The Tradewinds Club Lounge is the exclusive lounge at the Aruba Marriott Resort reserved only for Tradewinds Guests aged 18 and older. It’s a fantastic lounge that helps to make your stay at the Aruba Marriott Resort feel almost like an all-inclusive stay with its open bar hours and different food and beverages available throughout the day. Here’s a review of my experience with the lounge.
Update: the lounge has been relocated — contact the hotel for the latest details.
Tradewinds Club Lounge Hours
The Tradewinds Club Lounge is open from 7am to 9pm.
The lounge is located directly in front of the elevator on the 8th floor. Your room key is all you need to access the lounge, assuming that your key card has been properly coded. As soon as you enter the lounge there’s a help desk where you an agent will happily assist you with different matters related to your stay. Throughout our time at the Tradewinds Club, the staff members up there were exceptionally professional and helped us with whatever we needed. This was also the case for the staff members preparing the food.
The lounge offers several different periods of food and beverage offerings throughout the day. They are as follows:
- Full American breakfast buffet: 7:00am-10:00am; Weekends 7:00am-11:00am
- Light lunch: 12:00pm-2:00pm
- Teatime: 3:00pm-5:00pm
- Discovery hour hors d’oevres: 6:00pm-9:00pm
- Premium open bar: 6:00pm-9:00pm
- Cheese and pastries: 8:00pm-9:00pm
- Non-alcoholic beverages and coffees available all day
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The lounge
The lounge isn’t the most visually striking lounge I’ve been to in terms of design and it’s a bit smaller than I expected but it’s still a great lounge for what it has to offer guests. The main area has several tables for 2 and 4 spread out, with some directly next to the windows so you can enjoy a nice view of the ocean.
There’s a small semi-private area too with a TV and several books.
There are two balconies with comfortable outdoor furniture to seat a hand full of individuals. While these balconies do not directly face the ocean they still have good views of the ocean and surrounding area. The large yellow hotel pictured below is the neighboring Ritz-Carlton.
Breakfast
The breakfast offered at the lounge is for the most part a standard American breakfast (minus pancakes or waffles). A typical offering will consist of: egg dishes, sausage/bacon, hash browns/potatoes, and options for fruit, pastries, cereals, and yogurts. Here’s what was offered the to us on our first morning at the louge.
The egg burritos/wraps were excellent as were the hash browns and bacon. I also really enjoyed some of the pastries seen below. This is definitely the type of breakfast you want to have at a hotel when you’ve got a long day of activities like diving ahead of you. We arrived both mornings at around 7am and there were virtually no other guests dining with us although I’m sure it picks up shortly after that time.
The fruit was very fresh and delicious, especially the cantaloupe and pineapple.
Tea time
Tea-time is offered from 3pm to 5pm and is like a very light lunch. They had different types of sandwiches and wraps, chips and dip, and a number of delicious sweets to offer. During this time, there was very little traffic in the the Tradewinds Lounge.
They alternate the sandwiches and wraps so you’ll get to choose between options like BLT and turkey. I enjoyed the sandwiches and nice appetizers to hold me over for whatever was next, but you could definitely use a couple of sandwiches and a wrap to replace an entire meal, especially if you went with some chips and dip.
Lunch
Lunch is offered from noon to 2pm. We were able to catch lunch on one of the days there and arrived right at noon. There was only one other person in the lounge at the same time we were there, although by the time we finished up a couple of others showed up. (Generally, I don’t think that crowds will be an issue in the lounge so long as you show up within the first few minutes of opening.)
The lunch offered was beyond my expectations. I expected something like sandwiches with cold-cuts but they had some extremely tasty beef dish with asparagus and rice. It was a very fulfilling meal.
They also had salads set up as well. I heard someone order a soup from the kitchen so I think that you can always inquire about items that might not be set out and they might be able to accommodate you.
With each meal they offer small dessert dishes. These are very tasty, especially all of their chocolate desserts.
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Discovery Hour
The Discovery Hour allows you to sample dished from the local chefs. At first, I imagined this to be a true sampling where you’re given small bites stuck on a toothpick but this is essentially the same type of buffet as breakfast, lunch, or tea time.
