Best dive resort / house reef in Curacao?

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It looks like you might get lucky, you can't dive the Superior Producer if there is a cruise ship docked.

Here is the schedule: Public view
Yup - I actually looked this up before booking our trip/picking dates as the other option would have been Bonaire but it was a cruise ship party over July 4 weekend. Now it's going to be down to how the weather pans out.
 
We just got back from a trip to Curacao and stayed at Lions Dive Resort. We dove with Ocean Encounters for the whole week. Ocean Encounters has a dive shop right on the resort (it was literally 200 yards from our room) with lockers and a place to hang gear. They have a great house reef for shore diving, and an amazing crew to dive with. The crew were very accommodating with some special needs that our group had, and even changed our dive schedule when TS Bonnie decided to make an appearance. When we lost a day of diving because of Bonnie, they rearranged the schedule and we got those dives in on our last full day on the island. They took us to a lot of reeds and we actually got to dive on the Superior Producer.

The resort itself has 4 restaurants to choose from, a small lagoon to swim/snorkel in and is very close to a shopping and restaurants. Ocean encounters even has a coral restoration program that was a really cool dive as well.

Even some health and travel issues, everyone at Lions Dive Resort and Ocean Encounters went out of their way to help us. I would definitely recommend them to anyone staying in Curacao
 
We're flying out to Curaçao tomorrow, and depending on what Tropical Storm Bonnie does I am meant to be diving on Friday and Saturday with Scubacao (who got great reviews all around). Hoping to do some gentle reef stuff for my wife's first ever scuba on Friday, then a three tank dive myself hopefully to include the Superior Producer. The forecast is saying rough seas for the whole weekend, so I have no idea if I'll even get in the water unfortunately, or if I do what the viz will look like.
How did the trip turn out? Apologies if I missed a discussion elsewhere. I’m hoping to plan a winter trip and Curaçao is on the list of possibilities.
 
Heading down later this month staying in westpunt. Will likely dive Alice in Wonderland a/k/a Playa Kalki every day. Will let you know if it is still as great a dive site as I remember. Will likely try to hit cas abao, lagun and playa grandi as well.
 
Heading down later this month staying in westpunt. Will likely dive Alice in Wonderland a/k/a Playa Kalki every day. Will let you know if it is still as great a dive site as I remember. Will likely try to hit cas abao, lagun and playa grandi as well.
How is playa grandi for diving? We snorkeled it with the turtles but didn't think to dive it.

Erik
 
How is playa grandi for diving? We snorkeled it with the turtles but didn't think to dive it.

Erik
We dove it every day as our house reef when we stayed at allwest apartments. Never dove it as a visitor so don't know about the public access.

The site has it's positives and negatives. Positives are in the early morning and late afternoon you have the site to yourself with the other divers from allwest. Baitballs & Turtles big plus

Negatives are it seemed to have gotten busier from one stay to the next with tourist boats loaded down with snorkelers and more visitors cramming into the small parking area and tiny beach. Boat traffic also seemed to increased to the point that unless early morning or late afternoon you have to be extra careful. Tourist and fishing boat traffic a concern.

If I do a dive there on this trip it will likely be early morning and in hopes of diving in a bait ball.
 
How is playa grandi for diving? We snorkeled it with the turtles but didn't think to dive it.

Erik

There's plenty of stuff in the sand eating the scraps, if you take your time, but if you want the reef you're better off with a surface swim past the boats. Maybe to the buoy, if it's still there, and drop down right to the Neptune.
 
We dove it every day as our house reef when we stayed at allwest apartments. Never dove it as a visitor so don't know about the public access.

The site has it's positives and negatives. Positives are in the early morning and late afternoon you have the site to yourself with the other divers from allwest. Baitballs & Turtles big plus

Negatives are it seemed to have gotten busier from one stay to the next with tourist boats loaded down with snorkelers and more visitors cramming into the small parking area and tiny beach. Boat traffic also seemed to increased to the point that unless early morning or late afternoon you have to be extra careful. Tourist and fishing boat traffic a concern.

If I do a dive there on this trip it will likely be early morning and in hopes of diving in a bait ball.
When we were at Marazul, last January, it was not only boats with snorkelers but buses of cruise ship tourists. As you said, though, that was late morning into the afternoon. Even GoWest included the turtles as part of their Blue Room snorkel trip.
I'll have to make sure I get down there for an early morning dive the next time we go.
 
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