UnderwaterBumbleBee
Contributor
After two trips nearly back to back, I finally have a chance post about our trip to Curacao over Thanksgiving! Hope to have my photos uploaded soon.
This was our second trip to Curacao, this time we booked Kura Hulanda Beach in Westpunt. We took advantage of the Curacao Now offer which was a pretty good deal although there was some disorganization. The deal included $400worth of airline credits, about $150 in food credits at the hotel, a coupon book for activities around the island and more. We were a little worried but we finally received the airline rebate in the mail! We heard they might not have enough money left at the end of the year so we were really happy about that! The only other hiccup was that the hotel seemed to have no clue what coupon book we were talking so we never received this hyped up booklet. We booked a car on our own through budget and had absolutely no issues; this one didn't have an annoying alarm like we had on our last trip.
Upon arriving, we pit stopped at Sunshine's on the way to the hotel for some snacks and visiting (she's so great!:kiss2
and we didn't check in until after 12am. This may have worked to our advantage, we think we got upgraded and probably because they were somewhat full. We were staying in the garden rooms but ended up in an upper unit which had a huge outdoor covered deck with two seating areas, an outdoor kitchen, a larger room than the downstairs unit (though still somewhat small) and a nice enough shower and separate toilet. We asked about upgrading to an oceanfront but they couldn't accommodate for the whole stay and I ended up enjoying our location. We were towards the end of the line for the garden rooms but our deck was very secluded, surrounded by vegetation with lounging iguanas and lots of beautiful birds. It had a fantastic breeze, guaranteed to dry your wet clothes or gear overnight. While it is a bit of a trek through the hotel grounds to OEW's dive shop, I would stay in this same room again. We peeked at the lower rooms and they were really tiny with small decks.
The food is pretty good at Kura, they have several options between the snack place on the beach to snacks at the bar and a couple restaurants. The breakfast buffet is around $15 per person (great pastries) which we had a couple days otherwise we just skipped it or grabbed some fruit. Next time I would head to the grocery store the first day and stock up on drinks and snacks for the mini fridge/outdoor kitchen. I would also bring or buy a cooler for drinks when you head out to shore dive or do other activities to leave in the car.
We ate a couple times at Daniels and had great French onion soup and I finally had the Dutch PANCAKES!!! I usually just like them plain but the cheese and ham were really good (great recommendation Martin)! If you havent had Pannekoeken, they are thinner and larger than an American pancake and more like a crepe. Daniels has had good food every time weve been. Mostly we ate at Sunshines (Sol Food) and a couple times I attempted to earn my keep trying to seat people and serve our table, drink runner Service with attitude and I didnt get FIRED! We had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner at Sunshine's and celebrated my birthday with some great friends! We ate Sunshine's delicious pumpkin & pecan pies (Andreas's favorite) all weekend. David did a great job expanding their deck, its huge now and a really nice place to kick back with good food and company!
We had booked the boat for the week with Ocean Encounters West, they were really busy and had a large group for most of the week. We tended to be on the smaller boats at the beginning of the week. We had a great time with David, Andreas, Tooki, Bryan and the rest of the gang at OEW. We also did some shore diving at the house reef and nearby at Neptunes. One day we took a zodiac out with Neils & his crew to dive on the east end of the island, while not for everyone, it was fantastic and I would do it again! Our group consisted of Sunshine & David, Steph & Martin and my hubby and I. We saw a manta ray on one dive, so graceful and beautiful. Sadly it had a man made coke bottle buoy snagged around most of its body. In one spot we saw two large nurse sharks hanging out and in the middle of them were a large porcupine puffer alongside another one that was ENORMOUS. This fish was way beyond the full growth standards. It was an incredible site to see these 4 creatures hiding out in this one spot. Lots of sea fans on the east side too.
In addition to diving, Sunshine set us up with Erics ATVs down by Lions Dive. This was another great day! It was about 3 hours of driving all over the east side of the island. We hiked up to bat caves overlooking the terrain and ocean, through various residential areas; pit stopped at the Ostrich farm and Aloe Vera farm, past the wind turbines next to the sea and more! Absolutely another activity we would do again! After another great trip, I still felt like there were lots of things we have yet to do or see! I cant wait to go back again! Next time Im going to plan on hitting more of the beaches, more shore diving, making sure the ostrich farm is actually open before driving all the way out there Trying to see more of the cultural sites, taking a walk up the mountain to visit Natas! So much fun and so many great people we've met while in Curacao!
