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Manchebo Beach Resort
Trip Report - April 8 - May 15,
2000
Sent in by: Jennifer
My boyfriend and I visited Aruba from Saturday, April 8th - Saturday, April 15th, 2000.
Hotel
We stayed at the Manchebo
Resort in the low-rise hotel area. The hotel was very nice. The beach is very
large with quite a few umbrellas, although they were normally all taken by 9:30am. I
suggest you get up early, get a chair and put it under one of the umbrellas and then go
eat breakfast. It was very hot (normally about 90 degrees) but there is a constant wind to
keep you cool. Unfortunately, the breeze can get pretty intense and would blow sand all
over us as we laid on the beach some days. We had a ground floor room which was very nice
because the sliding glass doors opened on a little porch which opened up to a grassy area
where we had access to a little table and chairs. There are a lot of iguanas around, but
they stay out of your way. There is also an outdoor place to eat dinner and lunch and a
pool side restaurant for lighter fare. There are no umbrellas by the pool and the breeze
doesn't quite make it up there so it is very hot. Nearby is a Dunkin Donuts, Nathan's Hot Dog and TCBY for quick bites that
won't cost you much. There are also a couple other hotels nearby with restaurants.
Restaurants
The Manchebo has a restaurant called the French Steakhouse. The food was very good. For $25
per person, we got a 5 course meal and a bottle of wine. I strongly recommend getting this
deal, because our dinner would've cost about $50 per person if we would have ordered our
same meals directly off the a la carte menu. We had 5 choices for our entree (Chicken
Cordon Bleu, Beef Stroganoff, Twin Touranados, Beef Churasco and something else I can't
remember). I had the Churasco and it was very good. On Wednesday, we ate at Don
Carlo's which is downtown. It's an American/Italian restaurant right on the
water. The location by the water is very nice (since I was surprised there are few
restaurants by the water) and the food was pretty good, but it was overpriced. On Thursday
we took a cab to La Dolce Vita. It's an out of the way restaurant but it
was very good. It also serves Italian food, but again the prices were a little steep (we
each had salad, entree, dessert and a bottle of wine for $90). On our last night we ate at
the Trattoria at the California Lighthouse. The setting is beautiful, the
meal was good and expensive, but definitely worth it. Something important to know is that
the tax and gratuity is added in to every bill (15%) so there is no need to tip (unless
you feel that 15% is not enough).
Nightlife
If you don't like gambling, then Aruba is not for you. My boyfriend and I are young (26
&27) and we were thinking that there would be a good nightlife, especially since I
read there were nightclubs and a Carlos & Charlies. On our second night there we went
to Iguana Joes in town for dinner and drinks and to start our evening. By 9pm we were
still practically the only ones in there. We found out from our waitress that Thursdays,
Fridays and Saturdays are the only active nightlife nights on Aruba. And even then it
doesn't pick up until about 11pm. After sitting around with not much to do for hours,
leaving to
go out at 11 was not what I felt like doing. Most of our nights there, we bought a bottle
of wine and drank it on our porch. It will cost you though - a bottle of wine you get in
the States for $12 will cost you $30 there. If you do like to gamble, there is the
Alhambra Casino which is part of the Divi Resort within 2 minutes of walking from the
Manchebo. The tables are reasonable to play ($2 minimum at the Roulette tables and $5
minimums at the Black Jack and Poker tables). I would bet $20 on the roulette table and
could play for about an hour.
Shopping
All the stores in Aruba close at 6pm. It took us a day or two to figure this out, but
finally decided to cut our tanning short on Thursday to go downtown. We ate lunch at a
restaurant next to Iguana Joes that serves Mexican food (good appetizers!) and then
started shopping. We were upset to see that all the lights were out, making it difficult
to see what was in the stores. We thought they did this because of the heat. In the first
store we went into, I bought a Christmas ornament and when I went to charge it I was told
that she was having trouble with her credit card machine, so she took my info to charge it
later. After walking around for an hour and a half, we got fed up and decided to go for
ice cream, but we were told they wouldn't serve it for fear of melting. Only after getting
in a cab and asking what the deal was did we find out that there was a blackout on the
island. Had someone told us this from the beginning, we would've saved a lot of time and
aggravation. From what I
was able to see, most of the merchandise is stuff you can buy in the States for about the
same price.
Transportation
We took cabs just about everywhere. There is a flat fee which you should check before you
get into a cab. The Manchebo will call one for you when you want to go. The fee to
downtown from the hotel was $8 one way. The fee to the hi-rise hotels was about the same.
There are also buses which leave not far from the hotel but they don't exactly run on
schedule. Our front desk told us to get there early so we got to the stop 10 minutes
before the bus was supposed to be there. It ended up coming 15 minutes after the schedule.
We found out that this is not unusual.
Activities
On Monday, we asked the Manchebo Activities desk to help us plan some activities while we
were visiting. We paid for a sunset cruise for Tuesday and a full day tour on Wednesday.
Our sunset cruise was pretty tame (I can't remember the name). It was $25 per person and
you got drinks and a nice sail along the island. You had to get into a little boat to get
out to the ship which was a pain since I was wearing pants and now had to get in the water
part way. If you are looking for a more exciting sunset cruise, I would suggest the ones
that you can sign up for right at the pier by the Holiday Inn (Pelican, I think?). They
passed us a few times, and they were all dancing and drinking and having a great time. Our
full day tour was with DePalm tours. We decided to take the bus tour since it gets very
hot and the thought of driving in an open jeep through the dirt paths just didn't sound
appealing. We visited the California Lighthouse, the Alto Vista Chapel, the Natural
Bridge, we passed the Ayo Rock formation and visited the Caves. Then we went to DePalm
Island for lunch, sunning and snorkeling. The fish there are amazing! There are huge blue
parrot fish that you can see just from standing above the water.
There is a lot of coral you have to make your way through so be careful because we both
had scraped ourselves as we were swimming. The driving talked way to much and repeated
himself when he had nothing else to say which annoyed just about everyone on board. But we
learned to tune him out and enjoy the trip. It's a great way to see the island. My
boyfriend also likes to dive and signed up at the dive shop right next door to the
Manchebo. He saw a ship wreck (not the Antilla) and also went to another site. He got to
see barracudas and a turtle.
All in all, our trip was great. The weather is
always beautiful, the town if very clean and the people are always nice.
Jennifer
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