JOIA Aruba by Iberostar — Hotel in Oranjestad (city)

Disclaimer, I stayed at JOIA Aruba less than a month after it opened, so things may change/improve with time||My partner and I stayed at this resort for 4 nights, and I kept a detailed pros and cons list for this review! Beware because the website said “Adults Only” but there were many children on the resort and even a children's area indoors. It is not Adults Only. ||Overall, we loved the location and property/amenities! The staff were super helpful and welcoming! We loved that our bracelet was our room key and that we could charge any food/drinks on the property to our room, so we never had to worry about carrying money/room card to the pool or beach! |Overall cons would be the check in process and the lack of information about hours of operations/menus online. We had no idea when breakfast or dinner started/ended, especially since we were told dinner didn’t start until 7pm but then saw many people at dinner before 6:30pm! Hopefully most of the cons improve as they iron out the kinks since they very recently opened. ||I will go further into detail about the pros/cons below!||Location: The location of the resort is located on Eagle Beach, which was beautiful and clean and not too crowded compared to other beaches we saw on the island! We felt very safe as a young gay couple. We did not rent a car, so we either walked to nearby restaurants or we rented electric scooters (through an app, you pay by the minute) to get where we wanted to go!||Property: A big con for us with the property was the check in process. We arrived around 2:30pm and were welcomed with complimentary drinks. Since check in isn’t until 3pm, they held our bags as we walked around and explored the property. They told us they would text us when our room was ready. At 3:15pm, we still hadn’t received a text message so we went up to the front desk and we were told our room still wasn’t ready, but that they would let us know as soon as it was. We did not get our room until 3:40pm, which was very frustrating. |The property is beautiful. Two very large pools (one with a swim up bar) plus a jacuzzi. Unfortunately we found the pools to be too cold, and the hot tub wasn’t any warmer than the pools…they must have been having issues with the pool heaters. Finally saw the hot tub running on the last night we were there, and there were multiple people in it, so it must have started working! There was also a third pool area but it was for “members only” (never figured out what kind of membership). There are many different types of lounging areas/seating options throughout the pool areas and the pools were never busy while we were there. The pool area is elevated above the street level, which makes it feel private since you can’t see the cars driving by (and therefore they can’t see you). Also loved that there was wi-fi around the property/restaurants/pool areas, which was great! No wi-fi by the beach for obvious reasons, but I did not find this to be an issue. It was great to disconnect for a bit!|The “rooftop” bar is not really what I would think of when thinking of a “roof top” but it’s located above the breakfast/dinner area, so I guess technically it is on top of a roof…but it is visible from the pool view rooms. |The beach area is also great, never had an issue getting chairs and an umbrella, except that the beach service stopped very early at 5:15pm on Saturday (!!!), which meant you couldn’t sit on their chairs…Sunset is at 6:30pm every night, so I couldn’t believe we had to give up our chairs at 5:15pm on a Saturday! We were told beach service was open until 8pm on Sunday, but we were not at the beach Sunday night to confirm. |I will also note that there was construction noise on the weekdays since only about half of the rooms were completed, but this won’t be a con/issue once the property is finished! |||Room: The room was clean and surprisingly spacious. We loved the balcony area with our own jacuzzi tub, and we could even see the sunset from our balcony! Daily housekeeping was great, and we loved the turn down service! One con about the room was the lighting situation. We love soft/warm lighting in the evenings, but there was no option for that. I wish the lights in the room could dim! That would be a great feature. The blinds in the room were great and blocked out the light in the mornings so we could sleep in. We had a pool view room, and there was noise/music coming from the pool area on Saturday and Sunday night that we could hear in our room, but it stopped at 10pm! Never had an issue with noise after 10pm and we slept great! ||Amenities: We loved that there were multiple stations with sunscreen, water, and towels around the pools and at the beach! Again, there were always plenty of poolside chairs and beach chairs, but not sure if this will change as the resort finishes all the rooms/it becomes busier.|There were only 2 restaurants on site at the time we were there. We ate lunch at Marea and honestly loved it more than we thought we would! I got the roasted pumpkin and loved it! The breakfast buffet was wonderful and I would highly recommend it! The food under the heaters on the buffet was usually cold, but they will make fresh omelets, pancakes, waffles, crepes, and french toast to order! Loved all the breads, pastries, yogurts, and fresh fruit!! The service was super slow at breakfast (one day we did not get any water/coffee for ~30 minutes and had to ask 3 times for it) but the staff were so kind every day! I am hopeful the efficiency of the service will improve with time! Dinner is in the same area as breakfast, turned into an Italian restaurant called Bucatini. As someone with a dietary restriction (vegetarian), I found I had options everywhere except for the beach side snacks, but I wish there was more information/menus online! We could not even find the hours of breakfast/dinner online. They need to change that! |We enjoyed a couples massage at the spa on the property. They provided lockers, showers, towels, sandals, and access to the cold/hot pools, sauna, and steam room. The massage tables were not heated and I did get slightly cold, but it was overall a relaxing experience!|Kimberly from Guest Services helped us book a snorkeling excursion with Red Sail Aruba, which we really enjoyed! We paid $7 per person for transportation from the resort to and from the excursion, which arrived on time and picked us up on time and I would recommend using this option rather than having to worry about finding parking! |There is a gym and a couple of shops on the property that are worth mentioning but we did not use!||Staff/Services: The staff were a big highlight for us. Everyone was so welcoming, kind, and warm. We had many many questions (again because there is little information available online!), and they were always so willing to help us! They were also able to help us with calling a taxi to get back to the airport. We loved the poolside and beach side service where we could easily order drinks and food without even getting up! They would graciously bring us towels/water too if we asked! |The Aruba wind is no joke! The wind blew over my drink by the pool and the staff replaced my drink without me having to ask! I made sure to keep my drinks close and secure after that!|When we checked out, they printed out our receipt of food/drinks we charged to our room, and we noticed there was an $80 fee for breakfast despite us pre-booking our breakfast. Staff quickly rectified it and removed the charge, but it’s a good reminder to look over the charges!|The staff were such a huge pro throughout our stay!||I love reading reviews and hope someone finds this...

