I visited Aruba last year but had no idea such cultural and ethnic diversity exsited on the island!

The main reason I enjoyed the book was the wonderful photos. In fact more than half the book was filled with colorful images of the Carnival!

Maybe I'll go back next year... =)

I would bet a thousand chip at the casino that all of these perfect reviews were written by people who are affiliated with the guide and who stand to profit from it. Tell me I'm wrong. Look at the language in these reviews, it screams plant.

The first comprehensive guide to the popular ABC islands, located just off the Venezuelan coast. Discover the quiet life of Bonaire, gamble away at Aruba's casino, hit the high-style designer clothing stores in Curaçao, and relax on the glorious white beaches of all three! Here is the ultimate guide to discovering the high life and cool spots of the ABCs, written by authors who have sacrificed their vacations to research this book (poor things!). This Alive Guide focusses on shopping (snatch up some duty-free bargains), hotels (colorful local cuisine and fine dining alike) and restaurants, with special attention paid to the cream of the crop. Sightseeing, historical walking tours, wildlife discovery, and watersports are also covered. The activity-oriented Sunup to Sundown sections will fill your day with beaches, deep-sea fishing charters, diving excursions, moped rides and more, while After Dark tells you of the best Happy Hours, the liveliest clubs and the bars where things really hop! Handy A-Z sections for each island provide all the practical details - airline offices, banking hours and locations, emergency telephone numbers, shopping hours, tourist information booths.

"Written in a highly readable style, this guide seems to have omitted nothing." Pittsburgh Post

A great reference for your Arubian vacation. We used it constantly, on the plane, on the beach, and in the desert! Great hints/tips, maps, suggested exploring routes, recommended beaches, shopping, diving sites, etc. Only gave it 4 stars b/c it is becoming slightly out of date. Need an updated version soon...However, still highly recommended!

I found this book to be extremely helpful on my recent trip to Aruba. For a little country it really has so much to offer, but without proper guidance it might be hard to discover everything there is to see and do. The book is well-written, logical, and concise. Buy it, book a trip, read it on the plane, and refer to it while you are there! I was in Aruba for six days and looked at this book EVERY single day.

I'd like to add that I vistited a lot of hotels and restaurants while on my trip, and can attest that the reviews in the book are quite accurate. There are so many great values to be had in Aruba, and this book will help you find them.

Bottom line: the book is a great asset for a wonderful trip. And don't forget to use sunscreen!!

ps: Don't miss the JOLLY PIRATES snorkel and lunch cruise (see page 93). They are now located on Moomba Beach between the Marriott and the Holiday Inn. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!

Talks about how to get the best filght and where to stay and eat with complete reviews and price. Also gives dress codes for restraunts and shows. Talks about all beaches and a ton of activities in depth. Only available in portable size and it has the most and best information about Aruba of all the guides. Plus has shopping and side trips and nightlife. Enjoy!

This guide is useful for a vacation on a cruise to the caribbean. The reviews of the excursions are very helpful for planning your own excursions. It tells you if it easy or difficult to use ship's excursions versus your own transportation. It also highlights popular atractions in each port.

The author must travel frequently to the Caribbean, and she writes with real authority. I've always found her books to be very up to date. What's more, they're very well organized, easy to read. Best of all, she knows what's she talking about. Some travel books are written by people who visited a place years ago, that's definitely not the case here. I've read or browsed just about all the guidebooks to Caribbean islands, and Showker's are about as good as you'll get.

A good collection of essential information on Aruba all in one place. You probably could find most of this information on the web if you knew where to look and took the time. I have done this before for other trips and it took hours and you end up with a lot of conflicting information. This looks like a reliable source and they offer a discount on their monitoring and travel assistance services.

I've been to Aruba twice in 2 years, and it is REALLY difficult finding any type of a resource manual for the island, so I was happy when this one came out.

However, since it came out between my two visits, i was a bit disappointed with several inaccuracies in the book.

There is a wealth of good information in this book, but I would definitely not use it to choose accomodations, where I saw the largest amount of inaccuracies.

A person may feel a bit upset if they booked a resort based on this book, and found out for example that it did NOT have windsurfing as an inclusive. And a resort would be equally upset in knowing one of it's better attractions were not mentioned at all, and thus could possibly cause them a loss of a sale.

It had good descriptions of the beaches, and adequate descriptions of the restaurants. But, by all means find a second opinion regarding accomodations!

I have read Fodor's books in the past and found them to be more informative than this book on Aruba. Not many travel books on Aruba exist so that's why I chose this one. However, it did not really contain any so-called "secrets" that I hadn't already found out from surfing on the internet.

There were some things that I liked about this book. It would probably be a good source if you are not an avid internet surfer (like myself who reads every website that I can find on Aruba). If you did not have any previous knowledge & wanted a short, quick book to just give the basics, then this book is probably for you. If you want a small guidebook to carry along on your trip (like I do) then it's worth the price.

But if you want a comprehensive guide with some "secrets", pass on this one.

You are going to Aruba. You want some reference material. Let's face it, your choices for books are limited. For the price, the book does what it promises. It provides a great overview of where to stay, where to eat, where to beach, where to gamble and what to do while you are on the island. And this thing is compact, it will easily fit in your back pocket. Four stars because I feel they are missing some of the better places to eat on the island (Madame Jeanette's, Flying Fishbone). Bon Bini!

