Aruba is my favorite snorkeling place so far. The cost is low. You take 20 min or half an hour boat ride, you can arrive at a boat wreck site. There are a lot of fish and turtles even when you just swim off the beach. The beaches are all friendly. There are parking lots, food, umbrella, benches and a lot of people. The Caribbean water is warm and clear, and it does not have big waves. The weather is sunny most of the time. So it is pleasant to swim around and can clearly see far and see the bottom. There are many beautiful pictures I have taken. Here are a few.

For the great barrier reefs, you will need to travel on the boat 2-3 hours one way to reach the reefs. Last time, I was there in early June, and the water is cold and very wavy. Although the corrals are big, many are bleached. I did not see many fish. In China Hainan island, the water is muddy. At Hawaii and Florida keys, you will need to take tours with the group and I did not see many fish offshore. Florida keys were really cold last Christmas, and we had to buy a dive suit. St Thomas and St John have warm and beautiful Caribbean water, I see colorful fishes. But I did not recall we found very impressive snorkeling sites.

The boat wreck site is located on the north west of the island, near the light house. We booked a sailboat trip through https://www.delphiwatersports.com/ to take us there. The boat is cool, there are endless drinks with one light sandwich lunch. DJ plays really good Spanish music for dancing. The boat takes you to two snorkeling sites, and also have rope swing and waterslides after snorkeling. In general, I had a very pleasant experience with them.

Aruba is an island on Caribbean. Local people call it “an happy island” Oct to Mar is its rainy season, still when we were there in late Dec, it is mostly sunny with occasionally some minutes of thunderstorms. Days and nights you’ll just need a tank top, a short and and a pair of flip-flops. Warm breezes bring you some fresh ocean smells. It is one of my favorite islands to have Christmas vacations and already considers going back some day. It is not as snobbish and expensive compared to the Virgin islands. It is small and cozy, and driving around island probably takes an hour; however it has almost everything fun things you can imagine for a vacation.

Aruba has its own language, but English works every where, so do US and credit cards. Many stores mark prices using Aruba currency as well as US dollars (0.57 ratio). Most of people we met are from US, and some are coming back multiple times already. People directly say “I am from Maryland”, instead of “I am from US”. There are direct flights (only a few hours) from Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale and … US passports do not need visa and just remember to apply an ED card online, like this 🙂

You can stay at the north west, called Noord, where there are a lot of hotels and resorts like Marriott, Hyatt and Divi Village. A large and good super market called “superfood” is walking distance from this hotel area. I heard Divi village’s villa has kitchens. Big resorts have swimming pools, sometimes jacuzzi … open at night. Most of the water sports vendors can be found here. During Christmas seasons, I highly recommend that you make reservations for any activities early on their websites or on Viator/tripadvisor. I also heard that some people book the entire trip packages from travelocity this type of website and are happy about it. All the beaches in Aruba are public, the hotels do not owe beaches so non-hotel residents can go as well. Almost all the beaches we went have a lot of beach chairs, umbrellas, the sand is so fine, the water is light blue.

The second area that is good to stay is the downtown area. We lived in an apartment called DonaClara. It is a three-bed efficiency with simple kitchen attached. It is cheap, clean and very conveniently located near restaurants, shops, and some interesting, historical buildings. It is also close to the market place, where we found many lizzards and iguanas. Our host responds to us almost instantly. We rent a car the whole time we were here. You can find street parking near the apartment. I heard from some local people that during Christmas seasons, the local companies will not charge you for street parking (I am still not sure if it is true :))

The third area is the south west, where the most locals live. It is remote, quiet and full of authentic Aruba culture. One of the best restaurants on the island is located here. When we were waiting in line, a young couple from Maryland told us that it is their second time vacation here; last time they stayed in the hotel area and this time, they lived south.