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Aruba Hotel, Resort & Villa Reviews
Radisson Aruba Resort and Casino 02/08/2003
Reviewers Rating:  Excellent
I did hours and hours of research on Aruba prior to planning the trip there with the help of a travel agent. The reviews I read concluded that the Radisson is the best if not in the top 3. After getting back last night (2/7/2003) we are certain that the Radisson Aruba made our trip the best it could be. It is expansive, beatiful, peaceful and serene. The rooms are large, well decorated and clean. The hotel is made up of 3 buildings: Aruba, Curaco and Bonaire. The buildings are separated physically on the hotel's large beachfront property. The lobby is connected to the Aruba building and is an open lobby without doors. There they have a gift shop, a casino, a restaurant and a nearby outdoor bar/restaurant. The grounds are absolutely amazing. Between the buildings and the beach there are acres of palms trees, waterfalls, flowers, parrots all intertwined with 2 gorgeous very large pools and 2 whirlpools. The beach itself is stunning. There are many cabanas that you may sign up for at the towel hut. You have to reserve a cabana by at least 715am in order to have one. We spent most of our time on the beach. Radisson's beachfront seemed to be the largest compared to other hotels there. Radisson also seemed to have the largest property along eagle beach. Nearby is the Hyatt, Allegro, Aruba Grand and others. The Hyatt also had nice grounds but is very cramped at the pool areas and the beachfront. Another thing we were impressed by is the friendliness of the staff. The concierge service which does everything from restaurant reservations to providing activity ideas was very nice. The cost of food in Aruba is no doubt expensive. We recommend a few nights at a fancy restaurant but also there are many casual and more reasonably priced restaurants. Almost all restaurants charged an automatic 15% service charge and gratuity is expected on top of that. The radisson has a daily breakfast buffet that costs $14.95/pp that is in there Laguna restaurant overlooking their mini waterfall/river. Otherwise we ate at various places in an effort to see the rest of the island. Drinks are rather expensive also. A typical mixed drink in a cup is $8.
In terms of rooms-all of them are nice. We preferred the Aruba tower over the others simply because we were told the rooms in this tower are larger and also because it is connected to the lobby more directly compared to the other two towers. Overall we were very impressed by this hotel and would return to the same one again and recommend it to anyone.
Ashish P. Shah
 Read more Caribbean Travel reviews at TripAdvisor
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