Hello,
Me the wife and 2 daughters (13 and 9) just got back from Bonaire a couple of days ago. We already miss it. We stayed at Divi Flamingo in a ocean view deluxe room. The island is fantastic and this was our first time there. I've been to Cozumel 8 times starting in the mid 80's and then last year on the Scubaboard invasion trip so they'll probably be some comparisons (especially the diving) during this report.
Divi Flamingo is a nice place and we were comfortable. We stayed in one room, which was a bit cramped, and being 6'4" tall my feet hung off the end of the double bed lol. The waves washing up on the rocks right outside our room was wonderful and very soothing while you slept. We had an unlimited shore diving package which included a free rental car. We booked through Bay Adventures and have used them several times. Always a pleasure to deal with Al and Felix. Originally we were going to stay in one of time shares with a kitchen but switched to the deluxe ocean front due to fears about the condition of the time shares. While we were there they did start tearing them apart for renovation. We didn't witness any partying at the pool by local teens that I had read about on this forum. Regarding the rental car I requested an automatic at the counter and was told it was a $5 upgrade per day. I asked several times and was told $5. The truck was a chevy Colorado with 1500 km on it and it had 4 wheel drive. When we returned the truck I was told the truck was a $25 a day upgrade. There was nothing I could do about it at that point but did feel we were taken. Sure enough they showed me on the contract where it stated the $25. Next time I'll request to see it on the contract. I know for a fact I was told $5, which is reasonable. They know you're tired and hot and just want to get to the hotel. I declined the $17 a day insurance. We bought trip insurance through DAN which included $35k in rental car collision coverage. Pressure was high to get the insurance. She explained we'd have to pay for any damage to the vehicle before we could leave the island. Don't know how Hertz is going to enforce that. Oh, and btw, don't use Hertz.
The casino at Divi. Now I like to play craps and in their video about the hotel they show a craps table. There isn't one and never has been. So I decided I'd play some black jack. After several hands I decided to take a break and observe. I witnessed one player making some strange bets with one particular dealer. He would sometimes stay on a 12 with the dealer showing a 10. Clearly he was being signaled at times not to take a hit. Another time he busted taking a hit on a 14. As the dealer (same one) was finishing with the other players he tossed back the king that had busted his hand back towards the dealer and she paid him out. Same dealer would shuffle the decks and glance at the pit boss first. If he wasn't looking she would stare at the cards as she shuffled. Several times (same dealer) a player would place the black card for the cut in the cards and she ignored it if they weren't looking. Table was full of locals at this point and the player who busted on the 14 and didn't take a hit on 12 a few times was doing quite well. I walked out. I would avoid the casino unless you're playing slots. Collusion between one of the dealers and one of the players was pretty apparent.
We did shore dives with Divi Dive but no boat dives. My 13 yr old did her checkout dives with Ebby the 2 days after we arrived. Ebby was great and my wife did her rescue diver checkout dives with Ebby the 3rd day. He's a very thorough instructor and Gail had to work pretty hard to pass. She used my daughter as a accident victim as there was no way she was going to get Ebby out of the water lol. He's a big guy. Overall very pleased with Divi Dive and Ebby. Gail has friend who has a friend who moved to Bonaire with her husband to start a dive charter business. SEA DONKEY DIVING Tracey and David were awesome. We did 6 boat dives with them and all were fantastic. My 9 yr old doesn't dive so Tracey provided a snorkel guide for her at our dive sites for $10 an hour. Tracey did not charge us a snorkeler fee. Five out of 6 trips we were the only divers on the boat. We got the special attention you would expect and my 9 yr old Leanna felt like she was part of the group and had a great time. We didn't want to get her a babysitter, we just didn't feel it was fair to her. We will probably dive with Sea Donkey next time we're there. They let Leanna drive the boat several times (supervised of course) and it was a riot. We had a fantastic night dive with Sea Donkey on Small Wall and my 13 yr old Shayna loved feeding the tarpon by highlighting fish with her dive light. Saw a monster green moray on the dive, fully exposed and just lounging on the reef.
Our second night there, June 2nd, the moon set at 5:30 an hour before sunset and I booked a night dive for Ostracods with Paul at Bon Scuba. Gail and I went on our own with Paul. I had a difficult time finding anyone who didn't believe the Ostracods would only be out 5-6 days after a full moon. Paul didn't promise anything except if we didn't see them we'd have a great night dive anyway. We did a reef just south of salt pier and went out to about 40 ft of water and dropped down on the reef. We turned out our lights and as this was my wife Gail's second night dive she gripped my hand. Sure enough the show started and it was amazing! Glowing Ostracods covered the reef and after a few minutes your eyes have adjusted enough you can make out the other divers. We had Ostracods so close you could see their shape. Words can't describe this dive, and you can't get pictures. After about 3-5 minutes the show would fade a bit and Paul would fire up his light and sweep slowly over the reef and then turn it off and they would be glowing again as if the light agitated them. After about 25 minutes we fired up the lights and did a night dive on the reef. Call Paul with Bon Scuba if your trip coincides with a date where the moon sets before sunset and he will take you on an Ostracod dive.
