Bonaire/luxury hotel?

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coldwaterglutton

Contributor
Messages
137
Reaction score
164
Location
Connecticut
# of dives
500 - 999
Can anyone based on recent experience recommend a hotel in Bonaire - my son and I are not choosy, but my wife (who is a former divemaster) is now at a point where she likes luxury and sitting on the beach. So I need a hotel that's posh and where a whole day can be spent without feeling like it's a bunch of divers running for the dock.

TripAdvisor is hard to sort out which places fit the bill here. Cost is almost irrelevant as my wife likes to spend my money, so a private bungalow setup might work.

I'd appreciate any leads?
 
In case what others recommended doesn't work out...

Bonaire, luxury and beach; an interesting mix. Sounds more like Curacao to me, but that said, you might do some checking on Delfin's Beach Resort - 2017 thread asking for feedback on it. Here's their website.

Disclaimers: I haven't stayed there and the thread I linked wasn't real recent.

A place I thought of by past reputation (albeit not beach front, IIRC, and I haven't stayed there, either) from past reviews I think was called Bamboo Bali...but now searching online I just see Bamboo Bonaire. They claim luxurious cottages with massages and yoga available.

Sand Dollar Condo.s (where I have stayed) had a small, sandy beach. At least the unit I stayed in wasn't luxurious, but it was clean, spacious and nice.

Eden Beach Resort (stayed there long ago, under prior management) had an artificial sandy beach; it didn't extend into the water, and I don't know what luxury options are available, if any.

Plaza Beach & Dive Resort Bonaire I seem to recall having a sandy beach...and I see one in a photo on their page. I haven't stayed there, but I believe they've hosted at least one Scuba Board Invasion in the past. Never stayed there.

In years past, the word 'luxury' (or maybe 'high end') in reference to Bonaire brought one name to mind...Harbor Village Bonaire. Their webpage photos suggest at least some sandy beach. Looked at their prices in the past and NO I've stayed there o_O

Hope you'll write a trip report when you guys get back.

Richard.
 
Sand Dollar is complete but basic, there is a small beach area.

Den Lamen next door is much nicer, but does not have a nice beach.

Guys go to Harbor village to impress their future wives, so I have been told. It’s tells the future wife that they have money and are not afraid to spend it. It has a sandy area, but is not a beach.

You can’t dive easily off of Eden beach due to the current generated by the underwater topography.

Divi might be your best bet.
 
You can’t dive easily off of Eden beach due to the current generated by the underwater topography.

Here's what they told us years ago at the Wanna Dive dive shop there. Look at the boats anchored right off shore. If they face the island, perpendicular to shore, you can dive it. If they are parallel to shore, the current is doing that and you may not want to dive it. This area of the west coast is 'pinched' between Bonaire and Klein Bonaire, and thus subject to intermittent currents.

The shore dive site there was called Eden's Rubble; by the shore there was a small pier with a rock ledge, then sandy plateau for aways out into the ocean, then a large, 'bowl' concavity wherein which was the small but neat wreck of the Bakanal (I haven't dove it in several years, so no idea what's left of it now). Definitely not a 'corel reef' dive, but had its own charms, especially as a night dive. Along the water's edge at night, small chain moray eels hunted by the rocky iron shore (a friend and I walked along shore with dive lights at nights; I'm talking an eel in maybe inch deep water).

Eden's Rubble is good for a shallow water 'rubble crawl,' but be mindful scorpionfish were fairly common here, so keep your belly far enough off the bottom.

Immediately north (and accessible from the north end of the property) is what I think is called Front Porch, a decent dive site with a tug boat quite deep but reachable.

Well to the south of Eden's Rubble was an old wooden wreck called the Our Confidence, but it was in rough shape when we visited sometime before my 8-year old daughter was born, so I don't know what it looks like now (we dove to it in that current I mentioned; you haven't lived will you've used a piece of dead coral rubble like a pick axe to pull yourself along the bottom (note: not where corals were! Sandy bottom!) to make progress toward a goal).
 

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