad and droopy.
Would I go back to De Palm Island? No. It was overcrowded and the amount of kids and family groups that lacked self-awareness was too much for me. I would’ve preferred to go back to the hotel, wash off the day’s dirt, and go to the pool or beach. If it hadn’t been included in the UTV ticket price, I wouldn’t have paid extra to go there.
The Transportation
We took a couple of taxi and bus rides here and there. Transportation was included with some of our excursions; when we booked the hotel we also reserved our ride from and to the airport. Bus rides were the cheapest, about $6 total per trip.
Summary
Aruba was beautiful and I can see why people love going back year after year, but considering the amount spent on this trip and how many other places we have yet to visit, I don’t think we’d go out of our way to go back again. I’m glad we got to experience the happy island and the cloudy weather was so good to us. The ocean water although not dark, had a sort of green tint to it. Still somewhat see through but my favorite is still Turks & Caicos because it feels like you’re in a huge swimming pool. My favorite parts of the trip were visiting the Ostrich Farm, the Aloe Factory, and the UTV excursion. If you’re ever visiting Aruba, you HAVE to do those three things, and don’t forget lots of SPF!