I'm not going to list the sites we dove partly because they were picked not for diving only but to provide a good snorkeling spot as well. All in all the diving on Bonaire is fantastic. Compared to Cozumel I enjoyed it much more. These dive sites usually have very little current so stopping to shoot some pictures is fairly easy. The reefs for the most part are not very deep. Our dives averaged about an hour and we saw the usual turtles, a huge green moray on the night dive hanging out completely exposed on the reef, octopus, eels, tons of fish etc. The tarpon were very cool and watching my daughter feed them with her dive light was kind of macabre but cool at the same time. She thought it was hilarious. We did dive the Hilma Hooker of course and my daughter had our dive master escort her around. Raul was fantastic (Sea Donkey) and I never felt like she wasn't in good hands even when she hit 85 ft. Bring hard soled dive boots and a 3 mm full suit. We were fairly comfortable in a full 3 mm but my daughter (fairly thin) got cold pretty easy and we had to get a vest with a hood for her a few days into the trip. Water temp was typically 83.
We met a special group of people with a group called Life Waters. They are a volunteer group and non profit who's mission is to train and take disabled veterans scuba diving. We made friends with several members of the group and I was fortunate enough to go dive with them one day to help out if needed. I shot some video and pictures of the group. It was really special diving with this group. The experience was amazing. Divi Dive recently had a lift installed, which I believe was donated by Life Waters. Disabled divers can now hit the house reef at Divi any time they want and for our first week there we saw so many from the group using the lift. The trip wasn't the same after they left. All in all there were 17 disabled divers and support staff totaling 43 people.
The food is very good typically on the island. Tracey from Sea Donkey loves Bistro De Paris and says they have the best pizza they have found on the island. We had ceviche there and it was very good. We did 3 food trucks which were Kite City, Cactus Blue and King Kong. The favorite was Kite City. The catch of the day fish burger is always great and my daughter loved the hamburger. Cactus Blue had a great burger as well and a lionfish burger that was awesome as well. More fish on the fish burger than Kite City. The burger was a bit better here IMO as well and the owners were very friendly and talkative. King Kong was pretty good as well but staff was more business like which I understand as they were busy while we were there. Other than that we were pretty tired at the end of the day and ate at the hotel restaurant Chibi Chibi. It was ok.
Me the wife and 2 daughters (13 and 9) just got back from Bonaire a couple of days ago. We already miss it. We stayed at Divi Flamingo in a ocean view deluxe room. The island is fantastic and this was our first time there. I've been to Cozumel 8 times starting in the mid 80's and then last year on the Scubaboard invasion trip so they'll probably be some comparisons (especially the diving) during this report.
Divi Flamingo is a nice place and we were comfortable. We stayed in one room, which was a bit cramped, and being 6'4" tall my feet hung off the end of the double bed lol. The waves washing up on the rocks right outside our room was wonderful and very soothing while you slept. We had an unlimited shore diving package which included a free rental car. We booked through Bay Adventures and have used them several times. Always a pleasure to deal with Al and Felix. Originally we were going to stay in one of time shares with a kitchen but switched to the deluxe ocean front due to fears about the condition of the time shares. While we were there they did start tearing them apart for renovation. We didn't witness any partying at the pool by local teens that I had read about on this forum. Regarding the rental car I requested an automatic at the counter and was told it was a $5 upgrade per day. I asked several times and was told $5. The truck was a chevy Colorado with 1500 km on it and it had 4 wheel drive. When we returned the truck I was told the truck was a $25 a day upgrade. There was nothing I could do about it at that point but did feel we were taken. Sure enough they showed me on the contract where it stated the $25. Next time I'll request to see it on the contract. I know for a fact I was told $5, which is reasonable. They know you're tired and hot and just want to get to the hotel. I declined the $17 a day insurance. We bought trip insurance through DAN which included $35k in rental car collision coverage. Pressure was high to get the insurance. She explained we'd have to pay for any damage to the vehicle before we could leave the island. Don't know how Hertz is going to enforce that. Oh, and btw, don't use Hertz.
The casino at Divi. Now I like to play craps and in their video about the hotel they show a craps table. There isn't one and never has been. So I decided I'd play some black jack. After several hands I decided to take a break and observe. I witnessed one player making some strange bets with one particular dealer. He would sometimes stay on a 12 with the dealer showing a 10. Clearly he was being signaled at times not to take a hit. Another time he busted taking a hit on a 14. As the dealer (same one) was finishing with the other players he tossed back the king that had busted his hand back towards the dealer and she paid him out. Same dealer would shuffle the decks and glance at the pit boss first. If he wasn't looking she would stare at the cards as she shuffled. Several times (same dealer) a player would place the black card for the cut in the cards and she ignored it if they weren't looking. Table was full of locals at this point and the player who busted on the 14 and didn't take a hit on 12 a few times was doing quite well. I walked out. I would avoid the casino unless you're playing slots. Collusion between one of the dealers and one of the players was pretty apparent.
