Aruba Warnings Or Dangers Tips by Dabs Top 5 Page for this destination

Beach chairs

We decided to head to the beach for the day off the cruise ship and chose the closest beach to Oranjestad which is Druif Beach. When we arrived we asked a security guard if there was a problem sitting on the beach and she said not to worry, she was patroling and that we could sit on the beach next to the resort which was used by hotel guests. We didn't see any open chairs so we sat on the beach under a palapa, when a chair became free, I went to spread my Princess cruise towel on the chair and a man who had a stand on the beach renting chairs came running over and said we had to rent from him and to get off the chairs even though they didn't belong to him. Something about how he had the exclusive right to non hotel guest chairs and no explanation about the hotel guard seemed to suffice. Of course, our blue and white striped towels gave us away, the hotel guests had green towels.

Not wanting a fuss, we spread out back on the sand as we didn't really need the lounge chairs. I wouldn't have taken a chair if there were hotel guests looking to use them and I was fully willing to rent a chair from the hotel who provide the chairs and palapas but the man renting chairs really annoyed me. I know he's trying to make a living but it's a public beach and the chairs nor the palapas belonged to him, he just had a stand on the beach.

The man disappeared shortly after we got there and never came back, I'm guessing that he does most of his business in the morning when the ships arrive and then goes home.

Travel between the ABC islands

I had thought that travel to Bonaire or Curacao from Aruba would be pretty simple and that they would have a ferry, turns out that they aren't that close to one another and the only option is to fly between them. When I inquired about daytrips, they said it ran between $300-$600 dollars to get to Curacao, guess it will have to wait for another trip. The flight from Aruba to Curacao is about 30 minutes, Bonaire about 35 minutes.

Perfect weather?

Aruba is touted as having near perfect weather but they do get rain, the day we flew in it had rained the entire day. For the 5 days we were there, it rained every day, never enough to ruin your trip, but enough that I needed an umbrella at least one of the days. The rain tends to come in quickly and go quickly, October-January is when they get the most rain, an average of 18 inches per year.