I ordered this book because I was planning a professional assignment to the ABC islands and had many questions to ask. Having previously reviewed other titles in this series with somewhat mixed results I had some idea of what to expect.

In addition to learning about the various Dive Sites, the information I require is; Something about the people - a potted history of the country and an insight into their language and customs etc, plus a few lines about shopping, how to get there, airlines, excess baggage, airport tax, tourist boards, hotels, time difference, local transport, currency, electricity, language, photography, diving facilities, safari boats, available equipment, what to bring, what to wear - and so forth. Thankfully, most of these questions (though not all) are answered with additional information on diving for the disabled and Nitrox. Furthermore, this is a destination with no direct flights from the UK - so the detailed variables of how I might get there were particularly valuable.

"The Dive Sites of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao" is paperback measuring 9½in x 6½in containing over 170 pages. Commencing with a two-page explanation of the legends and symbols used throughout the book, we then have chapters on; An overall Introduction to the country, Travel, Diving and Snorkelling in general, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, the Marine Environment, Underwater Photography & Video and Health & Safety for Divers.

The first map is across pages 10 and 11 and shows the islands (there are actually 5 altogether), in relation to each other and the Caribbean. That and the first 3 chapters are a very good start. Now we get down to the diving found off each of the 3 main (and two smaller) islands and this is where the book could so easily be improved. Altogether, there are brief details on 180 dive sites but each chapter commences with "Site No 1" whereas it would be far more useful had they been numbered consecutively from beginning to end.

For each of the islands/island groups, only one map is required in order to demonstrate the approximate position of all the dive sites. Whilst this is used to good effect as far as Aruba is concerned, Bonaire and Curaçao are separated into 3 and 4 artificial divisions respectively. When studying the diving detail, it is always the little things which reveal the amount of research undertaken by any author. For many years Aruba has claimed that their shipwreck "Antilla" is "The largest shipwreck in the Caribbean." Whilst I can't fault any Tourist Board or local Diving Facility for making such a claim the Author should have known better. I know of at least 2 Cruise Liners found elsewhere in the Caribbean (Grenada and Mustique) that are easily 200 feet longer than this particular shipwreck and, for me, the diving detail is suspect.

My final criticism is reserved for the blatant advertising for "Captain Don's Habitat." This amounts to several photograph captions and a full-page feature article on this particular diver. I do appreciate that the Author's diving had to be sponsored by somebody, but subsequent reference to that sponsor should have remained limited to the acknowledgements page and, perhaps the occasional plug in one or two (and no more) photographs. If the Author wishes to write a testimonial to this Captain Don Stewart - fine by me, but included here, it gives the impression of being a Guide to the Diving provided by this particular facility - and nobody else.

Having said all that, almost all the information you are likely to want is there and that - coupled with a good cross-section of high-calibre photographs throughout make this the best diving guide to the entire ABC Islands I have yet to see. With a few improvements here and a few deletions there, this book could so easily have obtained a 5 star rating.

NM

This pocket book is only 90 pages long, and 28 pages or so are devoted to the island of Curacao. Also, another 12 pages are a gambling primer; if I don't gamble why would I care? Stick to the topic Fodor's; this is a book on ARUBA! A lot of the information provided is generic to any international trip and thus of little use. The book's actual information that is specific to Aruba is, however, useful to the first time traveller; I just wish there was more of it! You can probably read it in a couple of hours, certainly on the long plane flight there!

What a bunch of self-pitying tripe this book is. The main character sees everything, does most of it, and resolutely refuses to learn anything from his experiences. He looks for love, finds it, and tosses it out the window without anything so unglamorous as motivation. And then he wonders why he is so unhappy and why his life has not amounted to anything. Has Holleran ever heard of developing believable characters, or even of cause and effect?

Ok. A few decades back like in the 50's, even 60's it was glamourous to be miserable and disfunctional. Boys in the Band, Tea and Sympathy, any Judy Garland biography. I loved Dancer from the Dance, author's first book. In fact, I still own an old worn-out copy of it on my shelf. I bought it during my coming out years, I was glad to read it and I still remember the excitment of reading it: The writing was fresh, wonderful, clever, wry. But when there is no plot, and when you are fascinated with gloom, nothing could save Nights at Aruba for me. This book left me sad, empty and unsatisfied.. It was exciting to start it, but very soon, I started wondering: is there was a point to this at all. Why does not he just get a job or something? I wondered.. Suddenly, much of Holleran's beautiful writing did not matter and was lost in vain for me. Sadness is interesting, but when there is no point to it, I reach out for Zoloft ...

This is a story about Paul, who's looking back on his early years living in Aruba. He's getting older and discovering not only the emptiness of one-night stands, but also that he's not as unlike his parents as he would like. Holleran's sense of wry humor and his astute observations about growing older as a gay man are strong in this work and make it shine. This is a novel about the inner world, so apparently the lack of outside action aggravated some reviewers. I think Andrew Holleran is one of the best writers of gay fiction, so.

You can't print this book! Unless you're planning on bringing your PC with you as you tour the streets of Aruba, or underwater with you when snorkelling, buying this book is a mistake.