Marriott's Aruba Surf Club Reviews & Ratings

Amazing resort to relax in! You can choose the higher energy crowd in the lazy river or float out in the ocean on calm, serene waters. Great restaurants are within walking distance so no need to rent a car. Just remember to bring your pool floats and Yetis!

Also, being able to enjoy an IPA on the island is a plus. A rare beer in the Caribbean!

Probably one of the best resorts for a family in Aruba.The Marriott Aruba Surf Club offers great accommodations with at a great beach and boasts a “Lazy River”,fun for the whole family!

We have been going here since it opened. Love this place! With the oceanfront unit you will see the most beautiful sunsets in Aruba!!

Beautiful family friendly resort, that is in a perfect location to everything Aruba. 20 years have been going and never had a bad year!

This resort is in a terrific location, a short beach walk to restaurants, and has been great for our family - lazy river, pool bar, separate adult pool, grills to BBQ. It’s adjacent to 2 other Marriott properties and the Ritz Carlton.

A vacation that never disappoints!

We love this resort, for couples, or families. Food at the resort is great, food around the resort is great as well and you can walk to most restaurants. The beach is calm and inviting, the sunsets are amazing!! A perfect place to truly relax.

The resort is facing right at the beach with excellent ocean view. The resort has fabulous swimming pool and a well equipped gym. It is also close to restaurants and shopping area.

We have been 20 times! It is Cleary the best family resort in the Caribbean!

This is our favourite destination to travel to annually. The Marriott offers consistent product - only the best and updates and renovates regularly so its always fresh. The nice thing about Aruba Marriott Surf Club is it's very central to a lot of great restaurants, activities, shops and beautiful scenery. It is very safe and people are very friendly and nice. My favourite restaurants: Wacky Wahu, Flying Fish, Jemanje. I love Aruba and soon you will too unless you have already been then you likely love it as well. Enjoy!

We visited Aruba surf club in February 2020. Very crowded. A lot of kids. Aruba is beautiful but will never stay there again.

We decided to go again in April instead of Florida. We booked through redweek to stay at the ocean club then COVID happened. Jet blue canceled our flights and the lovely woman from New Jersey refunded our money. We also booked two extra nights for $750 from Robin Gran at Aruba to go and she would NOT refund our money. DO NOT EVER BOOK WITH HER. I DO NOT KNOW HOW SHE IS STILL IN BUSINESS. VERY UNPROFESSIONAL.

We wanted to use our credits with jet blue so in august we booked the ocean club for 12/18 to 1/1. I booked this through RICHARD ALTSCHULER from Massachusetts on redweek who told me he was an owner. He is a broker. I did not take out insurance because every where I called they said insurance does not cover COVID. We spent $6100 and now have to cancel because of COVID. RICHARD ALTSCHULER WILL NOT REFUND OUR MONEY. He has a few postings on redweek. DO NOT BOOK WITH THIS MAN. HE IS A THIEF. We currently have our attorney working on this. I even suggested that he hold our two weeks until after vaccine. He said no.

I will never stay in a timeshare again. Or book through redweek. These owners don’t care. As long as they have your money.

When here last year. Loved it so much we rebooked for next year. Great for kids. Staff kind. Two bedroom ideal for our family of 5. Only little complaint is it is sometimes difficult to get pool/beach chairs. Just have to get up early and or reserve beach ahead of time.

I've stayed here 14 times now as an owner of two weeks. I rent my extra week out occasionally and wanted to see what people were saying. The resort is first class every year the update something and are on a cadence of replacing furnishings, appliances, bedding etc. I'm amazed at how they keep the pace. Every visit the place is in excellent shape. The ability to walk to restaurants and shopping (safely) is a nice feature. I think the staff is always friendly. The only down side is the towel and chair issue. I refuse to get up at the crack of dawn to reserve a chair. If only people would use chairs when they needed them the problem would resolve itself. Frankly it is the only negative thing I could think of at this resort.

Each unit 2 bedroom unit has a full kitchen, washer dryer, and living room. What you look at the cost it is a great value compared to what you pay for just a single hotel room.

The Marriott Aruba Surf Club and Ocean Club are both outstanding timeshares to purchase and enjoy. We own a week at both of these great Vacation Clubs and have happily returned here for 11 consecutive years. The weather is consistently great, Palm Beach and Eagle Beach are among the best in the world and the island is very safe for tourist. Also, the currency of choice is the U.S. dollar , the native Aruban people all speak English and are incredibly friendly to all visitors. Oh !! I almost forgot to mention how many fabulous restaurants there are serving every kind of cuisine imaginable. Aruba is our home away from home for sure. By tom4winds

Our first time to Aruba, though we travel a lot and have been to Hawaii many times. Seems most of the negative issues from 2012 listed below have been rectified. Like any property, peak season means you need to compete for resources like chairs (and restaurant seating, and drink service - you're here in peak season, come on!). That's the whole island in January. We are here now, winding up our 7 night stay and would definitely return to the Surf Club. A wonderful value for the stay here. 2 bedrooms separated by a common space means the 20-somethings can do their thing while we turn in earlier than they do. Lively spots can easily be found within walking distance. Main tip to new travelers here - - buy your liquor at the duty-free shop at the airport on your way here. MUCH less expensive. I will admit however, that if you don't want to buy bottles of liquor, the Surf Club happy hour was a good deal, especially when you consider the very generous pours. Overall, loved it. Considering purchasing our own time here, as this travel was on our brother's ownership here.

