Caribbean Living

First,  I want to apologize for not posting while I was on my trip. There was wifi but I was hardly in my hotel room. I spent most of my time out on the island enjoying the vacation. So please forgive me for not posting sooner.

Moomba Beach

Finally, my long awaited winter vacation has come. I have been excited to go on this trip since my family first started planning. My great aunt and uncle have a timeshare and they were at risk of losing it (for 2014), if they did not use it. So my mom decided that we would use it and go to ARUBA.

I have been to Aruba before in 2006, with my grandparents. My aunt (mother's sister) and her late husband, owned a home in Aruba, at the time, and we visited the island with them. As many of my readers know, I am a lover of tropical weather. So I was eager to visit the island again and see how much it had changed in 8 years.. 

On this trip I traveled with my mom, my aunt, Cookie, my cousin, Tamika, and my god mother, Arlette. When we arrived on the island it was 88 degrees! With my sweats and sneakers, I was hot as soon as I stepped foot off the plane. Upon arriving to the resort, the first thing I did was change into jean shorts and a tank. I wanted to wear something fitting for the weather, especially since I wouldn't be able to do the same when I returned home. 

Because we did so many things while on the island, I want to make sure that I break down all of the important things. So on this post, I want to talk about the beautiful weather, beaches.

Baby Beach

My two favorite things about the island was the weather and beaches. Like I mentioned earlier, it was 88 degrees when we arrived on the island. Our entire stay there the weather never went below 86. It was the perfect weather! Warm, no humidity (unless it rained) and the sun was always bright. It rained out first night there, but it was while we were sleeping. It also rained on Saturday morning during our commute

The two beaches that we went to were, Moomba Beach and Baby Beach. Moomba Beach was walking distance from our hotel and we went there Monday - Thursday.  Moomba Beach was a very nice beach but for me, and my family, it was overpopulated. It was crowded because on that one beach  there was about 5 or 6 hotels, and all of the hotels were really big hotels. So of course there were a lot of people out on the beach soaking up the sun. At Moomba beach we had access to beach chairs for free. The resort hotel gave us chair tags for our entire stay that we used to reserve our chairs. The resort also gave us towels that we could exchange for clean ones every time we went to the beach or pool.

A view of the water from the Red Sail Sports pier. 

We spent a lot of time soaking up the sun and swimming in the Caribbean Ocean that we only did one extravagant water activity, snorkeling. I have never been on a yacht nor have I been snorkeling (with professionals) so this was a very great experience for me. Jumping in the water and seeing all the fish in their natural habitat was one of the best experiences. And during the ride to the snorkel locations I was able to lounge out on the yacht. My mom, cousin and aunt also had a great time, it was their first time being on a yacht and snorkeling as well. We went snorkeling with Red Sails Sports. The experience was excellent. I would recommend for anyone that is traveling to Aruba to book your water activities with Red Sail Sports. At our hotel the concierge had all the information. We paid at the concierge desk and they booked our reservation.You can check out Red Sail Sports on their website.

While snorkeling not only did we see a lot of fish but we also saw a sunken ship. The sunken ship was in an area of the water that was deep and had rough tides so my aunt and cousin opted out of going in the water. My mom and I went in but we didn't stray too far away from the boat, so unfortunately we did not get to see the sunken ship that well. I wish I had been more brave and gone out a little further but when you are dealing with rough tides you never know what can happen. In that instance I much rather had played it safe than sorry.

On Friday and Saturday we went to the other side of the island and went to Baby Beach. Baby Beach was my favorite beach of the two we visited. The water was clearer and there were barely any people there. We knew about Baby Beach because of the home that my aunt used to own. Her home was very close to Baby Beach and I remembered it from my visit in 2006. However, it was VERY different. They built a restaurant, a small wall to section off the road and a parking lot for people that come to the beach. When I visited none of that was there. It was just a road and the beach. 

Since I was about 6 years old I have been in love with water. I would swim every summer as  a kid at my great uncle's house. Then in my preteen years I swam competitively on a team. So for me, the water equals happiness. I am not that athletic but I can do it all in the water so this trip Baby Beach was very relaxing for me. I spent majority of my time in the water.

That is all the water activities that we did. I don't want to bore you guys with my stories of all the swimming I did so I'll stop it here. I promise to come back next week with a post about all the good and bad experiences we had with food in Aruba. I hope you all have enjoyed my first post about my trip to Aruba. Enjoy some more pictures below.

Tamika and I at the pool bar.

 A tree in the water at Baby Beach

 Excuse my hair lol but I love my sunnies!

 L-R Tamika, Mommy, Aunt Cookie & I

P.S.

There won't be many pictures (if any) of my god mother because she doesn't like taking pictures. But she was along for the ride during most of our activities and she enjoyed herself just as much as we did!

Peace&Love

Janisha