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Here is the first of a few recap posts on our spring break family trip to Aruba!
We had a wonderful family trip to Aruba for Spring Break!
We were joined by my parents and my sister and her family for one big happy family trip. This was my first international trip with my parents since high school! We hope we can do more in the coming years.
We stayed at the Hyatt Regency Aruba and have plenty of good things to say about it! We would definitely go back. I’ll save more of my review thoughts for deeper into my recaps.
Travel On Points Or Book With Perks!
My sister is a travel advisor and planned the whole trip for us! While our family did use Hyatt points to book our room, their rooms were all booked by her and they came with lots of perks (free breakfast, free drink coupons, etc.) If you’re interested in going, you can reach out to her 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’re 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 our arrival. It’s way down south in the Caribbean, close to South America, which means it’s outside of the hurricane belt and has near-perfect weather year round. I believe it’s a dessert climate (we saw lots of cacti) and so there isn’t much rain either.
I will say that it was VERY HOT! 85 degrees and direct sun was a bit of a shock to our winter bodies. We put on tons of sunscreen and wore rashguards. I felt bad “complaining” about the heat, but it was fierce!
The hotel was an easy 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 off property to go to restaurants and shops. If we hadn’t had children who required car seats, we might have explored the island a bit more by car, so we stuck to walking distance things only. In addition to the hotel being walk-able on the town-side, there was an awesome beach-front path that we could use to go on beach walks where there were plenty more restaurants and bars to enjoy. So the location of our hotel could not have been better.
Travel Day
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 too bad, and we were so glad when we arrived at the hotel!!
We went straight down the path to the beach, stopping by the birds on the way!
Beautiful, sunny skies!!
After we dipped our toes in the ocean, we went to the pool and got some carry-out food to eat since everyone was starving. Plus some cocktails for the adults!
The kids got to do some evening swimming, which they loved!
Kadushi Juice Bar
After a good night’s sleep, we headed down to our favorite spot at the resort: Kadushi Juice Bar! This is where we got smoothies nearly every morning. (While my parents and sister/fam went to their buffet). We liked having a lighter breakfast, and the boys loved the smoothies! Shout out to MARY who was the friendliest on the staff and was smiling even when she had a line 10 people deep!
I got a green smoothie bowl that came with cucumbers (I didn’t eat them all!) and I added peanut butter on top. So good!
Beach Day
And then we spent the better part of the day like this:
The water was very calm in our cove and perfect for kid swimming.
Lunch by the pool
Most days we had lunch at the beach bar down by the pool. I enjoyed this black bean and quinoa power bowl with pickled cauliflower, feta, avocado, and a lime crema dressing! We thought the food at the Hyatt was quite good! We also loved the Balashi local beers – I had a 10 ounce one every day at lunch!
The Pool
The pool area was very so nice (if a bit crowded) with water features and even a big waterslide that I tested out! The kids loved the waterfall stairs and there was a nice wide area that was shallow for smaller kids (with hidden steps though, so obviously watch them like a hawk.)
We all loved the swim up bar, and lots of kids made appearances to get virgin drinks and smoothies. Mazen felt cool as a cucumber with his virgin daiquiri! I had an afternoon Aperol Spritz!
Fancy Dinner Night
Our first full day ended with a delayed 70th birthday celebration for mom! Her birthday was March 20, but since we weren’t together then we celebrated on the island together.
These B.Draddy Polos we got last summer are still the very favorites for fancy dinner nights and the golf course of course! I love it when the boys match <3
We let the boys get special mocktails for the occasion. They were quite pleased!
Dinner at Ruinas
For fancy dinner night, we went to the nice restaurant at the Hyatt – Ruinas, inspired by the Bushiribana Gold Mill Ruins.
We enjoyed a delicious meal with a variety of seafood (red snapper and mashed potatoes for me!) and some wines.
When the kids 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!
Stay tuned for parts II and III of our trip to see our pirate ship snorkeling adventure!
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