Kid-friendly Aruba

What six things should you do in Aruba, especially if you’re traveling with kids? I’m glad you asked. 😛

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1. Go to Renaissance Island

Before we went to Aruba, I saw pictures of people frolicking with flamingos on the beach and I promptly put “frolic with flamingos on the beach” on my bucket list.

I did a little more research and discovered that you have to go to a private Renaissance Resort island to visit the flamingos. I had some trouble finding accurate information about the day passes for Renaissance Island, so here’s the rundown:

• The day passes for Renaissance Island cost $99/day. Kids under 12 are free.
• Your ticket includes the boat ride to/from Renaissance Island, your lunch, a drink, towels on the island, and beach chairs/umbrellas once you’re there.
• The boat runs from 7am – 7pm.
• They only sell a small number of passes and only if the hotel is at less than 80% occupancy. You have to buy your passes on the day-of, so show up early! We got there at 8:00am. We also stopped by the day before to make sure there would be passes available.
• Children are only allowed on Flamingo Beach from 9am-10am. We visited/fed the flamingos during this time. We also popped by to take a photo later in the day, and we didn’t have any problems doing that, they just don’t want you hanging out and bothering the flamingos.
• Children are allowed on Iguana Beach all day, and we personally liked Iguana Beach better anyway.

We were worried that splurging on the day passes wouldn’t be worth it, but our day on Renaissance Island was the highlight of our trip to Aruba. We stayed from 8:45am – 6:00pm and had fun all day!

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2. Visit aptly named “Baby Beach.” 

Besides Renaissance Island, Baby Beach was our favorite beach on Aruba. It is perfect for young kids. The waves rolls in slowly, the sand is soft, and the water is shallow. We visited Baby Beach twice during our time in Aruba, even though it was the farthest away from our AirBnB.

As per our usual, we brought our tent and lunch and set up camp for the day.

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3. Check out Eagle Beach and Palm Beach 

Eagle Beach and Palm Beach are two of the more popular beaches on Aruba.

Eagle Beach is rated the 3rd best beach in the world by Trip Advisor, and it’s definitely worth a visit. I’ve never seen so much white sand on a beach before. If you like building sand castles or playing beach games, this is the beach for you! We spent a day at Eagle Beach napping in our tent, burying Winston in the soft sand, and enjoying the rolling waves.

 

We also spent an afternoon at Palm Beach and enjoyed a yummy Matcha Bowl from Eduardo’s Beach Shack.

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4. Do a self-led driving tour of the island

The kids fell asleep in the car one afternoon, so we let them nap while we drove up to the California lighthouse and explored some of the less beachy areas on the island.

We ate most of our meals in the downtown area near the “resort area” in Palm Beach. Our favorite dinner was at a cute little restaurant called Papillon. So yummy!

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5. Stay at an AirBnB 

This is a matter of personal preference, but I love staying at AirBnB’s when we travel with our kids. It gives us space to spread out a little bit, it feels more homey, and instead of being tied down a resort we rent a car and get to explore the whole island.

In Aruba, we booked a cute AirBnB just 5 minutes away from Palm Beach. It was clean, comfortable, and much more affordable than the resort and hotel options nearby.

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6. Eat a romantic sunset dinner on the beach (with the kids… :P) 

We were driving around looking for dinner options one night when we came across Passions on the Beach.

We were the only people with young kiddos at the romantic sunset dinner, but we had a lot of fun eating with our feet in the sand. The food was delicious, the kids were well behaved, and it was still romantic (even with the kids in tow!).