Anyone stay at the Plaza Resort in Bonaire recently?

[jcroy66]

Ok this sucks. SB ate my reply twice. And typing on the iPhone sucks.

Try #3:

Questions:
1. Are there restrictions on the hours you can get nitrox tanks? I like doing night and early am dives.

2. Will the boat dives go to sites like Klein Bonaire that aren't accessible via shore diving?

3. Anyone know if we have to spread the 12 boat dives in our package equally during the week or if we can concentrate our boat dives on 3-4 days of 3-4 boat dives a day?

TIA!

 

[Mike]

I'll try to help you...

Nitrox, I didn't use, but I believe the nitrox tanks were kept under more supervision then the air tanks. I can't remember seeing fresh nitrox tanks at the two shore locations at the resort. I do recall seeing empties. Take this with a grain of salt, somebody who used nitrox there will have better info, hopefully they will answer.

I'm not sure if you are asking if they will go to Klien or if they will go to areas on Klien that are not official dive sites?

As far as I know, all boat dives are going to go to official sites on Klien or otherwise because they use the mooring balls at the sites. No mooring no dive I would think.

If you are asking will you get to dive Klein, the answer is you won't easily avoid it. As far as I could tell every 2:00 pm boat dive goes to Klein no matter what, and the only other boat dive we did was the morning one and they were both at Klein. (The next day they did go to the Hooker and Blue Vista using their biggest boat) We were shore diving the Hooker and saw everybody from the previous group on the wreck.

There was no restrictions on the boat dive arrangements. In fact you are basically on for boat dives the moment you arrive, since they automatically put your names on the boat dive sign ups on the side of the building at the dive shop, and you have to erase your names on the days you don't want to boat dive.

I jumped on most of my boat dives totally unscheduled, as long as there was room on the boats they didn't seem to care one way or the other.

 

[jcroy66]

If you are asking will you get to dive Klein, the answer is you won't easily avoid it. As far as I could tell every 2:00 pm boat dive goes to Klein no matter what, and the only other boat dive we did was the morning one and they were both at Klein.

Yep, that is what I was asking. Great, sounds good. I can't wait!!

Hopefully someone else can chime in about availability of nitrox tanks. What about air tanks? Certain hours or 24/7 availability?

Thanks!

 

[mbs]

They are pretty flexible as to which sites to visit. We went to Klein a bunch. The dm's were very concerned when the group wanted to go to a site they knew we dove from shore. Of course we don't care! I can dive some sites over and over! So make it known you plan to do a lot of shore dives and prefer to do Klein. As long as other folks agree you'll get to go there.
We also only dove air, but the air tanks were available 24x7 for sure. I'm pretty sure that you would need to take your nitrox tanks before the dive shop closes in the evening - 5:30-6pm.

 

[RJP]

1. Are there restrictions on the hours you can get nitrox tanks? I like doing night and early am dives.

Depends on where you're trying to get 'em from... (Hint: you can fit three in one of the 24hr access dive lockers... and tanks left in your truck over night are perfectly safe.)

 

[jcroy66]

Yeah that's what we ended up doing when we stayed at Sand Dollar. But since we had to get them by 4:30 at SD, it meant we sometimes had to cut our afternoon dives short in order to get back in time.

Thanks all!

 

[RJP]

Yeah that's what we ended up doing when we stayed at Sand Dollar. But since we had to get them by 4:30 at SD, it meant we sometimes had to cut our afternoon dives short in order to get back in time.

Thanks all!

Get three, put em in the locker. Get more, put em in your truck. Go diving. Get back, take tanks from locker later.

We'd always have three tanks each in the truck and the locker.

 

[Scuba Monster]

Yep, that is what I was asking. Great, sounds good. I can't wait!!

Hopefully someone else can chime in about availability of nitrox tanks. What about air tanks? Certain hours or 24/7 availability?

Thanks!

I would say Nitrox is available 24/7. You just have to analyze your tank before they close the Nitrox room. I don't recall the time they lock the room - we didn't have any problems accessing tanks. If you want to do a shore dive at their house reef using Nitrox, they will drive the tanks down to the shore dive area for you as well. Air was always available at the shore dive set up areas.

 

[jcroy66]

Thanks everyone! So I take it the dive shop is cool with taking that many tanks? Or is it a "what they don't know won't hurt them"?

 

[RJP]

Thanks everyone! So I take it the dive shop is cool with taking that many tanks? Or is it a "what they don't know won't hurt them"?

We got a sort of "don't ask, don't tell" nod from them when we were there, and always swung by to drop off the empties on the way past.