Marriott’s Aruba Surf Club Timeshare

We have been to this resort previously and had a great time, however, it is clear that Marriott Vacation Clubs has not kept up with the maintenance here. We had paid for an ocean view villa, but were instead put in a room with a view of the building’s air conditioners, another building and the pool (see photos from my balconies).

This would have been acceptable (but not great) if I had paid for a garden view room. I thought a mistake might have been made by the concierge team and the front desk staff so I called the front desk and asked to be moved to an ocean view room.

I was informed that I was in an “ocean view” room and that the room type was a category, but that it was not indicative that my villa would, in fact, have an ocean view. I told the front desk that this explanation was nonsensical and I was informed that they were sorry, but that there was nothing that they could do to assist us.

Besides the issues with our view, the cleanliness and state of our villa was seriously sub-par. The shower in the master bedroom had standing water as it did not drain properly and the tiles were chipped in multiple places. In another bathroom, the toilet did not work. The dishwasher also was broken and flooded our kitchen. The floors has food crumbs and streaks of dirt all over the place. After I reported all of these issues to the front desk manager – I asked to be moved again and we were again refused. We had engineering in our villa 4 times the first day to attempt to fix all of the issues (including the installation of a replacement dishwasher).

They were able to fix some issues, but not all. I was so frustrated by the lack of assistance from the resort staff by this point that I end up spot scrubbing the floors of our villa and sweeping it myself.

While the pool and lazy river area are quite nice – the new chair tag policy is beyond inconvenient and there were always few chairs available and many tagged chairs that were unoccupied all day.

We have been Marriott Vacation Club (MVC) Owners since the mid-2000s and it has been sad to see the lack of consistency in quality from resort to resort since the organization broke off from the Marriott hotel corporation entity. Some resorts are great and others are not.

Basic bottom line – if you are coming to Aruba and wish to stay at an MVC resort – I would recommend that you stay at the Marriott Ocean Club and not the Marriott Surf Club. You will have a much better experience at the Marriott Ocean Club as the customer service and room quality (especially the views) are far superior.

This is my 5th trip to Aruba. I love Aruba. Before i share my critical feedback of the property let me start by saying it is a beautiful property.

When you drive down Route 6B through in Palm Beach the road runs parallel to the bleach with all properties around the same distance from the beach. That is until you get to the area where this property is. The road in front of this property is a couple hundred yards further from the beach than the other hotels on beautiful Palm Beach. Look at a map of Palm Beach to clearly see how much further from the beach rooms at this resort can be compared to virtually every other property!

In addition to the four other times I have visited Aruba I have been to the Caribbean at least 20 other times. The room that I have is further from the beach than any room I have ever stayed at. It is almost a 10 minute walk to the beach.

If they would have made up for the distance to the beach by having a great room, I would still have been disappointed at the distance to the beach but I could say at least i had a great room. Let me start with the size of the room, the room is less than 12 feet wide. Between the and the dresser against the wall at the door of the bed is a space of roughly 3 1/2” to go from one end of the room to another.

If you like privacy you will not like this resort. My very small balcony has a room with a window looking directly into my balcony. This was the final straw this morning when I was drinking coffee on my balcony looking at the Palm Tree that I have a view of (very disappointed in the view) and saw my neighbour looking out their window at me.

Finally, the decor and furniture in the room are dated.

If you think that this would not happen to me because I am a Marriott Platinum Elite Marriott Rewards member. Think again. I have that status. I even asked the Platinum Elite customer service to call a week in advance and ask for an upgrade or at least one of the better rooms in my room category. My Marriott profile has my preference as a high floor. I am on the 3rd of a 14 floor building.

I will not let my tremendous disappointment with my room ruin my vacation. After finishing my review I am going to stop thinking about my disappointment with Marriott. I checked in yesterday and I am going to love my remaining 6 days of my vacation.

If I were you I would avoid booking this property!!!

Mortified to learn that rooms are cleaned only twice a week (we stayed 7 days) unless you were willing to pay an additional fee I’ve almost $100 (per day) for daily room cleaning. Our room was not available till almost 5 p.m. (one hour after check-in time), but our room keys were probably deactivated at 10:01 a.m. on the day of check out (which would ordinarily have been 10 am).

Service on the beach and around the pool was essentially non-existent.

If you’re planning to go to Aruba, check into a legitimate Hotel rather than a Marriott “Vacation Club”. Everything about this hotel appears to be an afterthought as compared to the other Marriott in Aruba.

I have had superior experiences at the Hyatt and Ritz in prior years when staying in Aruba and this experience may have showered me to ever staying at another Marriott property in the future, either for business or pleasure.

Given how much competition there is in the Hospitality industry, I am actually quite grateful that Marriott has made it easier for me to eliminate their brand in future searches as I plan my upcoming trips.

This place is too big, too many people, nowhere to sit at the pool or beach.

You have to get up at 6am if you want a good seat and if you don’t come back within 2 hours they take away your tags and towels.

If you want to relax, this is not the place.

You must carry your towels up and down to your room, there was 6 of us and everyday we were carrying wet towels from the beach(where we had to pay $40.00 to get an umbrella and somewhere to sit) to the hut to return your towels which is a long walk from the beach. I was told you can go to the hut on the beach to get a hut but you have to wait in line starting at 2pm and they don’t give out huts until 4pm. You call this a vacation, I call this insanity.

Wait in line,to return your towels to one non-friendly person which is all the way back at the main building and then carry your towels back up to your room and bring it back down to carry around to find somewhere to sit, which in January is not possible.

I find this place not to be relaxing as you feel like you are cattle. I would recommend finding somewhere they have attendants that help you find a chair and that is not overbuilt and overcrowded. They need to rethink the way they operate here, it is very sad what happened to this place. I love Aruba, do not love the Surf Club. And how can I forget that the floors in the rooms are not cleaned well.

My grandchildren walked around barefoot to find their feet filthy. They had a bucket sitting in the hallway for days and the bucket was filled with dirty water. The cleaning service is terrible. We were charged $140.00 a day for cleaning service and the sheets were half changed, the same pillowcases were left on the bed. My bed was returned with dirty sheets that I had to wash. Very disappointing visit to this place.

Overcrowded, super windy part of Aruba, and the pool chair competition every day ruins the vacation

Rooms are nice.

Pool food is terrible.

Don’t sleep in and get extra rest because you won’t get a chair at the pool unless you get up by 6 am to tag one.

It’s not a vacation if I have to get up at 6 am just to get a stupid chair.

It is a family oriented resort and I liked that, but it is too crowded for the facilities available.