A Dutch Caribbean gem

By Alexander Britell

There’s something special about the air here.

Maybe it’s the breezes from Eagle Beach, or the dry heat of Aruba.

Actually, it’s something far simpler: an in-room air purifier and dehumidifier.

This is the Bucuti & Tara Beach Resort, a boutique hotel in Aruba that’s situated on just about the nicest stretch of sand in all of Aruba, the far southwestern corner of Eagle Beach.

And while an air purifier alone may not sound revolutionary, it’s a part of something far greater: this hotel’s obsessive, absolute attention to detail, the kind most hotels in the Caribbean simply can’t fathom.

It’s something that becomes apparent the moment you walk into the sliding automatic doors of the hotel, when you don’t check in at a desk, but check in on a staff member’s iPad as you walk to your room, welcome drink in hand.

Because everything here is designed for the details, the details that make a vacation feel effortless; the details that make a good hotel a great one.

They’re the details that understand the changing needs of travelers today, like perhaps the Caribbean’s widest array of organic, vegan and gluten-free cuisine at the hotel’s Elements restaurant; like the fact that proprietor Ewald Biemans was one of the first hoteliers to embrace the green movement, from solar panels to heat rooms and laundry to significantly lower energy use — the hidden green details that more and more travelers today demand.

The details that are a symptom of a hotel that is constantly trying to improve, constantly trying to understand what its guests want — and what they will want in the future.

The rooms are well-appointed, well-designed and lit in a way that encourages relaxation; the food is excellent and the bar is well-serviced.

This is a place that somehow blends into its environment, a traditional-looking hotel that, with its attention to detail, becomes something else entirely.

And then, of course, there is the aforementioned beach, an impossibly wide, impossibly white stretch of beach, as good a beach as there is anywhere in the Caribbean. Maybe better.

Bucuti & Tara isn’t the largest hotel in Aruba, and it isn’t the newest hotel in Aruba.

But this is, clearly, easily, the best hotel in Aruba.

Because that’s the thing about a truly great hotel. Even the air is better.

This resort is ranked number one on our list of the best Aruba hotels quite regularly thanks to its captivating mix of great service, warm hospitality and a world-class beach.