The Hilton is older - at least the hotel building itself was - maybe early 80's?. The grounds are nice - I didn't see a room. Diving off their beach isn't the best as there's trash on the reef from parts of their pier falling down.
The Marriott next door is very nice. Nice pool complex, good restaurant right on the beach, pool bar etc. We had an excellent last evening meal right on the beach. Pretty nice beach also. Caribbean Sea Sports is the on-site diveop - I met but never dove with them - nice folks. Both resorts had small casinos also.
Both had visible security people - and controlled entrances. But it's really not an area I'd be too concerned with.
It's a fairly good swim out from either to the reef as it runs a little farther offshore there. Next door to the Hilton is Hooks Hut, a local bar/diveshop - from their beach we were shown the reef and decided we didn't want to swim that far - I'm 2 yrs. older than you also...lol.
Another option for escorted shore diving is the Dive Bus. They dive Willemsted all the way out to West Punt if they have enough divers. And will pick up in the Piscadera Bay area afaik. They're good people.
The Dive Bus - HOME
Most of the west of the city divesites have an operator on-site - at several you could ask them to keep an eye out on your vehicle/possessions while diving there. Porto Marie, Playa Lagun, Varsenbaai and one of the Gnip's do. Playa Jeremi is the only site we dove with absolutely no facilities. Any site with facilities will ask for a small usage fee (in guilders) - most have tanks/weights available also. Almost all started off the beach in a small protective cove with the reef an easy swim offshore. Only at one site did we change our direction plans due to current - at most there wasn't any.
Habitat is not as nice. Two years ago it was a little tired in some areas. I've never been in the rooms but we did dive/eat there more at least twice.
Their house reef (Nos Kas) is pretty nice, maybe one of the best in that area. It starts just off the resort dock around 40' and goes deeper. We liked it so much we drove back there to dive after moving into town later in the week. In the morning you may find other divers to buddy with - after noon we had the divedock to ourselves. Tanks are stored on the divedock with lockers and nice high benches to setup on.
I did a solo there without any problem. If you want to shoredive elsewhere they have a tank pickup in the parking lot. Habitat is on a bluff, so it's 3 flights of stairs to the water. And no beach at all, just rocks/ironshore with coral just offshore. They have a sundeck to lay out on at the "beach" level and a decent pool on top - the restaurant looks out over the water.
It's pretty remote - about 20-30mins. from Willemsted and off the main road thru a housing development. The housing development had a guarded entrance but that might have been part of the sales pitch also. Should you want any groceries, it's suggested to pick them up in town (Centrum Market) before driving out there.
A lot of Curacao's population lives near Willemsted. And they've had some financial hardships as an island lately - lots of poor people trying to make ends meet and immigrants from other islands due to the port and refinery. A friend's wife is a native so shared some insights with us. One of those places with a lot of 1/2 finished buildings that look to have been that way for years. Downtown around the cruise port is very touristy - about 3 blocks of stores behind the famous waterfront buildings. Crowded when the cruise ships dock there - not so much at night.
Any grungy areas we saw were around the port/refinery - not Piscadera Bay - it's the convention area and quiet.
Should you also be considering Sunset Waters -
don't. They just closed after bankruptcy and left a lot of people stranded. Though their website is still functioning.
So basically the better diving is in the west but other activities besides hanging around at Habitat would be in town.
Another option is Lodge Kura Hulanda in West Punt. It's on one of the best dive sites - Playa Kalki, with onsite diveop, Ocean Encounters West, and they do boat dives out past the west end that others. Including Watamula which I'm told is one of the best on Curacao.
It was very nice - one of the leading small hotels of the world - but it's 45mins. drive back to civilization from there.
One nice restaurant and a little snak on the beach. Not much of a beach as I recall also. West Punt locally has a couple restaurants within walking distance. It's really, really quiet out there at night - we may've found the only bar in that area one night - Rancho El Sobrino. My friend met his wife there.