sica4

To illustrate 'to each their own' I've stayed at both properties and greatly preferred the Marriott.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/13168296-post35.html

nickfromct

The plus for the Renaissance is the private island. The Ren is located downtown so its also convenient to shopping. The problem to me is after dark the downtown gets a little dodgy. The Stellaris is located in the high rise section with the other hotels and next to two Marriott timeshares. The high rise area has been growing alot recently and has alot of people on the streets at night going shopping and to the restaurants and casinos. To me it feels at lot safer than being downtown at night.

sophiegirl

+100!!! We have stayed at both, and while we enjoyed Stellaris, we MUCH preferred the Ren. The "family" Ren has suites, and the views are great from the OF and OV rooms. (and no construction!) The steak house at the adult Ren is excellent, and we really liked the casino, too.

We walked to several restaurants, and never felt unsafe....but we were not out past 10pm.

HoustonConsultant

If you are into quiet "beachy" vacations, then the private beach with the Ren is the way to go. If you want to be around more things to do, then the Marriott.

Rooms are probably a little nicer at the Marriott overall, but there are good rooms at the Ren as well.

We walked around the Ren side of the city at night and did not feel any less safe than we would in any city.

bucs0721

I agree. That's a good way to put it.

The Ocean Suite rooms are really nice at the Ren. We have stayed 3 times here and have enjoyed each visit. Being able to walk to downtown (or have the hotel shuttle you over in a golf cart) is a nice option to have.

We walked to several restaurants for dinner and always felt safe.

darthbimmer

Thank you all for your suggestions. I booked a room at the Ren because the price is lower and the location fits our style better. The private beach will be nice for times when we want the beach, and being right next to town will be great because we enjoy going offsite for food, shopping, and sight seeing.

Speaking of sight seeing, is it worth renting a car in Aruba? Or is there some form of public transportation we can take to see the bird sanctuary, national park, etc?

Mr. Vker

There are busses and taxis every where. Its about a 10 min ride from Airport to Ren. You can walk tons of places from the Ren. But you make want to rent a car to explore the island. Baby Beach is a wonderful place to visit as is Arikok national park. You can rent a car for a portion of your trip right at the Ren. There are also some nice rock formations that you can climb or just view. BTW, if you are looking for a fun snorkel adventure, we always take folks on this tour on their first visit. It leaves from the Moomba Beach Bar right next to Stellaris. Its great fun. Bar, food, snorkeling, and fun.

http://jolly-pirates.com/



FYI: Take some bottles drinks and snacks with you in a tote or duffle to the private island. It will be convenient and much much cheaper. (There is a restaurant on the island.) They dont allow coolers, but bringing a few things is not a problem.

darthbimmer

I recently finished my visit to the Renaissance Aruba. Here are my observations:

I reserved an Island View room in the Marina building. A day ahead of time I was upgraded to an Ocean View room as a platinum upgrade. At check-in I was offered the usual choice of platinum amenities.

The Ocean View room looked out across the pool deck and over the marina. It had a narrow balcony that was too small to put chairs on. (By comparison the ocean suites building has larger balconies with chairs.) Looking down over the pool deck was nice, though noise from the club there could be heard until midnight. The room was reasonably sized for two adults.

One oddity was the shower. It's the open type with a partial glass wall and no door. The odd part is that it's too small to be designed like that. The water stayed in the shower area when it fell straight down from the overhead fixture, but as soon as someone stepped in to shower the water always splashed out and made a big puddle on the floor.

There's no beach in front of this building. Private beaches are available on an island 10 minutes away by water taxi. Boats run every 15 minutes and pick up passengers inside the hotel building. (Boats follow a canal through a tunnel under the street and dock at the bottom of the hotel's escalator.)

Having the beaches on a private island is a mixed bag. The fact that it's private is a plus; there's good service, it's well maintained, and it's not too crowded. The downside is that you have to commute to it. That means planning your schedule a bit more carefully. You can't just figure, "Oh, I'll grab my bag and walk out the door from my room to the beach in 2 minutes flat." You also can't walk the beach in the evening, because it closes at 7pm.

The hotel's location next to downtown Oranjestad is a mixed bag, too. There's not much "there" there! The stores all close up by 7pm, many by 5pm actually. Downtown feels like a ghost town after dark. On the positive side, there are a variety of local restaurants in downtown, including a cluster of about a dozen in an outdoor mall across the street. Most of them are tourist oriented but do offer more of a local flavor than you get in the high rise hotel area, which might as well be Disneyland for how thoroughly Americanized everything is.

scrappy8

We have been faithful and loyal owners for 10+ years who love and care about Aruba, BUT what we were not informed about when we purchased multiple weeks was the frustration you have to go through every year to book your weeks for vacation and the way they supposedly become available for booking. Not only the booking process but the process you go through to find available seating by the pool in Surfclub, we have experienced first hand a grandmother and a father fighting over chairs swearing and screaming ! Dont get me wrong we love both facilities but they did not plan very well or take homeowners into consideration when they did their presentation, during our walk through it was presented to us how easy it is and wouldnt it be great to come here every year and relax. My point being is that they truly did not present the whole truth about timesharing and availability at your home resort. Because we find every year on that certain Monday you start calling to book your next years vacation at exactly 9:00am its busy and you have to keep calling and calling till you get through to a so called vacation planner/advisor and what we seem to get for an answer when we finally get through is all the wekks you want are booked and you need to keep calling every day till hopefully with much prayer you might get what you want. And after realizing time is running out and you didnt get what you want or could go. You have to book whatever is available and rent it out so you can get the funds to go and rent what you really want and can go at another resort. Which really makes owning at a certain resort not very realistic !!!!!!

Sb232313

You will get much better responses at the Marriott timeshare forum on the tug2.net website. Try posting your question on the forum at this link.
http://tugbbs.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=29

jerseygirl

Many Marriott timeshares can be booked online at the website for Marriott time shares

Mr. Vker

We have owned a week at Marriott Surf Club since 2006. We reserve online and gotten the exact year we have wanted every year. Including: Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day weeks. Winter/Spring Holidays are much more difficult.

socrates

while I dont own in Aruba I too (along with other family members) have never had difficulty reserving the weeks we want...as far as reserving chairs - I personally feel the resorts do a decent job of policing this (it's funny watching the folks who reserved a chair come back after their chair has been liberated) however they can't control society completely and you will run into folks that continue to push the reserving of pool chairs at 7am every day to only use them for 30 minutes throughout the day

Delta3MM

I also own in several different locations, and never have a problem reserving weeks. We go to Kauai every thanksgiving and sometime have forgotten to reserve the first day and still manage to get our week.

I'd look into booking online. It's the quickest and easiest way and will beat phone callers.


Billy

shoreline

i didn't really see a question from the OP, just statements.
it can be frustrating to book a timeshare, unless you own a specific week.

just put your request in for 2-3 places and times, be flexible and you will probably hav more luck.

I also agree you may get more responses and/or help if you post on TUGS.