Club Margot is one of the resort’s newer and more upscale dining choices. It just celebrated its second anniversary. Club Margot opened in August 2024. It was introduced as a more sophisticated dining venue with a beach-club/lounge atmosphere, totally different from what we conventionally think about an all-inclusive restaurant.

The restaurant theme is Mediterranean, with Caribbean influences. Everything is served family-style, and is perfect for sharing. The dining terrace sits directly on the water, making the sunset and ocean view a significant part of the experience.

The menu includes all my favorites: Prosciutto di Parma, tomato bruschetta, mozzarella, Calamata olives and sun-dried tomatoes, Spanish chorizo croquettes with avocado mayo, tuna tataki with passion-fruit dressing and coriander emulsion, albondigas, meat balls, in tomato and scallion sauce, shrimp piri piri with garlic crostini, slow-cooked short rib with caramelized onion and potato gratin, and layered, baked eggplant with mozzarella, tomato, pine nuts and basil. The colossal selection of desserts, on just one plate, includes a chocolate bomb, passion fruit and mango panna cotta, orange/vanilla ice cream and chocolate cake.

The antipasto arrives at the table on a beautiful multi-level wood platter, the main course and sides join as a progression of shared dishes, accompanied by a freshly baked cluster of brioche buns

Not surprisingly, Club Margot won a Gold 2025 Travel Weekly Magellan Award for Restaurant Design.  Managing Director Marin Bijl describes the design as combining tropical elegance with modern lounge elements—teak, copper, sophisticated finishes, custom lighting, and a large three-dimensional statement bar. This is not simply another restaurant, this is an experience, with live piano entertainment, at its heart.

Club Margot’s menu was developed under Executive Chef Frank Uphoff, whose background includes work in Michelin-rated restaurants. Frank collaborated with his team and with other resort food & beverage professionals, to add several show elements to the presentation of the appetizers and dessert – the tuna tataki is smoked, the dessert bomb melted. Cocktails are also a key component of Club Margot. The resort brought in New York cocktail personality Natalie Migliarini, co-author of Beautiful Booze and a participant on Netflix’s Drink Masters, for the opening and she helped develop the special cocktail menu, complete with excellent mocktails.

Guests are praising the food, cocktails, service, décor, and exceptional ocean setting. Club Margot is now the most successful among the resort’s restaurants.

All guests of Tamarijn and Divi all-inclusive have access to restaurants across both resorts. You do too, providing you make a reservation. Buy your restaurant pass at the front desk and enjoy a unique evening.

AHATA organized a session at the Hyatt Regency last week, focusing on how to fix tourism. The event started with a presentation by international destination management expert, Doug Lansky, a repeat visitor to the island – he was here twice before.

In 2015, Lansky was keynote speaker at World Tourism Day, and this is what I wrote: Doug Lansky’s entertaining speech, warned us against over-crowding, and recommended growing our tourist product to maximum comfort capacity. Though not a scientific term, everyone in the audience understood what he meant, as he pointed our noses in the right direction.

Then in 2020, just before the pandemic, Lansky visited again, as a guest of the AHATA General Assembly, and I wrote a blog titled: Kiss Cruise Ships Goodbye, inspired by his words of wisdom.

This is what I wrote: Lansky stated that cruise tourism represents about 50% of all Caribbean tourists but results in just 8% of tourist revenue. The message was clear: They are not spending. His research shows that over 80% of a cruise ship passenger’s discretionary spend is on board. The cruise ships companies hog all the cash, declining to share it with the destination. So, while they do not spend any money on shore, they require services in the form of water/fuel, trash removal, and en route harm the ocean with oily bilge water and sediment that damages reefs and water clarity. And just think about their emissions, that equals to 1 million cars per day. According to Lansky, they are more trouble than they are worth it, they want everything for free and the legend that cruise passengers fall in love with Aruba and return as overnight tourism, is indeed just a legend. Then Lansky asked: Can we earn more without cruise ships?

Lansky was back again in week, with the exact same message only more radical because by now we are suffering from the effect of overcrowding and congestion.

Apparently, Lansky has enjoyed a fantastic career travelling around the globe repeating the exact same message. He built a career on delivering a single cautionary note, but Aruba did not listen.

He described the phenomenon in which the adz advertising Aruba feature a picture of Tres Trapi with just two lovers in the water as hyperstability. Or when you take a nice photo from the best angle with few people on Eagle Beach. That happens when you aim at keeping occupancies high, no matter what the situation really is.

