Best Days to Travel to the Caribbean?

[Thomas Fair]

When it comes to flying and international travel, I really have no experience. As a college student looking to book a scuba trip with some of my friends, I need all the help I can get. I currently live in Upstate South Carolina and have easy access to ATL. I was wondering what days of the week were best for travel to Caribbean islands such as Bonaire or Curacao? I am also looking for any other advice and information to cure my current ignorance.

 

[Pedro Burrito]

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[KathyV]

When it comes to flying and international travel, I really have no experience. As a college student looking to book a scuba trip with some of my friends, I need all the help I can get. I currently live in Upstate South Carolina and have easy access to ATL. I was wondering what days of the week were best for travel to Caribbean islands such as Bonaire or Curacao? I am also looking for any other advice and information to cure my current ignorance.

First question, do you have a current, valid US passport? If you had a juvenile passport from the past it may not still be valid. If you or any of your travel companions need a passport then apply for it soon, they take time to get and some countries are leery of admitting travelers with brand new passports. If you can't get a passport as soon as you need it, look at traveling to a US territory like St. Croix.

When are you planning to travel? A lot of places book up in advance for Easter and Spring Break so it may be hard to find accommodations, but if you are thinking of the summer break then you should have time to find a good option. Do you plan to rent a car?

What is your ballpark budget excluding airfare? How many days do you plan to travel and about how many dives do you want to do? Are you willing to share accommodations or are you looking for single occupancy? These factors can impact availability and pricing.

As far as the best days of the week to travel, you will find more flights available on weekends but the airports and immigration and customs departments will be more crowded on weekends. Some resorts have more availability for Saturday to Saturday bookings.

There are generally more flights available to the more popular tourist destinations than to more remote places like Bonaire and Roatan, so depending on destination you may have limited flight options and travel days.

What do you like to do on vacation? Do you mostly want to eat, sleep, and dive? If so, there are some liveaboard dive boats that might be good options in the Bahamas and Caribbean, but liveaboards generally sail on weekends.

Do you also want to enjoy topside activities and restaurants? Are all of your traveling companions divers or will there be some non-divers in your group?

If you can provide more information we can give you better suggestions.

 

[Thomas Fair]

First question, do you have a current, valid US passport? If you had a juvenile passport from the past it may not still be valid. If you or any of your travel companions need a passport then apply for it soon, they take time to get and some countries are leery of admitting travelers with brand new passports. If you can't get a passport as soon as you need it, look at traveling to a US territory like St. Croix.

When are you planning to travel? A lot of places book up in advance for Easter and Spring Break so it may be hard to find accommodations, but if you are thinking of the summer break then you should have time to find a good option. Do you plan to rent a car?

What is your ballpark budget excluding airfare? How many days do you plan to travel and about how many dives do you want to do? Are you willing to share accommodations or are you looking for single occupancy? These factors can impact availability and pricing.

As far as the best days of the week to travel, you will find more flights available on weekends but the airports and immigration and customs departments will be more crowded on weekends. Some resorts have more availability for Saturday to Saturday bookings.

There are generally more flights available to the more popular tourist destinations than to more remote places like Bonaire and Roatan, so depending on destination you may have limited flight options and travel days.

What do you like to do on vacation? Do you mostly want to eat, sleep, and dive? If so, there are some liveaboard dive boats that might be good options in the Bahamas and Caribbean, but liveaboards generally sail on weekends.

Do you also want to enjoy topside activities and restaurants? Are all of your traveling companions divers or will there be some non-divers in your group?

If you can provide more information we can give you better suggestions.

Okie Doke so I'll try to give a lot more information as boundary conditions here and we will see where it takes us.

- I am the president of a college dive club, but that doesn't mean this would be like an official club trip. i just have a lot of college friends and some alum who I like to dive with. Going on a trip like this everyone in the group would be divers.

- I have a passport but I remember how long it took to get, so if we're going to plan a trip it would be in the future as in this summer or the next.

- Sharing accommodations is fine, but I'm a big fan in staying in houses. I know that most VRBOs are 25+ age but I've been able to work out a deal with managers in the Keys to acquire a house. If I were able to rent a house for a week that would be the best option.

- Again, we plan to travel in the Summer

- We are an Eat, Sleep, and Dive crew. Everything else is usually an audible

- I think something more on the side of remote/less busy is suitable for us. We aren't a party crowd. We really just like diving.

I hope this helps and thanks for helping me out.

- Thomas

 

[arew+4]

I've had my best luck with flights to Bonaire and Curacao by extending the vacation and flying Wednesday to 2 Saturdays or Sundays out, so it's like a ten or eleven day vacation. We stay in rental villas and most of them will work with your longer stay requests without charging a premium. If they do keep looking there is plenty of units out there.

Last December we got direct non-stop flights from NYC to Curacao for $550 going from the 18th thru 28th.

