We stayed here the week right after Thanskgiving and we were looking for a nice relaxing trip. PBV was just the place. We were in phase 1, which I think was the older bujilding but it looked to have been recently renovated. Very clean, daily maid service, all the appliances are new. The grounds have 2 large pools, 2 hot tubs, and plenty of tables. The view from the deck where the pools are is great. You look out to the ocean and beach area(across the street).
The location is great! Right on Eagle beach, not a lot of congestion that you get with the high rise hotels.
This was our 2nd time to Aruba and we tried the "beach" restaurants: Passions, which was excellent!!! Great food, service and veiw.Footprints: restaurant from the Hyatt: disappointing, food not that great, and it's down among the high rises so there is that "tight" feeling. Flying Fish, which is a 20 minute car ride was our second time there. Great location, food is good but quite pricy.
Some of the reviews on this resort were not good when I was researching but I am happy that we decided to go there and would recomend it.

If you can make your own fun, and plan on renting a car I highly recommend this resort. We arrived at PBV on Saturday the 27th for a one week stay. We were met with friendly smiles and quickly checked in and in our room. We were in room 201 on the second floor of building one. This floor has not been remodeled yet but I believe they are in the process. Our unit was a two bedroom each having a separate bath. The master suite had a whirlpool tub and the second suite had a huge walk-in shower.
The master suited had a king bed and the second bedroom had twins which could easily be pushed together. The unit was clean and the airconditioning worked very well. This is a very quiet resort with very few activities. If you are looking to relax and enjoy pool and beach time this is a great resort for the money. There is an owners website where you can find units available for rent in many cases for the maintenance fee approximately $600. (---) PBV has two very nice pools and a hot tub and is about 300 feet from Eagle beach. There is a pool bar which is open from about 11-6 daily. Le Petite Cafe is on site and they also serve food at the teke bar. The majority of the people at the resort seem to be in the 50 plus category. If you are looking for clean, quiet and comfortable this is the perfect place.

October 6-13. Was slightly overcast all week, but my husband still got sunburned under the palapa. A rash guard/sun shirt should be used while snorkelling to avoid burning your backside. Eagle beach across the street from PBV was a great beach with about 10 palapas for PBV. The first row was typically reserved before 8am, although they say they don't allow that behaviour. We enjoyed the location, because it was less congested than the high rise zone and even better than the southern end of Eagle Beach. The sand was amazingly clean, white, and cool to the touch during the height of the day. There was a roped off swimming area that was clear of rocks or anything sharp. PBV provides pool/beach towels that are big and fluffy. The pool area did not have much to offer children as far as entertainment, the La Cabana next door had a water slide. This was fine with us, because there were only 2 sets of children there and we went there to get away from it all. Unfortunately, the place (and Aruba in general) was crawling with New Yorkers and Bostonians, which provided some rivalry during the baseball playoffs. The Tiki Bar closes at 7pm, which makes the place extremely quiet. They do have Happy Hour (1/2 price drinks and beer) from 12pm-6pm. We saw a lot of people bringing there own drinks though, because the drinks seemed a little on the weak side at the bar. The Petit Cafe was alright to try once for dinner and breakfast. PBV actually had a better breakfast at the Tiki Bar. The Amsterdam beach dinner was superb (2 doors down), but reservations needed for sunset. they say they open at 6:30pm, but getting there at 6:15pm assures you a spot in front.

The rooms are clean, and the studio that we had was a bit dark, but we did not spend much time in our room. Sound from the neighboring room carried well, we really got to know the temperment of the 18 month old next door. The shower/bath had a jacuzzi tub which we enjoyed. The bathroom was quite big. There was a medium size refrigerator in the room which fit many of our drinks. Some of the other items in the room were a bit rustic (such as the room safe and dark lighting), but we've had worse.

We had mixed information about the bus system, but basically the busses run about 1 every 20-30 minutes along the hotel strip and into Oranjestad. If you go up to the CA lighthouse, we were told that busses only return from there until about 6:30pm. the bus does not go all the way to the lighthouse, but gets you pretty close. Although there was not a bus stop right in front of PBV, we found that if you stand in the area big enough for the bus to pull over, it will stop for you. Roundtrip tickets cost less than two one ways, but we couldn't figure out where or how to buy bus passes. We just paid the driver everytime we got on. The bus will not take you all the way to Baby Beach (excellent snorkelling, some gear availabel there), but you can rent a moped or a car for less than $40/day. The Renaissance downtown had a mall next to it that had several restaurants on the far end. Venturing a bit further to the water revealed tons of iguanas. The park next door had many iguanas as well. By accident we found out that the Paddock downtown had the best mixed grill food (we ate there on a Friday when we got stuck in a torrential downpour, which passed within an hour). If you venture up to the high rise area, there is a boardwalk that takes you by all of the hotels and beach restaurants and you can sign-up for water sports there too.

All in all, we were quite pleased with the location and dealt with our dark room. (We saw that the 1 and 2 bedroom places had views of the pool and beach from balconies which we did not have, so they definately had better rooms.)

Read more about this trip and see pictures at our personal web: www.jndstravelog.com

We just returned from a week at Paradise Villas in Aruba. What a great find. We rented a two bedroom facing the ocean with another couple. We found the rooms to be spacious and clean. The staff at PV is so helpful and friendly. The pool area and small cafe are just right for relaxing and the beach is just breath taking. I would recommend this facility to everyone looking for a peaceful, relaxing vacation.