We did shore dives with Divi Dive but no boat dives. My 13 yr old did her checkout dives with Ebby the 2 days after we arrived. Ebby was great and my wife did her rescue diver checkout dives with Ebby the 3rd day. He's a very thorough instructor and Gail had to work pretty hard to pass. She used my daughter as a accident victim as there was no way she was going to get Ebby out of the water lol. He's a big guy. Overall very pleased with Divi Dive and Ebby. Gail has friend who has a friend who moved to Bonaire with her husband to start a dive charter business. SEA DONKEY DIVING Tracey and David were awesome. We did 6 boat dives with them and all were fantastic. My 9 yr old doesn't dive so Tracey provided a snorkel guide for her at our dive sites for $10 an hour. Tracey did not charge us a snorkeler fee. Five out of 6 trips we were the only divers on the boat. We got the special attention you would expect and my 9 yr old Leanna felt like she was part of the group and had a great time. We didn't want to get her a babysitter, we just didn't feel it was fair to her. We will probably dive with Sea Donkey next time we're there. They let Leanna drive the boat several times (supervised of course) and it was a riot. We had a fantastic night dive with Sea Donkey on Small Wall and my 13 yr old Shayna loved feeding the tarpon by highlighting fish with her dive light. Saw a monster green moray on the dive, fully exposed and just lounging on the reef.
Our second night there, June 2nd, the moon set at 5:30 an hour before sunset and I booked a night dive for Ostracods with Paul at Bon Scuba. Gail and I went on our own with Paul. I had a difficult time finding anyone who didn't believe the Ostracods would only be out 5-6 days after a full moon. Paul didn't promise anything except if we didn't see them we'd have a great night dive anyway. We did a reef just south of salt pier and went out to about 40 ft of water and dropped down on the reef. We turned out our lights and as this was my wife Gail's second night dive she gripped my hand. Sure enough the show started and it was amazing! Glowing Ostracods covered the reef and after a few minutes your eyes have adjusted enough you can make out the other divers. We had Ostracods so close you could see their shape. Words can't describe this dive, and you can't get pictures. After about 3-5 minutes the show would fade a bit and Paul would fire up his light and sweep slowly over the reef and then turn it off and they would be glowing again as if the light agitated them. After about 25 minutes we fired up the lights and did a night dive on the reef. Call Paul with Bon Scuba if your trip coincides with a date where the moon sets before sunset and he will take you on an Ostracod dive.
I'm not going to list the sites we dove partly because they were picked not for diving only but to provide a good snorkeling spot as well. All in all the diving on Bonaire is fantastic. Compared to Cozumel I enjoyed it much more. These dive sites usually have very little current so stopping to shoot some pictures is fairly easy. The reefs for the most part are not very deep. Our dives averaged about an hour and we saw the usual turtles, a huge green moray on the night dive hanging out completely exposed on the reef, octopus, eels, tons of fish etc. The tarpon were very cool and watching my daughter feed them with her dive light was kind of macabre but cool at the same time. She thought it was hilarious. We did dive the Hilma Hooker of course and my daughter had our dive master escort her around. Raul was fantastic (Sea Donkey) and I never felt like she wasn't in good hands even when she hit 85 ft. Bring hard soled dive boots and a 3 mm full suit. We were fairly comfortable in a full 3 mm but my daughter (fairly thin) got cold pretty easy and we had to get a vest with a hood for her a few days into the trip. Water temp was typically 83.
We met a special group of people with a group called Life Waters. They are a volunteer group and non profit who's mission is to train and take disabled veterans scuba diving. We made friends with several members of the group and I was fortunate enough to go dive with them one day to help out if needed. I shot some video and pictures of the group. It was really special diving with this group. The experience was amazing. Divi Dive recently had a lift installed, which I believe was donated by Life Waters. Disabled divers can now hit the house reef at Divi any time they want and for our first week there we saw so many from the group using the lift. The trip wasn't the same after they left. All in all there were 17 disabled divers and support staff totaling 43 people.
The food is very good typically on the island. Tracey from Sea Donkey loves Bistro De Paris and says they have the best pizza they have found on the island. We had ceviche there and it was very good. We did 3 food trucks which were Kite City, Cactus Blue and King Kong. The favorite was Kite City. The catch of the day fish burger is always great and my daughter loved the hamburger. Cactus Blue had a great burger as well and a lionfish burger that was awesome as well. More fish on the fish burger than Kite City. The burger was a bit better here IMO as well and the owners were very friendly and talkative. King Kong was pretty good as well but staff was more business like which I understand as they were busy while we were there. Other than that we were pretty tired at the end of the day and ate at the hotel restaurant Chibi Chibi. It was ok.