This was our second trip to Curacao, this time we booked Kura Hulanda Beach in Westpunt. We took advantage of the Curacao Now offer which was a pretty good deal although there was some disorganization. The deal included $400worth of airline credits, about $150 in food credits at the hotel, a coupon book for activities around the island and more. We were a little worried but we finally received the airline rebate in the mail! We heard they might not have enough money left at the end of the year so we were really happy about that! The only other hiccup was that the hotel seemed to have no clue what coupon book we were talking so we never received this hyped up booklet. We booked a car on our own through budget and had absolutely no issues; this one didn't have an annoying alarm like we had on our last trip.
Upon arriving, we pit stopped at Sunshine's on the way to the hotel for some snacks and visiting (she's so great!:kiss2
and we didn't check in until after 12am. This may have worked to our advantage, we think we got upgraded and probably because they were somewhat full. We were staying in the garden rooms but ended up in an upper unit which had a huge outdoor covered deck with two seating areas, an outdoor kitchen, a larger room than the downstairs unit (though still somewhat small) and a nice enough shower and separate toilet. We asked about upgrading to an oceanfront but they couldn't accommodate for the whole stay and I ended up enjoying our location. We were towards the end of the line for the garden rooms but our deck was very secluded, surrounded by vegetation with lounging iguanas and lots of beautiful birds. It had a fantastic breeze, guaranteed to dry your wet clothes or gear overnight. While it is a bit of a trek through the hotel grounds to OEW's dive shop, I would stay in this same room again. We peeked at the lower rooms and they were really tiny with small decks. The food is pretty good at Kura, they have several options between the snack place on the beach to snacks at the bar and a couple restaurants. The breakfast buffet is around $15 per person (great pastries) which we had a couple days otherwise we just skipped it or grabbed some fruit. Next time I would head to the grocery store the first day and stock up on drinks and snacks for the mini fridge/outdoor kitchen. I would also bring or buy a cooler for drinks when you head out to shore dive or do other activities to leave in the car.
We ate a couple times at Daniels and had great French onion soup and I finally had the Dutch PANCAKES!!! I usually just like them plain but the cheese and ham were really good (great recommendation Martin)! If you havent had Pannekoeken, they are thinner and larger than an American pancake and more like a crepe. Daniels has had good food every time weve been. Mostly we ate at Sunshines (Sol Food) and a couple times I attempted to earn my keep trying to seat people and serve our table, drink runner Service with attitude and I didnt get FIRED
! We had a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner at Sunshine's and celebrated my birthday with some great friends! We ate Sunshine's delicious pumpkin & pecan pies (Andreas's favorite) all weekend. David did a great job expanding their deck, its huge now and a really nice place to kick back with good food and company! We had booked the boat for the week with Ocean Encounters West, they were really busy and had a large group for most of the week. We tended to be on the smaller boats at the beginning of the week. We had a great time with David, Andreas, Tooki, Bryan and the rest of the gang at OEW. We also did some shore diving at the house reef and nearby at Neptunes. One day we took a zodiac out with Neils & his crew to dive on the east end of the island, while not for everyone, it was fantastic and I would do it again! Our group consisted of Sunshine & David, Steph & Martin and my hubby and I. We saw a manta ray on one dive, so graceful and beautiful. Sadly it had a man made coke bottle buoy snagged around most of its body. In one spot we saw two large nurse sharks hanging out and in the middle of them were a large porcupine puffer alongside another one that was ENORMOUS. This fish was way beyond the full growth standards. It was an incredible site to see these 4 creatures hiding out in this one spot. Lots of sea fans on the east side too.
In addition to diving, Sunshine set us up with Erics ATVs down by Lions Dive. This was another great day! It was about 3 hours of driving all over the east side of the island. We hiked up to bat caves overlooking the terrain and ocean, through various residential areas; pit stopped at the Ostrich farm and Aloe Vera farm, past the wind turbines next to the sea and more! Absolutely another activity we would do again! After another great trip, I still felt like there were lots of things we have yet to do or see! I cant wait to go back again! Next time Im going to plan on hitting more of the beaches, more shore diving, making sure the ostrich farm is actually open before driving all the way out there Trying to see more of the cultural sites, taking a walk up the mountain to visit Natas! So much fun and so many great people we've met while in Curacao!
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