We were very pleased with our Honeymoon at Bucuti. The beach there is much nicer than that of the "high rise area"- however, the pool has much to be desired. Service was great although they need to add room service options- or at least better take away containers. Watch out for the iguanas, one slipped into our room! I definitely recommend this hotel, as you have pros and cons with almost any place. If you get your own jeep, the concierge with give you a map, but be patient as there are really no street names on the island.

Wonderful Week at Bucuti Beach
Date: October 22 - October 29, 2006
We are just back from a wonderful weeks stay at the Bucuti Beach Resort on Eagle Beach in Aruba. Everything was wonderful. My wife and I were in the Tara Suites and our son and daughter were in the newly refurbished Bucuti Wing. Both rooms were great. We found them to be clean and bright and daily Housekeeping was great. We had no issues what so ever with any type of bugs. As has been reported, we occassionally needed to empty the de-humidifier in our Tara Suite room, but this was not an issue for us. There was a slightly musty smell the Sunday we checked in, but it quickly disappeared and we did not notice it the rest of the week. It was mainly in the stairwell of the Tara Building. We did not see any mold or mildew anywhere.
The beach is beautiful and never crowded. There are more than enough Palapala's for the rooms and we always had loungers and shade. The weather was perfect - warm but with a nice breeze.
We enjoyed the beach service, for drinks one day and for lunch on another occasion. Our 2 dinners at the Pirates Nest were good, but not as outstanding as some of the other restaurants on the island. This is an area that could be improved upon.
The staff at the Sand Bar were efficient and friendly and we enjoyed it here.
The pool is nothing to speak of, but the manager explained to us that starting in January they will be completely redesigning it. It should be completed in mid February. He showed us architects renderings and it looks really nice.
In February they are also adding Room Service for all meals as an amenity. And in March they will be enclosing and air conditioning the Pirates Nest restaurant. They will keep their outdoor seating area, but guests will have a choice in the future.
We ate twice at Pizza Bob's, across the driveway and we enjoyed it very much. Good Pizza, good food and good service. On Saturday they had live music that was very good.
We ate at the French Steakhouse next door at the Manchebo resort and we were very disappointed. Only marginal food and awful service.. We also ate at Madamme Janette's which was wonderful. It is a restaurant on par with any big city restaurant in the US. It was wonderful.
We also had lunch at Iguana Joe's which was good and fun, as well as Charlies Bar in San Nicholas. The shrimp and beer were good, but expensive.
Bucuti is a wonderful small resort. It is quiet, as we desired, but a short cab ride away from the action if you wish. They have a niche market they target, and they do this job well. According to their manager we talked with, they have no desire to grow above the 104 rooms they have, but they will continue to make enhancements to the resort.
We will definitely return for another wonderful week in the future.

My husband and I were very happy with our decision to stay in the Tara Suites wing of the Bucuti Beach Resort. We stayed in a suite on the first floor which we loved because we had an awesome view of the ocean and direct access to the beach. The beach outside of our room was beautiful, quiet and very relaxing. We loved that we could stick a flag in the sand to signal to the wait staff that we wanted a drink or a bite to eat. We ate burgers, fries and frozen margheritas on the beach one day -the food was surprisingly good, the portions big and we were pleasantly surprised at how reasonably priced it was (we expected beach service to be much more expensive and food quality to be only fair).

Our room was very comfortable - nicely decorated (modern), clean and spacious. The staff at Bucuti were friendly and helpful - especially the concierge. The resort is quiet because it is relatively small and there are no kids.

Bucuti shows a movie on the beach every Wednesday and Saturday night. The movies they showed while we were there weren't that great but we went one night anyway just because it was fun to watch a movie and drink champagne on the beach.

A "romantic dinner" was included in our honeymoon package. The food was good but not the best - we had much better meals at other restaurants on the Island. All in all the romantic dinner was nice - it is private and the setting is beautiful. On the downside, our waiter was a little too talkative for our liking and a bit slow in serving the courses. We had a dinner on the beach at Azul - a restaurant in the hotel that used to be the Wyndam - I think it is now called the Aruba Grand. The food there is much better than at Bucuti's Pirate's Nest however the setting isn't as private and the cost is $60 per person.

Bucuti is situated close to a casino and a few places to eat. The bus stop is walking distance so it is easy and cheap to get a bus downtown or to the high-rise resort area where there are more restaurants and casinos.

A lot of people on this site mention that the pool at Bucuti is terrible -- and it is, but WHO CARES when you have a fantastic beach! If you plan on spending time at the pool - don't go to Aruba : )

In summary: We loved it and would definately stay at the Tara Suites again!

We stayed at the Bucuti (10/20/06 - 10/24/06) and loved every minute at the hotel. The beach at the Bucuti is the best I have ever been too. This was a very relaxing vacation with lots of time spent on the beach. The water was clear and warm with lots of sun. We used PF50 sunscreen and still got burnt.

The hotel accommodated us in every way. We had a problem with the AC and called the front desk, the technician showed up within 5 minutes and fixed the problem. The management staff was always looking for ways to help make our stay better.

The food was good, but the service at dinner was a bit slow. It seemed as though the waiter had too many tables to service. We had breakfast and lunch most days and it was excellent.

The sunsets are spectacular and everyone took time to watch each evening. This was a very romantic setting and we saw several weddings on the beach during our stay.

The Bucuti is wonderful.