The Ritz-Carlton, Aruba

We just had the best week of our life at the Ritz in Aruba. We came immediately after getting married and can’t say enough about this place. The staff is AMAZING- especially jonathan who went out of his way to take care of us and make us feel at home. we now have a family in Aruba to visit :’). The food was all great and the hotel was absolutely stunning.

We had the best time celebrating my husband’s birthday at the Ritz but the drinks made by Jose at the van were our favorite part of our stay! Delicious and beautiful cocktails every time!!

The resort was exceptional. We typically stay at the Marriott Stellaris and this was our first time staying at the Ritz. We enjoyed the adult pool, gym, Rituals coffee and food at the resort was amazing. We especially enjoyed Jose’s yellow van pop up bar. I have celiac disease and rarely order mixed drinks. He made it easy to feel safe and offered lots of choices. I especially loved the mango passion fruit margarita - all fresh - top tequila brands and the drink was actually 2 drinks. Amazing! Highly recommend a stop at the van!

The resort was nice. It's due for a renovation soon. Room is large and comfortable for a small family. The price for the pineapple drinks from the stand by the beach was a bit ridiculous, it costed almost $100 for 2 drinks. Staff were very welcoming and provided excellent service.

My husband and I went to Aruba for the first time in August. Overall we had a very nice vacation! Aruba was beautiful and a lovely place to visit. The staff at the Ritz was exemplary, especially our amazing waitress at the beach, Ellie. She went above and beyond to take care of us everyday and make sure we were well hydrated (it was hot!) and always had a smile on her face. We loved the breakfast buffet (eat indoors or the birds will divebomb your table during the meal!) and we loved the wonderful bartender at sunset who worked out of the converted VW van (we highly recommend the Aruba Arriba rum punch - so good!) . Our room was just lovely - perfect for the two of us, with a nice view of the beach. We ate at BLT on property and had a wonderful dinner there (but went back the next night to sit at the bar and just have dessert and bar staff was not at all attentive. We wanted to go in for a quick drink and slice of cake for dessert and what should have taken 1/2 hour took over an hour. We wished we hadn't bothered.) Negatives were common ones at these resorts: I really hate that you have to get up at 7 am to reserve a beach chair. I resent paying as much as we paid and still having to have the stress of setting an alarm on vacation or risk not having a chair. The beachfront at the Ritz is relatively narrow, so if you want to be close to the water there are only about 18 chairs with umbrellas that are in the first row. Also, there are WAY too many tourist boat companies driving around just past the roped-off swimming area. Especially on the weekend we got so tired of the constant drone of motors from jetskis, banana boats, speed boats of all kinds just past the beach area. The smell of gasoline and roar of engines really became tiresome. It was much better during the week but during the weekend it was non-stop. There was also construction going on in the main lobby which started after our arrival. We had a lovely lunch there (sushi/dumplings) on our first day while we waited for our room to be ready, but then they closed it for renovations. This meant there was only one restaurant in the entire hotel which served lunch. This was a big miss to me. There should have been some sort of adjustment made so there was more than only one restaurant open for lunch. So instead of staying on property at the beach for lunch, which we would have preferred, we ended up leaving and finding other local places to eat, so we could have some variety. Definitely a lot of families with young children, so if you're looking for more of a couple's vacation (which we were) you might look to a different resort. But if you are traveling with children, it's a good fit. The water is calm, no waves at all, and you can walk out for a long time and it's still very shallow, so very good for kids. If you are an ocean swimmer this is not the resort for you. You can't swim past the ropes due to all the aforementioned boats/jet skis and you can't swim within the ropes as it's too shallow. This was true all down the beach as they also had roped off swimming areas. We took long lovely walks on the beach but the "walkable area" which is harder packed sand is very narrow and a lot of people like to sit there. Because there aren't waves, you don't have that wide, packed sand area to walk on. The beaches themselves are very pretty with soft sand and teeny tiny shells. But if beach walking is your thing, it's a bit tougher to negotiate.