By Sydney L-Age 14
For December vacation I went to Oranjestad, Aruba which is off the coast of Venezuela. I stayed at the Ritz-Carlton which is a very nice hotel. It’s nice because in Aruba all of the hotels are near each other on a strip. You can walk on the beach all the way from the Ritz to the Marriott, the Surf Club and other hotels and places to eat. It’s also really nice because they have 2 pools and a beach. One pool is the kid pool with a lot of shady chairs and a lot of open seats and an adult pool which is quieter and more sunny.
The beach is also nice because you can easily put up an umbrella to be in the shade and it’s not windy. The ocean is really nice because it’s not an ocean but the Caribbean Sea so there are not fish and it’s really shallow so you can walk on your knees and go as far out as you want.
The only activity that we did was my family went parasailing. Unfortunately I did not go but two of my family members did and they really enjoyed it. Instead, I got to experience a nice boat ride and got to see sea turtles. The people who did go parasailing got to see the entire island when they went all the way up. The only bad part about it was the boat ride out because we were in a very tiny boat and it was very bumpy.
The two best restaurants we went to were 297 which is the Aruban zip code and Madame Jennet. 297 was an Asian fusion restaurant that also had American food that was very high tech and trendy. Instead of having a hand held menu, the menu was on a little iPad and the food was just amazing. My sister and I shared a lot of different things including sliders, truffle fries, rock shrimp, and mac and cheese. It was easy to share because everything comes in small portions so you can have more. They also have really cool desserts. The one we all shared was Nutella ice cream and chocolate. They are also very good with allergies and have options for those people too.
The other really good restaurant was Madame Jennet which had really good food and it was an outside restaurant which was very cool. That night I had chicken cutlet that was stuffed with ham and cheese. The only problem is, it’s very hard to get a reservation and you might have to wait 20 minutes for your table.
Overall I would give my trip a thumbs up because it was really fun, relaxing, and had great food.