He showed his audience that in 1975 we enjoyed 120.000 visitors; 1, 250,000 in 2024, and if we do nothing, we will reach 3,735.000 visitors in 2055.

Lansky wanted us to focus on getting more value out of our visitors while protecting resources, and not measure success by growth.

But you already know that.

According to Lansky, the hotels deliver high value guests. If we regulate STRs so that only locals may operate them, they will greatly benefit the island. Timeshare owners are high value guests, while the cruise ship passengers are not.

The FIX? Regulate STVs and reduce the number of cruise visits, limit the size of the ships. Cla bo ta.

The Lanky presentation was followed by our Minister of Tourism’s presentation of his Tourism Policy and vision for how Aruba’s tourism strategy should be adapted moving forward. It was a run-on speech with many repetitions that went on and on. He stated fixing tourism was a complex issue and not that simple to resolve, several times, as a mantra.

At the end of his narrative he implied that while he is not making any hasty decisions, he will be looking at development holistically — he did not say that, but I believe that is what he meant. Which is something that our ROP already set in stone in 2019. Maybe before. We have always been required to weigh the economic benefits against all the added pressures and costs; The ROP asks developers to answer if their investment is still good for Aruba as a whole, after taking all challenges into consideration.

This is NOT NEW.

The Government was always supposed to think strategically. When weighing how many rooms added, also consider how many workers are required, are those workers available locally, or will they come from abroad? If so, where will they live, and what can they afford? Can the roads manage the added traffic and vehicles? Is there enough capacity for water, electricity, and wastewater processing capabilities? What additional infrastructure will the government eventually have to provide? That is coherent planning: before saying yes to anything, ask what the consequences would be, on all fronts.

The Hyatt Regency prepared a great spread, amazing butler served hors d’oeuvres, wines, and cocktails but the disillusioned audience quietly dispersed, heading back to their salt mines, uninspired, the hors d’oeuvres remained untouched.

Boolchand opens a new flagship store on Rockefellerstraat

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/boolchand-opens-a-new-flagship-store-on-rockefellerstraat/

Infini’s Menu XVI — A Journey Through Time

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/infinis-menu-xvi-a-journey-through-time/

The Aruba Tourism Authority hosts press members for breakfast

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/the-aruba-tourism-authority-hosts-press-members-for-breakfast/

Merêre Bistro, almost here

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/merere-bistro-almost-here/

The story of Cas Veneranda, continues….

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/the-story-of-cas-veneranda-continues/

An Important Read by a Close Observer of Aruba’s Spatial Development

https://batibleki.wheninaruba.com/an-important-read-by-a-close-observer-of-arubas-spatial-development/

One Coherent National System: Do We Realize What We Already Have?

The recent three-day Forum on the Future of San Nicolas brought welcome attention to the need to look beyond individual problems and understand how different parts of our society and economy are connected. The research presented examined the relationships among housing, migration, employment, investment, property, public space, and economic development, as part of a broader effort to understand the structural realities affecting San Nicolas and Aruba.

Two ideas from that discussion deserve closer attention: the call for “One Coherent National System,” and the observation that Aruba’s housing shortage existed long before Short Vacation Rentals, SVRs, became part of the debate. Both raise an important question: how much of this integrated thinking already exists within Aruba’s current planning framework?

That question brings us to the ROP and ROPV. Many people know them mainly as documents that determine what can be built where. But that is only part of the story. Aruba may already have a much more integrated planning structure than many people realize.

The Ruimtelijk Ontwikkelingsplan Aruba (ROP) can be considered a coherent national spatial plan because it presents an integrated vision for the development of Aruba’s entire territory, balancing economic, social, and environmental interests. Tourism is not treated as an isolated activity, but as part of Aruba’s broader spatial and social development. The ROP directs how our limited space should be used, bringing housing, nature conservation, infrastructure, economic activity, and recreation into a single framework.

The ROP itself does not contain directly binding rules, but that does not make it less coherent or less national. Coherence and legal enforceability are not the same thing. Coherence comes from balancing different interests within a single national vision. Legal enforceability comes through the Ruimtelijk Ontwikkelingsplan met Voorschriften (ROPV), which translates that vision into binding rules. The two instruments are complementary.

