Taking teens to Aruba
 

I'm thinking of taking my 15 year old sons to Aruba in August and would love a resort recommendation that caters to teens, not just younger kids. Any suggestions?

Holiday Inn or the Marriott. I would discourge the AI plan at the HI. Food was quite mediocore and there are tons of resturants across the street. All the hotels that line up on Palm Beach has several vendors offering water sports.

Actually from that beach (the HI and Marriott) are quite adjacent) you can do fun water stuff such as banana boat rides and so on. You can also hop a boat to the wreck of the Antilla, a WWII German freighter whose superstructure is vesible from the shore, or at least it used to be. Now its a neat place to snorkel as its become an artificial reef. I'm not sure about a resort that caters to teens. I aggree with KVR about avoiding the AI's in Aruba as you will miss out on so many fine restaurants there. Bon dia. :-) Thats the Aruban Papiemento version of "good day" BTW. You'll hear that alot.

The Marriott was a huge complex with several pools and lots of watersports right out front. The perfect place for teens. My teens want to go back! It is a nice hotel and we enjoyed ourselves.

I don't know about hotels, but I do have an activity to promote.

My husband and his brother rented a little 4x4 car for the day and toured the remote side of the island. They went to the secret pool I believe it was called. They had the little car on all angles going over rocks and through beaches and had a blast. They were like a couple of 15 year olds! They even blew out a tire. Just make sure you have a compass. They said that was necessary since there aren't really roads. And when you turn in your car you can buy old Aruba license plates for like $5 which would make a fun momento and awesome dorm decoration someday.

Actually due to the prevailing winds the branches of the divi divi trees grow in a certain direction, sort of sideways or horizontally. I forgot what direction this is but you can ask once there and at least its some frame of refrence.

It's called the Natural Pool and take water shoes if you go. There are no roads and it's very bumpy. Personally, I wouldn't try to find it on my own and if you don't want to either take a guided jeep tour through ABC and they will take you there along with several other tourist/historic places. My DH got to drive our jeep and he hated the driving. He wanted to be one of the passengers in the back as it was quite difficult drive.

Thanks for the suggestions. Has anyone been there in August - just want to check that it's not too hot.

We went the first week of September. The weather was perfect. The trade winds helps keep the heat down. We did walk from the Holiday Inn to the Butterfly farm and thought we would about die by the time we got there. A little too humid for us, but walking along the high rise hotels, beach and the downtown area for shopping was fine. It definately was not as hot as Mexico in August/September. Our next trip is Curacao in May. I hope the weather is just as good.