Airline Prices to Bonaire - ouch
- Thread starter cmcdarris
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drrich2
Contributor
I'm interested to hear what you ultimately find. If you tell us what you're looking for, we may have some suggestions to check into. Here are some ideas:
1.) Waterfront a bit north of town: Den Lamen and Sand Dollar Condo.s are side-by-side and use Dive Friends on site; Buddy Dive Resort; Captain Don's; Hamlet Oasis (also in that area is Beach Comber Villas, but not many rooms and I suspect likely to be booked up).
2.) Budget and not waterfront. Dive Hut (uses WannaDive), Tropical Divers Resort (room/truck/shore diving package) - I just recently learned of this one (recommended by another forum member), and they can do a pretty killer 14-day package, Aqua Viva Suites (next door to V.I.P. Divers, which they use as as a diver services provider in packages, and V.I.P. Divers has 100-cf tanks! Yes!!! V.I.P. Divers has other housing 'partners,' but this one is next door and can do a good budget package price), and on the forum I've read good things about Happy Holiday Homes (?IIRC on the name). Tropical Inn Resort and Aqua Viva Suites are on the same road, to the south of town, which would be good for hitting the southern dive sites.
Richard.
elegant_phyllidia
Registered
Thanks for the tips Richard, passed along to my friend who is organizing logistics. The debate is higher end (i.e. Delfins, Harbor Beach) versus no frills (such as Djambo and some other locations) and most likely we would go with Dive Friends I tend to gravitate towards more cozy / intimate locales as those are the experiences where I have met awesome folks; in fact, travel buddy is someone I met during Belize diving trip. She of course, after this past year of Covid, would love to splurge. Hopefully we can find common ground 
BrackaFish
Contributor
Let us know how the search goes and where you end up staying. Post a report when you get back and share your thoughts on Bonaire. It is always fun to revisit a place thru the eyes of a 1st timer. Be safe.
drrich2
Contributor
Ah, places I don't stay (I'm too cheap)! Location between the two is quite different; Bonaire isn't so large along the mainstream west coast that where you stay makes a huge difference, but those 2 are in different places. I don't generally see Harbor Beach Resort reviews here, but while fairly new, Delfin's has had some:
Bonaire Trip Report - Delphins Resort - Sept. 2019 by buff diver.
Delfins/AB Dive Feb 9-16, 2020 Punt Vierkant Bonaire - Feb. (?) 2020 by ProtonDecay123.
Harbour Village Visit - July 2016 by MJSilver.
P.S.: It's not waterfront, but I've read good things about Bamboo Bali (I think the name's changed a bit) as a pricy boutique offering.
I just pulled the trigger on our next trip, in March 2022. Airfares from Atlanta were only outrageous on Saturdays; so long as Delta continues flights on other days we are in good shape, with sub-$600 and even some sub-$500 fares.
The possibility of airfares increasing was less on my mind than lodging booking up. As I mentioned in another thread, on my July trip it seemed to me that Bonaire was fuller than I recalled on past trips. Just my perception, but I felt there were more divers and trucks out and about. More trucks parked at dive sites. Restaurants booked up days in advance.
The possibility of airfares increasing was less on my mind than lodging booking up. As I mentioned in another thread, on my July trip it seemed to me that Bonaire was fuller than I recalled on past trips. Just my perception, but I felt there were more divers and trucks out and about. More trucks parked at dive sites. Restaurants booked up days in advance.
drrich2
Contributor
I was online last night on Orbitz comparing airfare. The cheapest fare Wednesday Feb. 16 - Wednesday Mar. 2, 2022 was American Airlines, economy, $566.36. I'd been looking at Wed. - Wed. flights as a result of this thread, and @tursiops post #2 in it. I got curious and ran the same search, but for Sat. Feb. 12 - Sat. Feb. 26, 2022. The cheapest flight was again American Airlines, still economy, and it's $1,388.86! With almost identical times at least on the 'going to' leg of the trip (e.g.: depart at 6 a.m., layover a bit over an hour in Miami). The next 'cheapest' was Delta, at $1,576.36.
Unbelievable.
It's not just you. From yesterday's e-mailed Undercurrent.org update: In July, says Irina Zeylikman (Lexington MA), Captain Don's Habitat in Bonaire “was packed, I have never seen that many people at the same time in all our years coming there. They were running all boats three times a day, and all boats were full. But we did not mind, we've been diving, and it was good. There were noticeably fewer big fish and more lionfish. But the rest was plentiful, turtles, eagle rays, squid, seahorses . . . The flights were packed. Restaurant reservations were a must as the island was packed, too. Can't wait to go back.”
Ha. It was seeing that person's report in Undercurrent yesterday that I think prompted me to mention my own observations here. I completely agree with what she said, including seeing more lionfish, of which I hardly saw any a couple of years earlier. Off topic here, but I wonder if it's cyclical? Divers enthusiastically hunt lionfish when reports of sightings increase, then the hunting drops off following dwindling sightings (and lower demand from restaurants during the pandemic), and so on. Maybe with tourism--and demand for lionfish--picking up, in a few months we won't be sighting them again.
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