There are places in Curacao where if dropped on the reef you'd think you're in Bonaire. Same blue fish schools, same creatures etc.
The biggest difference is that instead of one shoredive site after another like on Bonaire - especially south of Kralendijk - on Curacao almost every site to the west is a short 5-10min. drive in from the main road. A couple of good dives in that area were Habitat's house reef (Nos Kas) and Lodge Kura Hulanda's (Playa Kalki/Alice in Wonderland) which I thought was the best shore dive we did all week.
Of course there's a lot more nightlife - dance clubs, about a dozen casinos, many more waterfront restaurants etc. It's also bigger and grimier - the deepwater port and the refinery just north of town contribute to that. The west end of town is also a lot more isolated - you have to drive back to town for just about anything including any sort of food store or most of the dining.
Nice, friendly people though, we stopped for directions often (not a lot of roadsigns once you leave town) and never felt threatened. Theft is also an issue there, at one place we stayed, there were bars on all the doors/windows and a 8-10' wall around the property. The owners told us that was mostly to discourage "visitors" during the non-resort season but they also told us to leave nothing of value in the trucks at any remote site. We never had any issues all week.
Shore diving - especially entries - is mostly easier than on Bonaire. One difference is that the reef in most areas is farther out than on Bonaire. At about 1/2 the sites we dove, we swam out on the surface to it. A lot of the sites - especially west of town - have sandy beach entries into a protected cove - but the reef itself is outside the cove. None were an excessive swim out.
There was more current than I remember compared to Bonaire also, but nothing too concerning - at a couple sites we changed our plan to swim into the current and ride it back. We did one drift dive at Lost Anchor (boat dive) that was a ride. I couldn't believe how far we'd drifted from our starting location.
A lot of the dive sites have on-site operators who you can rent tanks/weights from. Most charge a small usage fee in guilders to dive their site but they've improved the sites with dive docks, lockers, showers etc. In a week of shorediving we only found one totally isolated dive site - Playa Jeremi. I think the "Gnip" sites are also.
Nice places for a honeymoon - The Marriott at Piscadera Bay is one of the better Marriott's I've ever seen (and I'm a Marriott frequent traveler) Nice resort, good food, great beach and onsite diving with Caribbean Sea Sports. One of their restaurants has tables right down to the beach, we had a good meal there our final night sitting in the sand. Downside is their shoredive is a little farther out due to the way the resort is situated on PB. fwiw, the Hilton next door is aging and needed some (I'm being nice) work.
The other really nice option is Lodge Kura Hulanda. It's one of the leading small hotels of the world. I was in a suite one night, it was really nice. Downside for them is they're 45mins. drive out of town so you'd be eating most meals there except for a couple local restaurants walking distance nearby in Westpunt. Their shore dive is outstanding in both directions and they have Ocean Encounters West on-site - good facilities. Also you're a short boat ride to Watamula, a lot of people consider it the best dive on Curacao.
We never saw a shark. Did see dolphins twice, once in Lagun Bay and at the SeaAquarium (paid dolphin dive) Lots of eels, occasionally turtles, and smaller stuff - including a few different lobsters and the occasional octopus. At Varsenbaai we dove a pontoon boat wreck in 80' that was covered with stuff, found seahorses at the ball in 40', swimming back in along shore two turtles popped up by me and were feeding on seagrass in 6' of water. The operator said the seahorses and turtles are always there.