The ROP’s national character also comes from more than covering the whole territory. Under the Landsverordening Ruimtelijke Ontwikkeling, the draft plan is made available for public inspection, and citizens, organizations and other interested parties can submit their views before it is finalized. The ROPV goes through the same kind of public participation before its rules become binding. Nature and environmental interests are also built into the spatial framework, including the identification and protection of areas of particular ecological value.

Four elements come together: economic, social, and environmental interests are jointly balanced, the plan covers Aruba as a whole, the public can participate, and the ROPV makes it enforceable. That makes the ROP far more than another policy document.

The housing discussion shows why this matters. Aruba’s housing shortage did not begin with SVRs. FCCA was established in 1979 because a shortage of social housing already existed. For years it benefited from favorable government financing, but from 1993 onward it became largely dependent on commercial borrowing, and affordable housing is hard to build at scale when financed at commercial rates. FCCA also depended on government for affordable land, permits, infrastructure, and cross-department cooperation. By 2019, almost 3,000 households were on its waiting list; by 2024, more than 3,800 eligible applications remained.

Airbnb may have added pressure, but it did not create the structural shortage. Economic and tourism growth require workers. More workers can mean migration and population growth. More households need homes, land, roads, water, electricity, sewage and other services, and wages determine what housing those workers can actually afford. When these consequences aren’t planned together, a policy that looks successful in one sector can create problems elsewhere.

This is where the ROP/ROPV framework is more interesting than most people realize. Tourism growth was never treated as unlimited: the framework sets limits on tourism accommodations and ties future hotel growth to Aruba’s housing situation. Supportting policy documents discuss carrying capacity, including population, tourists, and vehicles per square kilometer, along with employment, minimum-wage jobs, the need for skilled and unskilled immigrant labor, water and energy use, land requirements, environmental effects, and existing infrastructure. The framework even recognized that a single department evaluating a major project is often insufficient and called for a multidisciplinary evaluation instead.

Suppose an investor proposes a large new hotel. Is it permitted at that location under the ROPV? That should only be the starting question. How many rooms are being added, and how many workers are required? Are those workers available locally, or will they come from abroad? If so, where will they live, and what can they afford? Can the roads handle the added traffic and vehicles? Is there enough capacity for water, electricity, and wastewater? What additional infrastructure will government eventually have to provide? Then comes the question that ties it together: after weighing the economic benefits against all the added pressures and costs, is this investment still good for Aruba as a whole? That is coherent planning: before saying yes to something, ask what that yes will cause elsewhere.

The ROPV cannot replace every other law. Housing finance, rental legislation, labor law, environmental legislation, taxation, and other areas need their own laws and policies, but those should not function as separate islands within our island. The ROP provides the vision, the ROPV provides enforceable rules, and other national policies need to coordinate with that framework.

Aruba keeps changing, so the ROP and ROPV cannot stay frozen. Tourism patterns shift, population and housing needs change, infrastructure reaches new limits, and new forms of development appear. The plans need regular review and adjustment so the rules continue to reflect the real situation, because a good plan built on outdated information eventually leads to bad decisions.

This brings us back to the call for “one coherent national system.” Perhaps Aruba’s problem was never that we failed to understand the need for integrated planning. Much of the architecture is already there. The real question is whether we understand it, keep it current, and actually use it as intended: keeping the data current, making multidisciplinary review a real part of major decisions, and continually testing development against housing, labor, population, infrastructure, utilities, mobility, environmental and economic capacity. When those systems can’t support more growth, government must be willing to say: not now, not here, or not at this scale.

Before creating another national plan, perhaps we should first reopen the ROP and ROPV and understand what Aruba has already built. Many of the ideas we are now calling for already exist, in documents very few people have read. A plan sitting on a shelf does not manage a country. Understanding it, applying it, updating it, and enforcing it does.

(We were just informed that ROP/ROPV was extended for another five years, no changes or updates made. It’s a big job, and our representatives are busy – the new administration will be burdened with the task, down the road.)

Cas Veneranda, at Wilhelminastraat 7, Oranjestad, has been restored beautifully and welcomed tenants, the Department of Economic Affairs, Commerce and Industry, DEACI, and a restaurant operator, Nathaly de Mey, of Taste my Aruba.

Last week, Nathaly gathered a few of her friends and gave them a taste of her Mesa Secreta, one of the three food concept she is developing for the venerated location. Mesa Secreta is a table for twelve, perfectly set with fine linen, embroidered napkins, flowers and candles designed to feed a group of friends deliciously. On the occasion of the first Mesa Secreta Nathaly recreated a family recipe for Keshi Yena, followed by an award-winning pumpkin soup, a lovely fresh salad, sliced sirloin steak on a bed of avocado and a corn tortilla for main course, and a sinful chocolate mousse for dessert.

Chef Janos, a tall Dutchman who worked in Bonaire for more than a decade doubled as the knowledgeable sommelier, while Nathaly introduced the cuisine.

She also introduced her new puppy, a playful black lab by the name of Pricilla.

Mesa Secreta will be available once a while, in an air-conditioned dining room with an exhibition kitchen, while the terrace streetside will serve breakfast and lunch every day. The roof top terrace will open in the evening, for small bites and cocktails, al fresco.

Wilhelminastraat is making a comeback.

The street is one of the historically important streets of Oranjestad, and the building is part of the older residential/architectural fabric being slowly restored as downtown seeks revitalization.

I remember the building as home to the elegant Papiamento restaurant. My memory shows me walking up a regal staircase, stepping onto a polished wooden floor. It’s not really a memory, it is an image, a fragment, a frame, which was replaced by many years on abandon, as the architectural gem fell into disrepair.

I found some info online: Cas Veneranda, was built in 1936. It was commissioned by Federico Maximiliano “Machi” Arends (1901–1981) for his wife Maria Veneranda Laclé (1901–1985). It is now a protected monument and is owned by Stichting Monumentenfonds Aruba.

The romantic story behind the architecture is genuine: while traveling in Cartagena, Colombia, Maria Veneranda became fascinated by a grand house there. Machi commissioned the master builder Nicolaas “Dada” Picus to go to Cartagena, study the building and bring the design back to Aruba. Picus then reproduced its character in Oranjestad. Colombian wood was imported specifically for the floors, doors, and frames.

The resulting building was one of the largest and most luxurious houses in Aruba at the time, in a Latin American neo-Baroque style. It even had a rose garden.

Maria Veneranda wasn’t simply the wife of a wealthy Aruban businessman. She was herself from one of the prominent families of early-20th-century Aruba.

Her father was Adriaan Laclé (1866–1935), a wealthy trader, landowner and financier described in historical accounts as one of Aruba’s richest men of his generation. He helped people obtain loans and owned considerable property. He commissioned Quinta Del Carmen in Bubali, one of the island’s few historic estates.

Adriaan had 17 children, although only 11 reportedly survived beyond age 18. Two of his daughters became particularly prominent:

Maria Monica Laclé married Dr. Eloy Arends

Maria Veneranda Laclé married Machi Arends

And here is the remarkable coincidence: the two Arends brothers married the two Laclé sisters.

So the two magnificent houses standing opposite each other on Wilhelminastraat were essentially two sister-and-brother couples’ mansions.

Eloy and Maria Monica’s house became the building now used as Oranjestad’s Town Hall. Machi and Maria Veneranda’s became Cas Veneranda.

That gives this little section of Wilhelminastraat extraordinary significance in Aruba’s social history.

Because Machi was a merchant and Spain’s consul in Aruba, Cas Veneranda served as his residence and part of the building also functioned as the Spanish Consulate. Machi went on to take part in Aruba’s organized business community, at the Chamber of Commerce, as the representative of the retail sector.

After the Arends family period, the building went through a succession of very different uses, it was a flower shop, an ice-cream shop, a nightclub, and as I remembered Papiamento Restaurant.

Papiamento Restaurant opened there in 1978. During the restaurant’s final years, the building also ran at night as Club Nouveau. Papiamento eventually moved out around 1990, after which the building was largely abandoned.

The Monuments Fund website explains that the large staircase was added during the restaurant period that was not part of the original house.

As the house was recently restored, the restoration team removed later additions in an attempt to recover the original architecture.

I also remember, in 2014, a major fire destroyed the roof and a large amount of the original interior, including valuable Colombian wood floors, doors and window frames, and many years thereafter the Arends heirs and the Monuments Fund, negotiated to reach an agreement to salvage the property. After more than seven years of negotiations, the Arends family agreed to sell the property to the Stichting Monumentenfonds Aruba (SMFA). The formal transfer took place in 2024.

The building was handed over, restored, in April, this year.

The restoration was a group effort, a heritage project shared by Stichting Monumentenfonds Aruba, the Arends family, Government of Aruba, APFA — General Pension Fund Aruba, Nationaal Restauratiefonds of the Netherlands and the Ministry of Economic Affairs.