This is our last day here so here’s my take. 1) The hotel itself is beautiful. Rooms are big and the bed is comfortable. The towels are high end and very soft. I want to buy some. 2) it’s still under construction and the casino isn’t open yet nor are all the restaurants. That’s not a knock. We knew that ahead of time. Just providing info. There is evidence of the hotel being unfinished with certain imperfections here and there but nothing too crazy until you get to the stairwell which feels like a dusty dirty construction zone. So, why not take the elevator? Glad you asked. It’s VERY slow. We were told the hotel is only at 20% occupancy right now and it’s slow. What will it be like at full capacity? I don’t know why hotels always try to save money by not having enough elevator capacity during busy times? Anyone reading this want to be spending time waiting for an obnoxiously small elevator instead of being by the pool or beach? I don’t. 3) The Italian place was good and Alexander did a really good job of taking care of us. We’re from NJ and have great Italian all the time. This place was very good. 4) The lunch place wasn’t good at all. Fries tasted like fish and for an island you’d expect they’d have grilled fish options. I didn’t see any. Only fried which is likely why the fries tasted of fish. We went down the beach to another restaurant twice just so we wouldn’t have to eat there again. I would have preferred not to feel like I needed to do that to get something decent to eat. 5) Pool service was excellent. Carina was a delight and made sure we had everything we needed. However, not everything by the pool was great. 6) During our stay there was a rowdy group who was obviously over served and yelling obscenities and the hotel had actually given them a speaker to play their own music. It was very disruptive. This is supposed to be a high end resort and not a budget create your own experience place. The fact that security needed to respond twice was mismanagement of the situation. First, the hotel should have never given any guest a giant speaker to play their own music. I’m sure Iberostar spent a lot of money on their programming curation and the corporate office approves all the music that’s played. The music that was being played by this group was not . . . let’s just say family friendly. Despite it also being obnoxiously loud the foul language wasn’t appropriate. Second, security didn’t immediately take the speaker away. They were asked to simply turn it down. However, they were intoxicated as I mentioned and although they initially turned it down they quickly reverted to their prior very public private party. It was only after another 20 minutes that someone came and confiscated the speaker. Ah, problem solved right? No such luck. They then took out their own small portable speaker and started blasting that. Now I can’t fault the hotel for that, but I think perhaps It was at the point where it would have been appropriate for them to suggest that the group leave the pool area for the day. I think the hotel could have done a much better job handling this. 7) We waited 20 minutes this morning for beach chairs. Again, we were told occupancy is 20%. Why are we standing in the hot sun waiting for chairs to be set up. Why aren’t they already set up and waiting for guests? This is an $850 a night hotel (including tax and resort fees) at what is supposed to be the introductory rate. I don’t expect to wait for things that should be intuitive. You know guests are coming to the beach. It shouldn’t be a surprise. I’ve had much better beach experiences at cheaper properties. Can this hotel be 5 stars? I think that it certainly has the potential to be but they aren’t there yet. There is evidence everywhere of someone who knows what they are doing having trained the staff. Everyone is VERY nice. The other issues we had I believe they can solve with more training. Except for the elevator situation. That isn’t unique to this hotel and continues to baffle me in most places I stay. Enjoy...

