Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao family holidays and breaks

The tiny islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao guarantee sunshine 365 days a year, beaches that look like they’ve been doctored for the brochures, and a laidback friendliness you’ll be hard pushed to find in such quantities elsewhere. They do lack the lushness of other Caribbean islands – there’s no rainforest in the interiors – but they make up for this with their pristine waters and beaches, gorgeous pastel-coloured Dutch gabled houses, space, and lack of hurricanes!

Each beach or island has its own make-up, but everything is so close together, you can move from casual beach to glamorous resort within a matter of minutes. And because of their close proximity, it’s easy to do a lot of things without feeling as though you’re killing yourself in the process. Though the islands are small, the infrastructure you need for an easy family holiday is in place and the standard of accommodation, even in basic hotels, is typically great.

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Today

27°C
82°F

Flying Time	9.5 hours
Timezone	GMT -4
Local Currency	US Dollar

What to do

Snorkel, swim, sail, kayak, surf, water-ski, para-sail, horse-ride on the sand, and go fishing, then lounge about as the kids take part in some of the activities offered by the resorts. Land-sailing has become more common here; Bonaire has a purposebuilt track for it. Lac Bay, also on Bonaire, is the place for wind-surfing tuition (ages 11+).

On Aruba, take the kids to the Bubali Bird Sanctuary or better still Arikok National Park, home to a list of birds longer than your arm, including yellow orioles and hummingbirds. There’s also the Donkey Sanctuary, where kids can cuddle and sometimes help bottle-feed orphans, and the Aruba Ostrich Farm, with fun, interactive tours, a restaurant with kids’ menus and ice-cream, and a huge playground. Then head to the Butterfly Farm, dressing kids brightly so the butterflies will think they’re enormous flowers and land on them. Also on Aruba, kids love the Blue Parrotfish waterpark with its adrenaline-pumping slides for all ages, and grown-ups and kids alike get excited by the Atlantis Submarine, taking you 40m beneath the waves to see marine life and a couple of wrecks.

Otherwise, just relax with the kids on any number of Aruba’s beautiful beaches. The aptly named Baby Beach near the island’s easternmost tip is a prime spot for family holidays with young children, with the sea resembling a big tub of warm shallow bathwater, protected by rock breakwaters. Snorkelling, paddling, and sandcastle building are favourite pastimes.

On Curaçao, head for Playa Lagun, a super-family-friendly beach with tranquil shallow water and lots of marine life for snorkellers to admire. At Westpunt, kids enjoy watching locals jump from the cliffs into the sea, while at Willemstadt, the capital, they’ll enjoy strolling to Fort Amsterdam, site of the Governor’s Palace, with a church that still has a British cannonball embedded in it. Willemstadt’s floating market is a lovely sight, with schooners tied up by the canal, laden with fruit and veg from Venezuela and Colombia to sell. The Museum Kura Hulanda, one of the largest and most unusual in the Caribbean, has a life-size reconstruction of a slave ship that once sailed from the Ivory Coast, plus fossils, fertility dolls and musical instruments.

Discover Bonaire, a well-kept secret that was really only known to divers for a long time, and which remains low-key. As well as engaging in the usual sporting activities (snorkelling, swimming, kayaking…), you can wander around Fort Oranje and admire some of the Dutch Caribbean architecture.

See Dea Birkett’s blog on a family holiday in Aruba.

Where to stay

Families can take their pick from any number of hotels, ranging from luxury to basic, though because competition is fierce, ‘basic’ here means pretty good! In Aruba, if you want to be in the middle of the action on your family holiday, opt for a hotel in Oranjestad; for something quieter, go for the Low Rise area with its mix of resorts, boutique hotels and time-shares but ban on watersports and relative scarcity of restaurants and bars.

At the top end of the scale, the Renaissance Aruba Resort & Casino has Ocean Suites suitable for families, a small artificial beach, a pool with elaborate slides, the Patamingo Kids Club with day and evening activities, and babysitting. Divi Dutch Village just seconds from Druiff Beach has 9 restaurants, 3 swimming pools, tennis, nightly live music and entertainment, and a children's club. MVC Eagle Beach Hotel across the road from Eagle Beach, one of Aruba's most beautiful beaches, is a cosy family hotel in a quiet area, with a children's pool with a terrace for sunbathing and a small playground. The Mill Resort and Suites at Palm Beach runs a daily program of activities for all the family and has babysitting facilities, a playground and a spa. Aruba Beach Club is an intimate family-friendly resort with a kids’ pool, babysitting and a playground.

On Bonaire, the Eden Beach Resort is reasonably priced, with great family suites and family and kids’ activities. Or take a look at the Sand Dollar Condominium Resort, with 1–3 bedroomed apartments and extensive kids’ programs.

On Curaçao, choose between beachfront resorts and inland Dutch gabled houses offering B&B. The all-inclusive Breezes Curaçao at the top end of the market has the island’s longest beach and even its own supervised kids’ trapeze school.

See the right-hand column of this page for more Booking Specials.

Photos

When

The weather is lovely year round, so when to come on a family holiday to Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao is more to do with what everybody else is doing. Americans and Canadians tend to flock here when it’s cold at home, so high season is Dec–Apr. European summers (Apr–Aug) tend to be cheaper. Give September a miss as the tradewinds drop off and it gets unbearably hot. The average annual temperature is 82°F, with highs ranging from 85°F to 89°F and lows from 76°F to 80°F.

The One Cool Family Vacation (OCFV) program was set up to bring more families to Aruba June–Sept, with freebies at specified resorts for under-12s including breakfast, daily activities, snorkelling, scuba lessons, and free accommodation in a parent’s room, plus discounts on other stuff such as horse-riding. Its covers 2 kids for every paying adult, which means big bucks off your overall bill.

How

Seven airlines make regularly scheduled non-stop flights to Aruba from Europe, and there are now chartered flights from the UK (Manchester). See our flight deals page.

Flights last around 10hrs, with Aruba standard time GMT-4. See our Flying with Kids tips page for advice on jet-lag – an inevitable part of family holidays in the Caribbean.

Tiara Air, Insel Air and DAE Dutch Antilles Express run a 30-minute shuttle between Aruba, Bonaire and the modern Curaçao International Airport.

Nearly 300 cruise ships visit these islands every year. Royal Caribbean, Princess, Celebrity Crystal, Holland America, Fred Olsen, Norwegian and P&O Cruises all have ships that make port calls here.

Eat

Islanders eat a lot of fruits, including calabash, coconut and papaya, and seafood is integral to their diet too, with conch, grouper, snapper, shrimp, tuna, crab and lobster all regular offerings.

Practically nothing grows on Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, however, so everything has to be brought in from the USA or Venezuela. That hasn’t stopped an astonishing amount of restaurants sprouting up, offering a diverse range of foods from Caribbean to French, Cuban, Mexican or Asian fusion – great for family holidays, but don’t expect eating out to be cheap.

The water, straight from the tap, is amongst the best drinking water in the world.