Costa Linda Beach Resort

June 11 - June 25, 2004 By Teri

Four People, Two Vacations, One Happy Island

This trip report is long over due…sorry for the delay but two weeks away can make for a month’s worth of problems.

Used our American Airline miles for first class tickets and are glad we did. On June 22 AA announced they would be discontinuing services at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. The flights were uneventful with departures being on time and arrivals early.

We stayed at Costa Linda where we own two weeks. The trip was wonderful…this was our tenth visit in eight years and we are always amazed by Aruba. While some of the visitors may be cranky from time to time, the people of Aruba consistently envelop you in their warmth and hospitality.

We spent most of our time letting sand gravity take its toll. We took long walks from Costa Linda to Amsterdam Manor (north) in the morning and long walks from Costa Linda to the Divi (south) in the afternoon. Not that we didn’t mix it up…golfed at Tierra Del Sol once each week (Neil from New Jersey filled out our group the second week—great fun). Visited Alhambra Casino four times…had a lot of fun for our money and I even made a small ($75) profit one night.

Went into town only once to shop, except for groceries…Hong King and Ling & Sons were both visited and they provided us the best and freshest the country has to offer. We reminisced about the changes that Aruba has seen in recent years…remember Polar beer, the Pueblo supermarket, the Flame Restaurant in Noord?

This year we visited a few new restaurants, Mirandi, Chalet Suisse (in eight years we had never eaten there), and Tomato Charlies. I’ll be adding restaurant reviews as time permits. Used the Visit Aruba Plus card for the second year for our rental car from Economy Car Rental and cell phone this year from RentACell. Both were a pleasure to work with. Wi-Fi internet service worked well and was free, no problems connecting or with signal strength.

I feel the need to apologize for such a boring trip report. After re reading it, I’ve been trying to figure out how to make this more exciting, but we don’t go the Aruba for excitement, we go to relax! After two year it was like going home. I guess it’s that feeling and the friendly, familiar faces we see each year that keeps us going back year after year.

Teri in OH