Disclaimer, I stayed at JOIA Aruba less than a month after it opened, so things may change/improve with time

My partner and I stayed at this resort for 4 nights, and I kept a detailed pros and cons list for this review!

Location: The location of the resort is located on Eagle Beach, which was beautiful and clean and not too crowded. We felt very safe as a young gay couple.

Property: A big con for us with the property was the check in process. We arrived around 2:30pm and were welcomed with complimentary drinks. Since check in isn’t until 3pm, they held our bags as we walked around and explored the property. They told us they would text us when our room was ready. At 3:15pm, we still hadn’t received a text message so we went up to the front desk and we were told our room still wasn’t ready, but that they would let us know as soon as it was. We did not get our room until 3:40pm, which was very frustrating. The property is beautiful. Unfortunately we found the pools to be too cold, and the hot tub wasn’t any warmer than the pools…they must have been having issues with the pool heaters. Finally saw the hot tub running on the last night we were there, and there were multiple people in it, so it must have started working! There are many different types of lounging areas/seating options throughout the pool areas and the pools were never busy while we were there. The beach area is also great, never had an issue getting chairs and an umbrella, except that the beach service stopped very early at 5:15pm on Saturday (!!!), which meant you couldn’t sit on their chairs…Sunset is at 6:30pm every night, so I couldn’t believe we had to give up our chairs at 5:15pm on a Saturday! We were told beach service was open until 8pm on Sunday, but we were not at the beach Sunday night to confirm. I will also note that there was construction noise on the weekdays since only about half of the rooms were completed, but this won’t be a con/issue once the property is finished!

Room: The room was clean and surprisingly spacious. Daily housekeeping was great, and we loved the turn down service! One con about the room was the lighting situation. We love soft/warm lighting in the evenings, but there was no option for that. I wish the lights in the room could dim! We had a pool view room, and there was noise/music coming from the pool area on Saturday and Sunday night that we could hear in our room, but it stopped at 10pm! Never had an issue with noise after 10pm and we slept great!

Amenities: We loved that there were multiple stations with sunscreen, water, and towels around the pools and at the beach! We ate lunch at Marea and honestly loved it more than we thought we would! The breakfast buffet was wonderful and I would recommend it! The service was super slow at breakfast (one day we did not get any water/coffee for ~30 minutes and had to ask 3 times for it) but the staff were so kind every day! I am hopeful the efficiency of the service will improve with time! I wish there was more information/menus online! We could not even find the hours of breakfast/dinner online. They need to change that! We enjoyed a couples massage at the spa on the property. Kimberly from Guest Services helped us book a snorkeling excursion with Red Sail Aruba, which we really enjoyed! We paid $7 per person for transportation from the resort to and from the excursion, which arrived on time and picked us up on time and I would recommend using this option rather than having to worry about finding parking! There is a gym and a couple of shops on the property that are worth mentioning but we did not use!

Staff/Services: The staff were a big highlight for us. Everyone was so welcoming, kind, and warm. We had many many questions (again because there is little information available online!), and they were always so willing to help us! The Aruba wind is no joke! The wind blew over my drink by the pool and the staff replaced my drink without me having to ask!

I hope to stay here again and see improvements as they iron...