Cost Of Food In Bonaire

[lynnemari]

We are going to Bonaire ( hopefully), still waiting on our travel agent. We plan on going Jan 3rd, staying for a week at the Plaza, diving mostly off shore dives. We planning on doing the drive dive and stay package. We are budgeting for a certain amount and want to know how much to expect to spend on food. We don't eat all 3 meals a day out. Dinner would be our splurge, and cocktails too. We thought we may stock up on some items from a local store. ( we are staying in the one bedroom villa on the lagoon side.) Is there a store, how do their prices compare and how much can you plan on spending on food. I know it may very from person to person. Any feed back would be great though.
Thanks Lynne :05:

 

[mer]

We are going to Bonaire ( hopefully), still waiting on our travel agent. We plan on going Jan 3rd, staying for a week at the Plaza, diving mostly off shore dives. We planning on doing the drive dive and stay package. We are budgeting for a certain amount and want to know how much to expect to spend on food. We don't eat all 3 meals a day out. Dinner would be our splurge, and cocktails too. We thought we may stock up on some items from a local store. ( we are staying in the one bedroom villa on the lagoon side.) Is there a store, how do their prices compare and how much can you plan on spending on food. I know it may very from person to person. Any feed back would be great though.
Thanks Lynne :05:

Eating out will be in the ball park of going to nicer chains here in the states, think TGI Fridays or Applebees etc. There is Cultimara the local supermarket and some things are much cheaper there.

I would wait on booking for a day or two to see if there is anything left after Ivan.

 

[parrotman]

Hy Lynne,

There are two main grocery stores in town. The Cultimara and then there is a wharehouse store but I don't recall the name.
We usually use Cultimara. The prices are pretty good actually. Alot of people seem to think that Bonaire food is expensive, being from the North Bay area of California, I don't see it that way. You can buy excellent beef on the island for what I would call "cheap" You won't find a huge selection of fresh produce but if you go to the produce stand down on the water front you can get some pretty good stuff for a good price. What we normally do is bring an ice chest full of stuff from home and then suppliment that with local groceries. As for the cost of eating out? Like anywhere else, it depends on where you eat.
Don't let the meat counter scare you off. It does not look like the ones here in the states, but the quality is good and they have excellent heath standards. We bought enough steak for a bbq to feed 10 and I think we paid about $14 US for the meat.

Jim

 

[herman]

We find the food on Bonaire about on par with here in Raleigh. You can eat at some of the local "snacks" for $5-6 or you can go steak and lobster and run the bill up to $50pp or more. I usually budget <$10 for breakfast, PBJ for lunch most days and $15-20 for supper. That does not include drinks which we rarely get.
The name of the other grocery actually is the "Wharehouse".

For what it's worth, you do know that the Plaza is one of the more expensive resorts on the island. If you want to cut cost, you might want to consider Sand Dollar, Buddy Dive (our choice) or Lions Dive. All are on the water and are nice places.

Come join us on the Bonaire board. Lots of great info and nice people.
www.bonairetalk.com

And another site you might find helpful http://www.infobonaire.com/index.html