We are huge fans of this beautiful island and the Marriott surf club! The staff is wonderful, the resort is clean and location provides many restaurant options, shopping and activities without ever needing a ride. The chair hassles could be improved, but if that’s our only issues, we’ll see you there every year!

The nicest place on the island 🌴 cannot make everybody happy if a chair is their only complaint what does that tell you beautiful views extra friendly staff super clean one Happy Place on One Happy Island

Overall we had very positive experience at the Aruba Surf Club. The property is very clean, the staff is super friendly, and the activities for kids are both plentiful and a lot of fun! Also LOVE the lazy river. This being said, the pool and palapas reservation system is atrocious. We took turns waking up at 5:45 in the morning to go down to the beach to have a decent place (beach hut opens at 7am). Even at that unfriendly hour, we were often 8 or 9th in line. The other option is to go to the beach hut at 4pm in the afternoon, but again, the line begins as early as 2:30. Those early wake up and waiting times are unacceptable. As for the pool, the tag system is a joke. We also woke up early for the pool (6:30) to make sure we could have good chairs for the day (you're supposed to start tagging only at 7am but most people do it before then). In addition, security in on hawk watch and it feels very unpleasant to be surveilled for when you leave your chairs. We went to play bingo one day (bingo is also awesome btw!) and our chairs were taken away, even though we were gone less than the required 2h. Security was very unhelpful and we were not given our chairs back, but rather, a poor substitution that we were not happy with (we have a little one so we chose a spot with a ramp like descent into the water).

In a day and age where technology is so prevalent, perhaps the Marriott should learn from the Hyatt where you can book your palapas as soon as you book your reservation or, if you don't want to pay, you can also book on iPalapas from the comfort of your pyjamas or beach chair. All and all, even though everything else was so fun, unless this issue is fixed, I'm not sure we'll go back.

Beautiful, well-kept up resort with (mostly) friendly staff and decent service, considering all of the folks they are dealing with. Biggest complaint: the palapa reservation craziness and the pool chair tagging. If the rules were actually enforced, there wouldn't be much of an issue, but the rules are clearly not enforced, especially for regulars. I saw an instance of one man slipping $40 to the palapa person to get an entire week of palapas. I saw several cases of people using both palapas and pool chairs by putting tags on the pool chairs and not the palapas. And so forth. One poster labeled it Disneyworld in Aruba. I would label it Disneyworld in Aruba with cheaters. Having said all that, the Lazy River is great, Happy Hour is fun, and the atmosphere is generally positive, despite the flaws. Just be forewarned!

Spent a week here in July in Oceanfront room. We were assigned 12th floor and our views were spectacular! You truly could see from one end of island to the other. Our 2 bedroom unit was fabulous! The whole resort is very clean and well run by management. Our unit was very nicely furnished with comfortable sofa and chairs and beds. Everything was very up to date and again I can't emphasize enough how clean everything was. I am not sure how we lucked into the 12th floor unit but I did request a higher floor when I booked. We also requested a high chair and pack and play for our one year old traveling with us. While they were not in the unit when we arrived, we called and someone brought up within about 5 minutes. The kitchen has all of the appliances and utensils needed to fix meals. The little shop on the main level does sell some food items and their breakfast sandwiches are fresh and good if you don't feel like fixing anything yourself. Pizza and other foods offered around the complex was good as well. The pool and lazy river was very nice and we enjoyed them very much! The security is all around the place watching over everyone to ensure our safety and to make sure that everyone has a good time. I had opportunity to speak with a couple and they were always smiling and trying to be helpful. I read somewhere that people leave their pool tubes at the end of the week but didn't see any around..someone said they leave them by elevators or in the ice machine rooms...so I asked housekeeping if they knew where any extra tubes might be and they asked me what my room number was...15 minutes later they showed up with four leftover tubes for us! Wow! That was nice to not have to go search and buy! We did give them a tip for bringing them to us but still less than the cost if we purchased them! The dreaded chair tag issue is ridiculous and everyone is correct that all chairs were tagged early in the morning. The thing is, all chairs were mostly empty all day long! Marriott could help this by only giving one or two tags per room, especially since most people seem to only want a place to put their stuff and not to sit in all day. We actually did have people offer us their "extra" chairs when we were walking around looking for a place to sit. This happened twice..so there are some nice folks out there willing to share! The beach here is well maintained and has lots of palapas but the front rows are reserved the day before by waiting in line and reserving around 4pm each day. People lined up about an hour early for this. Again, most palapas had reserved tags but sat empty all day long. Such a shame..if you are not using it why not let someone else have it?? After the first day of reserving the very back row, we gave up and honestly, in the afternoon you can find front row chairs available as folks leave the beach after lunch time. So hang out at the pool in the morning and go to the beach in the afternoon! We went in July which is not prime season so not sure how it is when it is really crowded...but we found it quite nice and very relaxing and would highly, highly recommend anyone to stay here and also booking through Redbook was very easy and absolutely no issues with our reservation and it worked just like they say it does on the website. Have fun!!