First time we have stayed at Marriott Surf Club even though we have been coming for over 30 years to Aruba. We stayed a total of 10 days - 3 days at the Holiday Inn Aruba right Nextdoor and 7 days at the surf Club. We faced the poolside/sea view on the 11th floor. Nice room seemed pretty clean. Bed was a full size so one of us slept on pull out couch, which was very uncomfortable!! Had to go out by 6:30am to get pool chairs which is absolutely ridiculous!! You have to stay with your chairs until 7am otherwise they pull your pool chair tags before 7am. Can’t get towels u til 7am the you have to be back at chairs by 9am and every two hrs after that you have to be at your pool chairs or they will pull your tags! I would get coffee and bagel at the Market Place in hotel every morning which was good, but the system can be slow. We bought electronic key brackets instead of having a card for ten dollars each, put they don’t work well at all! Especially on the elevator which you need a key just to go up on the elevator to your floor. I had it reprogrammed twice and they never worked even in the towel machine they didn’t work. People on the elevator would say, oh they never work! I told the front desk when I checked out, but they could of cared less. We didn’t do a timeshare presentation, which I was glad about. The main pool closes at 8pm and the lazy river at 10pm. Although they turn the jets down on river early which was frustrating! They have left over floats there so you can use one of them. The beach is very crowded a lot of beach huts way back. The sea was good, warm and relaxing, but crowded. The pool area has an outside cafe, good service, lunch is around $20 per person, so we split something. Drinks are 2 for one 2pm to 6pm daily. They have bingo at pool. $2 a card then at 1pm they play three games the coverall can be worth up to $500 or more. They apply the winnings to your room. The lazy river can get very crowded. If you are bringing kids I think it would be fun. They have a lot of activities in their kid’s club. There are two other pools, one more for kids with a slide too and then an adult small quiet pool. One thing I didn’t like is the resort mainly runs vertices from the beach so all you see is pool you would have to walk far to experience the beach. Where as the Holiday Inn the resort is horizontal to the beach, so everywhere you go at the Holiday you see and experience the sea and beach! Which is a huge Plus for us! You really feel it is more tropical, where the Marriott Surf Club. you just feel like you are at a pool. Also the beach huts are two deep at the Holiday Inn where as at Surf Club there are several rows back from water. Also at the Surf Club there are no restaurants other then the pool one. There is no bar or anything. You have to go off property which I did not like at all. At least at the Holiday Inn you have a beachfront restaurant with music, called the Sea Breeze and you have several other bars, casino, other entertainment in courtyard and a few other restaurants on property. So be prepared to walk or take a taxi if you don’t have a rental car to go to anything. We met some nice people at the surf club. All in all it was a nice place, but I prefer the Holiday Inn.