Bonaire always cost more usually 200-300 more per ticket.

 

[Esprise Me]

Flights tend to be cheapest on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The high season in the Caribbean is winter through spring break, so you can save a little money by going in the summer or fall.

Coming back through customs can be long and unpleasant. If everyone in your party shells out for Global Entry, it can make that part of the process quicker and easier. You'll also get TSA pre-check included, which means you get through security faster and don't have to take off your shoes or light jacket. It's $100, which I know is a lot of money for a college student, but it's good for 5 years, and I found the application process pretty painless. Something to consider.

I used a travel agent to book a trip to the Caribbean, and she pointed out that the all-inclusive resorts in the area I was visiting were the same price as the hotels that weren't AI. That surprised me; I had been shying away from the AIs thinking I could save money since I wasn't planning to drink much and wanted to eat at little hole-in-the-wall taquerias. But I checked for myself and it was true. Something to look into at your destination; maybe it will be different for you, but maybe not.

Get DAN insurance, if you don't have it already.

Have fun!

 

[Kharon]

... If you can't get a passport as soon as you need it, look at traveling to a US territory like St. Croix. ...

Not true. When I traveled to St. John and St. Thomas I could not get through TSA, get a bording pass, nor could I board without a passport. Territories of the United States are not the United States. Don't know about Puerto Rico but I would guess a passport is required to fly there as well. I'll chack this thursday with someone that traveled there a couple weeks ago and post the answer friday.

 

[KathyV]

Not true. When I traveled to St. John and St. Thomas I could not get through TSA, get a bording pass, nor could I board without a passport. Territories of the United States are not the United States. Don't know about Puerto Rico but I would guess a passport is required to fly there as well. I'll chack this thursday with someone that traveled there a couple weeks ago and post the answer friday.

Interesting, everything I read says that US citizens don't need a passport to travel to/from the US territories but it appears that you need identification and it is much easier if you carry a passport. I can't remember what we did on our LOB trip to St. Croix but we probably carried our passports:

St. Croix Passport Requirements - Entry Documents - Necessary ID - US Virgin Islands - USVI

 

[drrich2]

Well, Bonaire and Curacao are both below the so-called 'hurricane belt,' even in winter the water's still pretty warm (though summer vs. winter there is a little difference, at least in my Bonaire trips), and you're looking to travel in summer so there's not the issue of snow and ice at your local airport creating a risk of cancelled flights or an inaccessible airport. If you want to read up more on those 2 destinations, here are some threads that might help:

Curacao Trip Research Notes
Curacao Trip Report with SB Surge Jan. 2019
My Research Notes for Bonaire - My Research Note For Bonaire

Read some recent Curacao threads; more sandy beach there, and it's larger so VRBO/AirBnB offerings may be richer I suspect. Dive Hut in Bonaire is pretty budget.

You didn't ask about Cozumel, but a fun-loving bunch of young divers looking for trips on a budget - well, you will be asking about Cozumel sometime, so here you go -
My Research Notes from Planning Cozumel Trip - My Research Notes from Planning Cozumel Trip and Tres Pelicanos & Casa Mexicana, Cozumel Sept. 2018 Report - Tres Pelicanos/Casa Mexican Trip Report Sept. 2018

 

[KathyV]

Okie Doke so I'll try to give a lot more information as boundary conditions here and we will see where it takes us.

- I am the president of a college dive club, but that doesn't mean this would be like an official club trip. i just have a lot of college friends and some alum who I like to dive with. Going on a trip like this everyone in the group would be divers.

- I have a passport but I remember how long it took to get, so if we're going to plan a trip it would be in the future as in this summer or the next.

- Sharing accommodations is fine, but I'm a big fan in staying in houses. I know that most VRBOs are 25+ age but I've been able to work out a deal with managers in the Keys to acquire a house. If I were able to rent a house for a week that would be the best option.

- Again, we plan to travel in the Summer

- We are an Eat, Sleep, and Dive crew. Everything else is usually an audible

- I think something more on the side of remote/less busy is suitable for us. We aren't a party crowd. We really just like diving.

I hope this helps and thanks for helping me out.

- Thomas

This is very helpful but you didn't give an estimate of budget per person excluding airfare. I tend to think of college students as financially constrained but perhaps that is not the case in this situation. I just know that I was broke when I was in college but it was a long time ago.

Just in case budget is an important factor I suggest taking a look at Blackbeards liveaboard cruises in the Bahamas. It is a no-frills "eat, sleep, and dive" all-inclusive vacation. Not the finest coral reefs in the entire Atlantic/Caribbean area but nice, and lots of diverse sealife and usually plenty of sharks and some wrecks, too. The water will be warm in the summer and it is usually easy to find reasonable flights into Nassau; see the link below:

https://allstarliveaboards.com/blackbeards-liveaboard-diving/