Please help with pros/cons
We stayed at Belmar last June. It was a pretty nice time to be there, although a little hot. Only rained one time during the week. Great unobstructed sunsets from your patio - the kind you want to film. I think I saw the "green flash" once.
Sand Dollar has the better house reef - it's the Bari Reef divesite. Belmar has their house reef, a nice dive but nowhere near the fish/animal life. Belmar lights their dive dock u/w at night, not sure about Bari.
Belmar is certainly newer. Maybe as much as 10-15 years newer. As is typical on Bonaire there is only a/c in the bedrooms at Belmar. And it only works when the door to your bedroom is closed and the room is occupied. Kind of odd till you get used to it.
Sand Dollar has a small beach, BelMar has none as it sits on a small cliff. The nearest beach to Belmar is the Bachelor's Beach dive site a few hundred yards to the north.
If you have small kids, Belmar may not be such a great idea, it's about 20' from your patio to the pool - no fence around the pool, another 20' to a cliff and a 15' drop to the rocks/water on either side of the stairs that go to the dive dock.
No food near BelMar except for a small restaurant just a few blocks south. Mostly a breakfast/lunch kind of place. Everything else is a drive around the lagoon to either the Plaza resort or a little further to Kralendijk - 5 minutes away.
BelMar is now the 2nd Buddy dive location. Unless it's recently changed, this means that any boat diving you do with them you'll have to drive about 15 min. up to Buddy's to catch the boat. The website sort of alludes to Buddy's diveboats picking up at their boat dock there, but I think that's only for charters.
Buddy's has the only drive-thru tank operation on the island, I assume if you're a BelMar guest you can use it also when diving in the north. Although BelMar makes it really easy to get tanks, they have a 24/7 gated pickup area just off the road at the south end of the property. We found it easiest to just temporarily park there while getting tanks/using their nitrox analyzer. And since Belmar sits right on the main road to all the south dive sites, the Hooker, Salt Pier, Angel City etc. it's really convenient to change tanks as you drive by.
At BelMar if you have a ground floor unit, they have a closet for your dive gear outside your back door. Upstairs units use lockers near the dive shop. Parking at Belmar is just off the road and really tight, you literally put your trucks front bumper into the bushes to get far enough off the road. But there's no traffic on the road so it's not really an issue.
Bonaire Dive/Adventure has their lockers along the dock which is a slightly farther walk back to your vehicle if in the Sand Dollar lot. You can however get quite a bit closer by driving out the Sand Dollar parking lot and then into the next driveway to the south which is for BD&A. Otherwise it's probably 50 yds. from the farthest south point of the Sand Dollar lot to the BD&A facilities.
BD&A offers more non-diving activities. There's even a couple of naturalists working there since Bari Reef is an official REEF fish survey site. It's supposed to be the #1 site in the Caribbean for diversity of fish species. Also Fisheye Photo is co-located there if you're wanting to do any photography/courses.
Herman may have been thinking of Port Bonaire while discussing the KLM situation in his post. It sits right under the flightpath. We left the windows and doors open most of the week at BelMar and never heard a plane, it's pretty far south of the airport and quiet at night, except for the occasional donkey noises from the sanctuary nearby.
Except for the restaurant at Den Laman to the south of BD&A, both properties are about as far away from food in Kralendijk. The little plaza just past the rotary south of Sand Dollar has Lover's, a small market, the Chat/Browse internet cafe. and there's a bank with atm next to it. Nothing like that near Belmar, the nearest is in Kralendijk. Also you can eat at Capt. Don's - practically next door to Sand Dollar. They have a good brick oven pizza place there besides their outdoor restaurant - which although slightly Americanized has a great view of the tarpon feeding in the lights at night. Not sure if Buddy's next door to them has a restaurant but I'd guess they do.
The staff at BelMar is incredibly helpful and friendly. I have no experience with SD. in that regard.
hth,
