I saw recently that Aruba has a dinnign card in which you pay a certain fee ($125 per person) and you get three dinners at certain places. Does anyone recommend this or know anything about it? Just trying to plan the perfect trip for my first visit to Aruba.

Thanks
Mike

here's some info on the AGA Aruba Gastronomic Association Restaurants Information and Reservations they are also associated with our visitaruba card and you can get 10% off any 3 or 5 night program with one card for two people Aruba Discounts, Savings and Special offers - VisitAruba Plus Card

looking at the restaurants, the list includes some that are our personal favorites. seems to be a pretty good package for what it includes.

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Our first trip was last September, before I went I did research on the dining plan.
For us- it really wasnt worth the money--sometimes costing more.
Some of those placces listed wants a surcharge for using the card.

We went for 6 days--budgeted 600.00 for meals and still came home with money. (we did NOT buy the card.)

I suggest looking at the menus for the places listed. (will you need transportation to get to any of them?)

list what you would buy---is there a surcharge?
and see if the card is for you.

I know we ate one night at Smokey Joes-- and I dont think our bill was even 50 bucks.

We tried Texas De Brazil--which is like Amazonia. We signed up on their web page and got a buy 1 get 1 dinner-- cost was 89.00 for two.

We've been visitors since 1991 and purchased the dine around package on 3 trips. The first trip we thought it was wonderful. the next year we started going for two weeks and decided there were too many other restaurants to try so we took a pass. That worked out very well so we went many years without giving it a thought.

After a few trips (late '90's) we decided to try it again and got the 5 meal package. We liked the restaurants, went to many of them anyway & especially liked the idea of having some of our meals pre-paid. It didn't work out as well as we had hoped and there were times we could have happily eaten for less than the cost of the pre-paid meals.

In 2004 or 2005 I was trying to be efficient and decided buying a package would, once again, be a good idea. I studied all the menus and was sure we could get full value this time around. The first place we intended to use it was @ Tango. When we sat down and asked about it, we were given a different menu which didn't have the steak we wanted on it. (I had anticipated a small surcharge, not a limited menu) We stayed and paid for the meal, which wasn't up to par, and things went downhill from there. I don't remember where we ended up using the package (5 meals) but it didn't work out very well that time either (even with the 10% discount from the VisitAruba card)

Bottom line......................... you can do better on you own with a lot less aggravation.

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