{"id":4464,"date":"2013-04-26T10:22:56","date_gmt":"2013-04-26T16:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/?p=4464"},"modified":"2014-04-14T13:29:23","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T19:29:23","slug":"wanderlust-in-aruba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/?p=4464","title":{"rendered":"Wanderlust in Aruba"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Bonnie, a newcomer to the WorldWanderlusting way of traveling.\u00a0 She recently took an unbelievable anniversary trip in February of this year with her husband, and wanted to share her experience with our readers (note that their camera date wasn’t set so the dates are incorrect).<\/em><\/p>\n

Our 20 year anniversary was coming up, and I knew I wanted to do something special and big that included a white sandy beach.\u00a0 I also knew that with 5 kids, I didn\u2019t have a lot of extra money lying around.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 So, I did what any other adventure seeker would do and sat down with my friend Sheldon.\u00a0 Now my disclaimer to this is that I have listened to Sheldon blab nonstop about all the wonderful adventures that he has taken since I met him 5 years ago.\u00a0 But I have a HUGE aversion to using credit cards<\/span><\/strong>, because I know far too many people that have not used them responsibly, and have later gotten into financial disaster.\u00a0 So I would politely listen to the blabbing, smile, and wonder to myself how I could take the same trip \u201clegitimately.\u201d\u00a0 I quickly realized that Sheldon\u2019s blabbing WAS legitimate!\u00a0 It IS possible to be a responsible credit card user and to travel the world almost FREE!!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Beautiful<\/a><\/p>\n

I started applying for my first credit cards in September 2012.\u00a0 I had no idea where I wanted to go, but knew I needed points to get there.\u00a0 I also felt a little bit of a time crunch, because we wanted to take our anniversary trip in February 2013.\u00a0 This gave me only 6 months to maximize my use of travel cards, which required some very close accounting.\u00a0 Then, I literally started Wanderlusting any location that I could redeem my points, with white sandy beaches being the only parameter.\u00a0 I wanted to go someplace a little remote; off the \u201cnormal\u201d beaten path\u2026.which is why we chose Aruba.<\/p>\n

\"Sailing<\/a><\/p>\n

My husband and I both applied for the Chase Marriott Rewards card.\u00a0 My husband had applied for the card when they were advertising an additional incentive, so he received 80,000 points after his required purchase, and I received \u201conly\u201d 50,000 points after my purchase.\u00a0 Regardless, this gave us 130,000 points to use at a Marriott resort.\u00a0 The hotels in Aruba all required a larger amount of points, as they were at least a category 5 or higher.\u00a0 We chose an ultimate beach front gorgeous Marriott resort that cost us 140,000 points, but you could stay 4 nights and get the 5th<\/sup> night free.\u00a0 Luckily, to make up for the difference in points, we had a Chase Freedom card that allowed us to transfer points to various other travel partners.\u00a0 Like magic, our white sandy beach resort hotel was paid for!!\u00a0 My husband and I also both applied for the Gold Delta SkyMiles\u00ae Credit Card from American Express, which gave us each 30,000 frequent flier points after our required purchase.\u00a0 Our airline tickets cost 35,000 points each, so I did have to dig into my wallet to buy the extra 5,000 points each, plus pay the taxes.\u00a0 The extra Delta points and taxes cost a mere $450. (I\u2019m certain if I had more time I would not have had to pay for this either.)\u00a0 But, wait\u2026 there\u2019s more!\u00a0 We decided that we wanted 6 nights in Aruba instead of only 5, so I found another resort, using my Starwood American Express card, to receive 1 additional free night.\u00a0 Then our flight back to Idaho took us through NYC, with an overnight layover in NYC.\u00a0 So, I did the only natural thing, and used my Chase Priority Club card for another FREE night.\u00a0 Curiosity got the best of me, so I tried to book the entire trip on my own to see my savings.\u00a0 This trip would have cost $6000+, but it cost me $450!!!<\/p>\n

\"Aruba<\/a>

Bonnie and Wyatt enjoying Aruba<\/p><\/div>\n

Aruba is a small island, only about 22 miles wide and 8 miles long, and located about 15 miles north of Venezuela.\u00a0 Their motto on all license plates is \u201cOne Happy Island\u201d and we can attest that everyone was pleasant and so wonderful.\u00a0 We happened upon a \u201clocals\u201d beach one day, and the local kite surfers gave us our own show of spectacular jumps and flips over the waves.\u00a0 Because the island is so small, we drove on every street and checked out all corners of the island.\u00a0 The year-round temperature is in the mid-80\u2019s with a constant ocean breeze.<\/p>\n

\"Coconut<\/a>

Wyatt enjoying a fresh coconut<\/p><\/div>\n

If you\u2019ve ever wanted to try fresh coconut milk, drinking it from a guy on the side of the road as he chops it with his machete is the only way to drink it!\u00a0 Aruba is a very dry island, not what you would think of as a tropical island.\u00a0 There were many cactus jungles, and most of the fruit was imported.\u00a0 But the seafood was amazing, and we ate fresh fish almost every day.<\/p>\n

Almost everyone on the island speaks English, although the native language is Papiamento.\u00a0 It is a beautiful Creole language that is a mix of Portuguese, Spanish, and some African languages.<\/p>\n

\"Sunset<\/a><\/p>\n

Whether it was romantic poolside dinners or watching the ocean sunset on the white sandy beach, we had an awesome 20th<\/sup> Anniversary! So, blab your heart out Sheldon, and you can guarantee that we\u2019ll be Wanderlusting again soon!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post was written by Bonnie, a newcomer to the WorldWanderlusting way of traveling.\u00a0 She recently took an unbelievable anniversary trip in February of this year with her husband, and wanted to share her experience with our readers (note that … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[443],"tags":[33,1197,1888,128,1200,942,1198,1199],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1DhXV-1a0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldwanderlusting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}