We booked a relatively last minute trip to Aruba from 12/25 - 12/31/06. My wife, the vacation ninja, found out that Jet Blue was adding direct service from JFK airport to Aruba and managed to get us and another family ticketed. We also were able to get hotel rooms on relatively short notice. We booked rooms at the Aruba Westin, which changed from the Aruba Wyndham in mid December.

Thanks to recommendations on the board (especially Doc V), I got myself plugged in with S.E. Aruba Fly and Dive. Aruba is a great trip from the NY metro area because it is a direct flight. On the way home, you go through US customs on Aruba, which eliminates the big bottleneck at JFK. On our return, we were advised to be at the Aruba airport three hours early. We checked our bags and got through customs within about half an hour, so I would not get there quite as early next time. Jet Blue ran on time, as always.

My family is not into roughing it, so we wanted one of the hotels on Palm Beach. The Westin had literally just changed hands and the hotel was not totally ready to go. There was serious understaffing in housekeeping and maintainence. There was a fair amount of confusion at the front desk. It took us a long time to get situated in the correct room. My wife spent a lot of time trying to arrange everything in advance. Of course, there was no record of any of this at the hotel.

Once we finally got into our room, everything was fine. The hotel was very nice otherwise. There was a very good outdoor restaurant on site that served breakfast and lunch. There was also a good, if unremarkable buffet breakfast in the hotel. After the first day or two, we would just walk five minutes to a Dunkin' Donuts for a simpler breakfast.

The beach was very nice, if crowded. The weather was clear and sunny, in the 80's. There was a constant refreshing breeze that made the island very comfortable in the shade.

I would not rush back to stay at the Westin. There are certainly more economical alternatives. If I were to go back to Aruba, I would look into the Marriot Vacation Club and try to get a 2 bedroom set up which would allow more space to hang out.

We ate at the Westin's onsite steakhouse, Pago Pago, the first night that we arrived. It was a bit expensive, but good and convenient. We would not have eaten there if we weren't tired and new to Aruba. Our favorite dinner was at the El Gaucho steakhouse. They served excellent Argentine steaks and had a great selection of wine. Dinners weren't cheap, but were good. We also enjoyed a Brazilian barbecue place called Amazonia. It was an all you can eat barbecue with a salad bar and good side dishes. Dinner was $40 per person. The restaurant was festive and fun. We went to the Driftwood Inn one night, which is a seafood place. It felt like more of a local place and had a nice, low key atmosphere. The food got mixed reviews from the eight of us and I don't think that we would go back. We got tired of having elaborate meals every night and went out to Tomato Charlie's for pizza and salad one night, which was fine. Another night we went to Casa Tua, another low key Italian restaurant within walking distance from our hotel.

And now for the diving... I hooked up with S.E Aruba Fly and Dive. I had a very enjoyable experience diving with them and would happily dive with them again. I dove on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the week between Xmas and New Year's- a peak week. There were 12 divers the first 2 days and 18 the last day. 12 divers on the boat was very comfortable. On the last day, there were a lot more divers and the shop ran a second boat. 18 divers was cozy but not crowded. All things considered, pretty good...

There were enough divemasters and staff to keep things running well. Ben, the captain, picked me up from my hotel every morning. He explained to me that the first day that someone dives with them, they size the new diver up to determine how experienced they are and to see how much help they need. If you are an experienced diver, you are given some latitude. If you seem to need help, the staff rides herd on you.

There was a DM in the water per 6 divers. Divers had the option of diving on their own with their buddies instead of following the group. I was lucky enough to hook up with a very nice guy from the Detroit area named Jack. Jack was a much more experienced diver than I am and a pleasure to dive with. This had a very positive effect on my diving. The dive briefings were good and informative. There were suggested bottom times for every one. Only once was the dive a bit shorter than I would have liked it to be.

The dive operation was professional, friendly and competent. The level of service was in the middle. You aren't on your own, like I was in Florida, but you aren't fawned over the way I have been in Cozumel or the Turks and Caicos. This was fine with me.

I won't bore you with specific dives, but I can say that there was alot of coral in very good shape. There were a lot of fish and a lot of schools. Aside from seeing 2 turtles (my first in 50 dives) and a scorpionfish, there weren't very many striking or unusual fish. I did see the biggest rainbow parrotfish ever and an enormous puffer. Aruba also has the most honeycomb trunkfish that I have ever seen. The only thing that was a bit of a bummer was that we had to wait for about half an hour before we could splash when we dove the Antilla. Apparently there are a limited number of mooring sites for the wreck and we had to queue up and wait for a site to open up. It was the first time that I was stuck in traffic waiting to dive. This minor disappointment notwithstanding, I had a great time diving with SEAruba and would recommend them instead of the bigger dive ops on Aruba.

I had a great vacation week and a great time diving. Aruba was a successful trip and had piqued my interest in Bonaire.

Joel Solomon