We had some amazing chicken, sea bass, and some type of couscous dish. It was great to have a tasty, healthy serving of foods that were actually filling. I’d recommend trying to be modest with your servings since this is technically not a full-out dinner, but between the meats, salads, sushi, and other small dishes offered, I don’t think it’s hard to get full off of the dishes offered if you wanted to.
Aruba Marriott Resort Tradewinds Lounge Discovery Hour.
Something to keep in mind is that the Discovery Hour opens up the same time that the open bar opens at 6pm. This means that more people make it up to the lounge at that time and dishes can go quicker and tables can fill up faster. If you want to guarantee that you’ll be able to try all of the dishes and you want to lock down a particular table or balcony, I recommend you getting there right at 6pm to secure a spot.
Open bar
No matter what time the lounge is open, you can always get into the refrigerator and crab a beverage and this includes beer. They keep a constant supply of Corona, Corona Light, and a beer brewed in Aruba called Balashi (which I enjoyed), and Chill. They also have plenty of water bottles, Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, and an array of juices and other drinks. It wasn’t uncommon to see people taking water bottles and other beverages from the lounge to their rooms so I don’t think it’s frowned upon, but just do so within reason.
The actual open bar begins at 6pm and they’ve got a little bit of everything as you can see from the photo below. Absolute, Crown Royal, Malibu, Bombay, Bailey’s, Jack, Jim Bean, and plenty of others, so you shouldn’t have a hard time being able to put together a cocktail that you like.
Tradewinds benefits
The benefits of the Tradewinds Club also extend to other areas of your stay. For example, you also get complimentary beach palapas on a reserved portion of the beach (subject to availability) and other things like complimentary floats. You also get upgraded room amenities, complimentary pressing services, packing and unpacking services (upon request), reserved parking spaces, and a few other benefits. You can find out more here.
Final word
I loved having access to the Tradewinds Club. It really does add an all-inclusive type feel to your stay and it’s extremely convenient to to have the lounge available throughout the day so just about anytime you need a bite or drink you can just stop by the lounge. If you use the lounge for a couple of your meals a day and take advantage of the open bar, it’s not hard to come out on top in terms of value received. You’ll need to book a Tradewinds Club level room for access or pay $200 a night (inquire about a $50 discount for elite members).
Daniel Gillaspia is the Founder of UponArriving.com and the credit card app, WalletFlo. He is a former attorney turned travel expert covering destinations along with TSA, airline, and hotel policies. Since 2014, his content has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Smithsonian Magazine, and CNBC. Read my bio.
Look where the Tradewinds lounge new location is now. Bottom level on South Side of Hotel. No view, long walk almost to the door to the adult pool. Next to the loud music coming from the pool starting at mid-afternoon. Ech!
We just returned from another wonderful week at the Aruba Marriott Tradewinds Resort. The new location for the Tradewinds lounge was a surprise to my husband and I. We found the new location much more comfortable, spacious and convenient. As usual, Margaret, Maria, and the entire staff and severs were very pleasant and accommodating. Our daily visit to the beach was always entertaining with Hermenia so very sweet and helpful. She truly is an asset to the Marriott and the Tradewinds. We look forward to our next visit!
My wife and I just returned from 7 days at the Marriott Resort in Aruba. The Tradewinds experience was more than we expected. The food is as good as is described in the article, and you can easily make choices of having a snack or a meal, and still feel like you weren’t missing something. We liked the lounge on the main floor, sometimes we would stop and grab a quick bite, and then head to the rental car for exploring. Or just heading back and stop for some lunch. The beach access and the palapa on-line reservation system worked great, once you figured it out. You can reserve the palapa from your phone the afternoon before you want it. The service was beyond reproach, from the people working in the lounge, to room service. They also turn down your bed around dinner time.
Great big 2-sink bathroom, and a walk-in closet. Yes, a walk-in closet. Nice bathrobes too. There’s more, but you get the idea. And – no kids! Would definitely do it again. Nice job Marriott!