Expectation: We were expecting the Marina to be more hip but again, weren’t excited by the room decor viewed on their website.

We were enjoying our visit at the Westin SO MUCH that we were running late for our Renaissance appointment. The wedding planner was still gracious and said “No Problem” because we were on “Aruba Time”. We felt we already knew the Ocean Suites side of the hotel well enough so limited this appointment to seeing some rooms on the “Marina” (adults only) side.

The Marina hotel does have a much nicer lobby. Open air, more furniture and space, great looking bar and opens to a pool that is just off the lobby. The lobby and pool are on the second floor over-looking the street. To the right of the pool is a canopied area that has over-sized lounges. While some reviews complained about the size of the pool (that it is small), we thought it was adequate for this hotel. How many people do you see in the pool at an adults only resort anyway? This side is definitely a lot more hip. (Nowhere near “Miami Beach cool” but not bad). The pool / bar area looked like it could be a lot of fun…. for a younger crowd that is… I think I could have had fun staying here 10 years ago when I was a 20-something and more interested in the party and less interested in comfort.

He showed us a couple of rooms that were again, ‘ok’. Again, the ‘new renovation’ does seem to fall a little short and the rooms seemed a little dark to us. I don’t remember any of the rooms we saw having a balcony and the cool hip vibe from downstairs does not make its way up here.

We were pretty sure we weren’t going to want to invite our guests to stay here either but were still going to return later in the evening to visit the private island and see a wedding set-up in progress. On another note, we did think their shopping mall was pretty nice and were also pleasantly surprised by their casino. It seemed bright and clean and I don’t remember it being smokey.

Now, off to the Hyatt Regency for meeting number 3!

Conclusion: This place had probably the best ‘party scene’ of all the locations we visited if that’s what you are looking for. Their rooms were also the least expensive of all the resorts we visited. It seems like a place I might have loved 10 years ago, but now I need something a little more sophisticated.