Palm Beach Aruba

Touted as their premier beach, Palm Beach Aruba is also the most crowded beach on the island. Our location at the North end of the beach was situated near the dock in front of the Marriott. The water, while nice, was often stirred up and murky from the constant traffic of boats pulling vacationers on tubes and snorkel excursions picking-up and dropping off. This area is known as the high-rise area due to the large number of internationally known high-rise resorts in this area. I much preferred the low-rise area on Eagle Beach to Palm Beach Aruba.

The sand on the beach was lovely, soft and white, but the sand in the water was unfortunately sludgy, I presume from the constant motor traffic. If you have ever waded in a lake, this was much the feel of the sand in this water.

Peace and Quiet on Palm Beach in the Early Morning

Further South down the beach in front of the Holiday Inn, the sand and the water begins to lose the murky feel and becomes more pleasant. The beach in front of the Holiday Inn is not very wide and the natural Palms that exist here come right to the water. This creates some nice shade, but not a very pretty beach area really. Further South in front of Playa Linda is more of a balance of nice water and a decent beach area. As one of the older resorts on Palm Beach, Playa Linda is far enough from the dock to avoid those pitfalls and close to tons of restaurants and shopping. Pelican Pier, located between the Holiday Inn and Playa Linda has a nice, if slightly pricey, restaurant over the water and would be a perfect place to enjoy a sunset meal with a family that is not quite ready for the formality of Simply Fish.

Click twice on the big arrow to watch a short video of Palm Beach Aruba from a hotel balcony: