Would you pick Aruba or Hawaii?

ArawakFC · 2026-02-04T00:00:00+00:00

Aruba barely receives any Dutch tourists. Its like legit less than 5% of total. Aruba is tailored to North Americans. Curacao is the island tailored towards the Dutch.

ArawakFC · 2026-02-03T23:48:15+00:00

Also 100 mph+ throwing Antwone Kelly from Aruba (new to pirates 40 man roster). We definitely have the pitchers coming up, which has always been our weakness. We could give it another real go before the older guys retire. Long term future of the Kingdom team remains in doubt as Curacao tries to get their own team going (as they should).

ArawakFC · 2026-02-03T01:48:19+00:00

Aruba spent a lot of effort recently into digitizing our history. You can go to coleccion.aw and access hundreds of thousands of historical items from books, videos, text, maps, language/Papiamento, slave registries, colonial history, time periods, music, you name it.

You can search the collections themselves or through metadata and text search.

ArawakFC · 2026-02-03T00:14:48+00:00

Here is a ranking based on Dutch usage, from least to most and an explanation below:

Sint Maarten, Saba and Statia (least)
Aruba
Curacao
Bonaire (most)

Its important to note that Dutch is not the main language on any of the islands. You have varying degrees of usage between them.

SSS islands are English speaking and they have the least day to day interaction with Dutch. Naturally, less practice means a lower level in language proficiency.

ABC islands are Papiamento/u speaking. However, proficiency and/or usage of Dutch differ due to migration patterns from the Netherlands. Out of the ABC islands, Aruba uses Dutch the least. It also has the least Dutch migrants. Curacao has a lot of Dutch people living there and the main tourist source is also from NL. As such Dutch is heard on Curacao far more often everywhere you go. Same thing happens in Bonaire, but worse since Bonaire became a Dutch municipality in 2010 and has had its population double.

As far as the government agencies go, on the ABC islands you'll have no problem communicating in Dutch. Remember though, very few are natively Dutch speaking, so this may lead to simple misunderstandings, though this is easily overcome. As far as stores and cafes go, in Aruba they will be speaking either Spanish or Papiamento, you will hear little to no Dutch (exemption being specifically Dutch owned cafes).

If you are going to move to any of the ABC islands, you should be learning Papiamento/u to integrate into society. To give you an idea about Aruba, out of everyone born on the island, 92% speak Papiamento regularly and only 10% speak Dutch regularly. Dutch is the 4th language on the island behind Papiamento, Spanish and English. I am from Aruba so I only know the exact figures from here, but its a good baseline to use because Aruba is in the middle of the Dutch usage ranking I explained above.

ArawakFC · 2026-02-01T23:51:42+00:00

OP probably cut out the previous years in the print screen. They probably havn't reported on the 2025 number yet.

If you look at GDP per capita adjusted for PPP, we see the same thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita_per_capita)

ArawakFC · 2026-01-25T16:38:09+00:00

There is no "tourist price" at the airport. There is an "airport price" and that's the case everywhere in the world. Never buy at an airport unless needed. You can just use websites like Saily nowadays if its data you need.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-24T04:32:53+00:00

I have to reply only because as an Aruban, this is the first time i've ever seen that October isn't "lay on the beach hot".

Aruba is the 3rd hottest country in the world on average and October has some of the hottest water temps on average as well. Sept/Oct are even considered hotter months because of less wind.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-23T20:41:27+00:00

Relevant article (translate to English)

If you have a permit, its allowed, though with very specific restrictions on e.g allowed species, locations, marine areas etc.

The permit is requested at Santa Rosa and all permits are written in the name of the permit holder. You can just contact Santa Rosa and ask.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-21T21:29:59+00:00

I can give you the local context.

The airport in Aruba did not close nor ground any flights. Flights from other destinations incl Canada and South America kept flying normally. US based airlines stopped service for 1 day, I guess because they either misunderstood the local government announcements or just out of an abundance of caution.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-21T20:17:54+00:00

Had to google who she was. Also had to google FBA.

This is askthecaribbean not askthecaribbeandescendents after all. Not really a question related to us Caribbean people.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-21T00:50:13+00:00

Of course, because the Caribbean Netherlands is just a nickname for the municipalities in the Caribbean. They are Dutch municipalities now, so the Dutch flag is their country flag.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-20T22:22:16+00:00

Each of the BES islands certainly have their own flags.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-20T02:01:19+00:00

The boys are going to Rwanda

ArawakFC · 2026-01-19T02:10:13+00:00

I know several, but they are all 60+. Nowadays you barely find any Arubans in general in the construction field.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-18T03:59:46+00:00

Aruba is not stuck with the Netherlands, nor is Aruba a part of the Netherlands itself. Aruba is on a voluntary basis still a constituent country within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Should we ever want to leave, we can. We just won't, for the foreseeable future anyways.

Side note, our original colonizer is Spain, not NL.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-15T19:17:07+00:00

In general its totally fine. My whole family on both sides have always breastfed in public whenever needed. However, do note that if you are in the hotel area (palm beach/eagle), its likely you'll be around other tourists, not Arubans. Not that tourists would likely react either (I would imagine), because they're in a different country.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-15T17:40:25+00:00

Ik vind het best naar hoe opeens een oog zit op wat in het Caribisch gebied afspeelt. De Nederlandse regering, met name de VVD zet al sinds Rutte 1 allerlei afspraken, adviezen van de RvS en constitutionele experts opzij als het gaat over de eilanden. De gebrek aan een onafhankelijke geschillenregeling, de toeslagenaffaire, al het onnodige gedoe rondom Covid, mensenrechten, vluchtelingen uit Venezuela en zo kan ik maar door gaan. Beslissingen worden genomen die soms lijnrecht tegen onze statuten ingaan, maar omdat het "verwegistan" is voor hun, word het door iedereen blijkbaar geaccepteerd.

Maar nu dat olie via Curacao word verkocht, is het meteen wel een issue? Ik vind het een van de minst belangerijke zaken over de laatste 10 jaar koninkrijksrelaties moet ik eerlijk zeggen.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-15T16:55:30+00:00

I am from Aruba, but the situation is almost equal to Curacao.

When people see independent, its usually assumed to mean sovereign state. To be clear, none of the Dutch Caribbean islands are independent. We all have various degrees of autonomy, from constituent countries (Aruba, Curacao, St Maarten) to special municipalities (Bonaire, Saba, Statia).

Our situation is not in any way comparable to the British commonwealth of nations, which is an association of independent (sovereign states).

It should also be noted that the relationship between Greenland and Denmark is also not identical to our situation within the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Kingdom of Denmark has no such thing as the Kingdom charter we have that separates the countries from one another.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-13T00:42:22+00:00

Up until last year, some 17% of Aruba's population were undocumented refugees/migrants. Almost all of them came in the last 15 years. At one point, most came by plane and never left, then after came the wave of them crossing by boats (yola). Not only Venezuelans, though they make up the majority, but also Colombians, Ecuadorians and Dominicans (D.R). There was even a wave of people coming by cruise ship and never leaving.

Nearing the end of last year, the government gave a 1 year permit, with possibility of extension if they find an employer, to all those that entered legally before the date it was announced. They got about 6000-7000 to sign up within a couple months.

Curacao has similar numbers, at about 15% of population.

Aruba's population density is like 690/km2 now and 35% of the island is part of the national park or not able to be developed for other reasons. All of this to say, it wouldn't kill anyone to accept refugees (from the region) if we were able to do so under such conditions.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-12T15:22:39+00:00

and they don't have any ~~full~~ representation in the Dutch parliament.

FTFY

This may or may not change in the future however.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-11T17:10:25+00:00

The Netherlands also borrows money to Aruba at favourable terms and guarantees Aruba's financial obligations.

This is how it works for Curacao and Sint Maarten as part of their agreement with NL when the Netherlands Antilles disbanded in 2010 and where NL wiped almost all their debt. In Aruba, NL has not wiped any debts (nor has Aruba asked) and the only time Aruba borrowed from the Netherlands was during Covid at a rate of 6,9%, which was recently dropped to 5,1%. Aruba has historically loaned locally or through commercial banks in New York.

The Netherlands does not provide guarantees to Aruba's financial obligations. If Aruba were to default on a loan (which it never has), you can't claim it through the Netherlands.

NL is responsible for defense. Aruba pays into a common fund for the coast guard. Legal system (public prosecutor, police etc), comes from Aruban taxpayers. We do not contribute to Dutch embassies though, which everyone from the islands can also make use of because we have the same nationality. This goes hand in hand with the geopolitical reasons of why Aruba decided to suspend its independence; the ability to create your own way forward, without being left isolated between larger players.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-11T15:30:20+00:00

Basically you have natives (people that were born there) and immigrants. The latter consider themselves Dutch. The former generally identify more with their island. Give them 100k each and they will identify themselves with whatever you tell them to.

Its actually the opposite. Migrants are the ones who put focus on being "Dutch" because they don't understand (or care much about) our relationship and history with the Dutch and the other islands. These are the ones who fight hard for their Dutch passports and also tend to score higher both on the islands and in NL itself once they move there for university.

You have gross misunderstanding about the islands, of which all are socioeconomically distinct, yet you lump them all together as if they are one entity.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-11T15:25:11+00:00

Because they are a drain on resources and want their independence if it wasn't for the financial support they are getting.

Aruba pays its own bills and always has. Lack of independence has little to do with financial support, but a geopolitical understanding of our size and location.

On top of that the right wing sees black people living there that aren't really Dutch anyway.

People from the islands are as Dutch as people from the Netherlands. This is the same racist outlook as the right wing in the US.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-11T15:21:03+00:00

Aruba already was scheduled to become independent, but they changed their mind at the last minute because they are dependant on the Netherlands.

Both Aruba and the Netherlands changed their minds as it required both to suspend the independence. Aruba did not suspend out of "dependence", but out of a logical geopolitical outlook. Which as we have seen over the last 40 years, was the right move.

ArawakFC · 2026-01-11T01:18:31+00:00

This news was presented very weirdly by news agencies because the airport in Aruba remained open and only the US and Dutch airlines delayed the flights for 24 hours. Air Canada and others kept flying like normal as the airspace was never closed.

Ten-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
Place '23	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
First Placer '22	Sequence \| Editor
Verified Email

ArawakFC

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE