Our Holiday Inn Aruba Vacation

Hey Guys!! We recently took a vacation & I wanted to share it with you here.  When we decided to head to Aruba for our trip - I must admit that Holiday Inn Resorts was not the first place that came to mind! But....thanks to Holiday Inn, Mat and I got to visit Aruba and right up front it defied pretty much every expectation.

Aruba is a small island right off the coast of Venezuela. With a slogan like “One Happy Island” you can pretty much envision festive Caribbean fun which isn’t necessarily what we look for in a vacation so we weren’t quite sure what we’d find. But Aruba is much more than that and most definitely the highlight of the island are the beaches. Pristine, soft, white sand with beautiful turquoise-looking  waters. We flew down during the shoulder-season so it was quite hot and humid but that was all forgotten once we woke up the first morning.

The hotel - Holiday Inn Aruba Resort - retains a lot of the basic elements that you’d expect from Holiday Inns like clean and efficient rooms and easy-access restaurants. We arrived at night so we didn’t get to see much ......but we woke up to a gorgeous BLUE sky with a balcony facing the ocean...OMG!!! The view was straight out of a movie as you'll see in the pics below!  Our room was a corner room with a balcony over the beach, mid-size fridge and all the amenities you’d expect.

The resort is laid out in 3 sections with guest towers breaking breaking up the activity areas. This is AWESOME because most of the family activities were happening on one end, leaving a much quieter and relaxing section for adults seeking a bit of solace. That was something we really liked since we visited without our son.  There were several interconnected pools as well as hot tubs, but I have to admit.....we didn't get in any of them because the ocean was much more inviting!!

Right on Eagle & Moomba Beach, the resort has 100 palabras - straw covered umbrella huts - but even in the 90°F sun, we didn’t really need one. Being our first vacation at a beach location in years, we took advantage and spent plenty of time just reading and relaxing within feet from the ocean.

So, the most challenging thing about being on vacation for me is trying to find a Vegetarian  restaurant with some gluten-free & sugar-free items. The restaurants at the Holiday Inn offer a fairly diverse menu that I would call “local meets corporate” with of course the expected beach-type foods, but there were a few items that I was able to enjoy.

We looooved the Sea Breeze - an open restaurant right on the beach with a good lunch menu & even better dinners, and the staff was SUPER friendly & helpful! My favorite meal, though, was a sunset, beach-side romantic dinner with my husband where we enjoyed a chef’s-choice Vegetarian menu (note, just ask the front desk if you’re interested in getting the sunset dinner package).  I had never done anything like that before, so this was very special!

As I said, we didn’t head out beyond the resort much.... but for those on Vegetarian diets, there’s a couple of places you could check out!  On our second day we hopped in a cab and ate at Green Food Service, a luncheonette with only 5 tables featuring a very cheap daily menu of pescatarian/vegetarian items.

The other is Eduardo’s Beach Shack which is on the boardwalk just to the south of the Holiday Inn Aruba Resort which offers healthy options like smoothies, wraps, and CocoWhip - a soft-serve “ice cream” made from just whipped coconut water (no added sugar) and served with fruit! I swear I almost didn't believe it....but this place was AMAZING!

For me, a vacation wouldn't be a vacation until I've gotten a massage...or in this case, two! The Etnika Spa is right on the Holiday Inn resort grounds and has a full menu of spa treatments. I got the Hot Stone Massage which is my all time favorite....& the next day I convinced my husband (who normally doesn't go for spa stuff) to join me for a couple's massage - so relaxing! Aruba is colorful, gorgeous & full of friendly people! The sunsets were such a blessing to watch every night - especially from our room.

Craig Dress above by Wai Ming Studio

All in all we had a lovely vacation & only wish it was longer. We would gladly go back to visit Holiday Inn in Aruba!


This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Holiday Inn. The opinions and text are all mine.
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