What a great family vacation. My wife and I and our 2 children ages 7 and 9 just got back on the 20th from the Surf Club. Our first stay there as a Marriott Timeshare owner. I can't think of better family vacation. We stayed in a beautiful 2 bedroom suite Ocean/Pool view on the 11th floor. I don't understand the previous review, it was quiet as can be. Beautiful view. Great time of year to go(Aruba's low season). You can basically sit anywhere you want by the pool and didn't need to get up early to save a chair. The kids loved the lazy river and of course, the water slide as well.
The staff was as friendly as can be and the resort was clean and comfortable. We brought our floats with us we purchased at Target for the pool and went shopping the first day at Ling and Sons grocery store to purchase breakfast and luch items. I would highly recommend the grocery store as the prices for lunch at the pool were quite high. The restaurants were great. I would recommend Gianni's and Screaming Eagle for a nice night out without the kids and going to Casa Tua for casual Italian and Pizza with the whole family. We ate there 2x as the food was great. I also liked Tomato Charlies across from the Hyatt for pizza as well. Ribs were great and plentiful at Smokey Joe's. No need to rent a car as we walked to most places. Even saw "The Incredible Hulk" at the movies with my son. Opening weekend and 6 people in the theater. It was a very spacious and clean theater as well. Good movie too!!
We took a Jeep tour of the island on ABC Tours. Our guide was great and to see and learn about the island was very interesting. Even the kids had fun. I would definately recommend the 3.5 hour tour, just long enough to see everything that needs to be seen. Natural Bridge site, Natural Pool, Gold Ruins, etc..
Our kids spent 2 nights in the "kids night out" program from 6pm -9pm so my wife and I could go out. They enjoyed it a lot. Especially the Gamecube video game. All in all it was the best family vacation we had. We will definately be back next year. In my opinion, Aruba is the best vacation spot in the Caribbean.

Last year we visited Aruba and stayed at the newly renovated Hyatt - an awesome first class hotel - rooms were small and pricey, but first class. This year we stayed at the Marriott Surf Club - Very large spacious room, full kitchen, washer and dryer 2 tv's which is a benefit when you have kids. Though we loved the room, we were a bit dis-appointed with the hotel. The front desk, housekeeping and concierge were all very understaffed. We booked a dive trip and when doing so asked why the rate was so much higher this year than last, we were told the cost went up - the reality was that the Marriott concierge tacked on a $26 booking fee - when we questioned this upon checking out we were told it is what it is - we tried to discuss this with the front desk supervisor or hotel manager neither was available - we will be taking this up with American Express at a later date.

The housekeeper came to our room to tidy up no earlier than 5PM most days - many days she came between 5:15 and 5:30 - just the time we were arriving back to get ready for dinner. Needless to say we didn't have our room cleaned most days.

The hotel does not have a restaurant for breakfast and there are limited choices available on site.

The hotel has a limited policy for renting shade at the beach - you can rent a hut for no more than 2 days at a time for the cost of $15.00 a day- they place your name on a reservation card and you are responsible for setting up your own chairs. If you don't rent a hut you can get up at 7:30 to place your belongings on a non reserved hut to save your spot, but, be aware that if you leave your hut vacant during the day for a 2 hr period or more, the hut police will take away your items and you have lost your shade. The same goes for the pool - no reservations for shaded areas and if you leave your items for 2 hours or more , your items will be removed.

The resort is clean and well maintained our only complaint was a HORRIBLE smell coming from a vent down near the beach - when we say horrible it was like smelling an overflowing septic tank in the hot summer sun.

Last we highly recommend Casa Tua - (near the Hyatt) for dinner - also the Aqua Grill and Tomato Charlies all excellent meals with wonderful wait stuff. Watch when you go to dinner many restaurants are now charging a 15% service fee which is not tip for your server - this is for parties of any size - Casa Tua and Tomato Charlies do not do this.

If you are going for only a few days, consider the Hyatt - if for a week or more the Marriott has advantages -

A group of 8 friends (all mid 20's) and I stayed at the Surf Club for the last week of May. We had a great time! We stayed in a timeshare (given to us for the week by a friend's mom) and got upgraded to a 2 bedroom suite. There was plenty of space for all 8 of us and the room was clean and well stocked. We never seemed to have enough shower towels, but we were too busy having fun to ask for more so that was probably our fault.

The pros- Gorgeous beach (very windy) and warm beach water. Awesome pool with a lazy river, which was my favorite. I spent many hours floating around the lazy river with a fruity drink from the swim up bar. The 8 of us never managed to get down to the beach/pool before 11am and we still managed to find a clump of chairs together if we looked for a bit. The hotel is very nice, we didn't see any construction. People are super friendly.

The cons- The island of Aruba is kind of ugly... its a desert. I wouldn't go for sight-seeing, but chilling at the resort was a blast. Food and alcohol are way overpriced, of course, but the swim-up bar has happy hour at 3pm daily with 2-for-1 specials (drinks were really good, too) that makes them more acceptable (still not cheap). Also, you can buy floats for the pools/beach, but we managed to grab some from guests who were leaving so we had 8 floats but didn't have to pay for them.

Real quick, some stuff we did- Tattoo party boat wasn't that great (food was okay and drinks were cheap, but extremely weak), Snorkeling "jolly pirate" boat was a blast, and the Stellaris Casino was good times.

Returned from a week's stay at the Surf Club on June 20. It was a terrific resort. We stayed on the 11th floor with an ocean view, it was beautiful. I would recommend any view, but a pool view. It is very noisy around the pool area. Personally, I didn't like the pool area, it was loud and people were nasty about the use of the chairs. I thought the lazy river could have been cleaner too. My family enjoyed going to the beach far more. We tried to get a palapas, but were not always successful. There are plenty of chairs available and we usually parked them up close to the water. The beach was wonderful until the wind kicked up at a higher rate and then we felt as though we were pelted by the sand. Generally, the wind keeps everything comfortable.

There are many activites right at the beach and my family took advantage of the snorkling and parasailing. My husband said that the Dolphin snorkling tour was terrific. Baby beach was a beautiful beach for snorkling, as well.

Enjoyed eating out. The places we enjoyed the most were Wacky Wahoo and ElTrattoria up by the lighthouse.

We rented a car from Royal. The car wasn't the greatest, but Royal was inexpensive and easy to deal with. We were glad we had the car and were glad we weren't getting in a cab to go places like others at the Surf Club.

Be prepared, groceries are expensive and you will never have a good hair day there.

I would definitely go back.