Curacao - Shore or boat? Package or on your own?

[natalieinca]

We are heading to Curacao in September (8-18) and are having trouble picking a hotel, as well as dive package.

We are deciding between Habitat and Kura Hulanda Lodge (leaning toward Kura Hulanda).

Everything I've read sounded like Curacao was about shore diving, but our travel agent is saying you really need to boat dive - that the shore entries are too rough?? (There are definitely some boat sites we wanted to check out, but thought it would mostly be shore diving).

What I'm wondering is would we be ok booking a hotel and car now and then working out the dive stuff once we're there? We thought we could just rent tanks/weights and do mostly shore diving.

Any other tips or hints? We're checking out the trip reports and other post here as well.

 

[UnderwaterMacamba]

The shore entries being too rough is nonsense. There are some sites - Mushroom Forest, for instance - that can only be reached by boat, but you can easily spend a week on Curacao doing three shore dives a day without hitting the same site twice. For those sites where you need a boat, you can arrange it from the island itself, once you're there.

If you're travelling with a buddy (sounds like you do) just bring your gear, rent tanks, weights and a car and you'll be fine.

 

[Divedoggie]

I strongly recommend Kura Hulanda Lodge. Its beautiful, the water is pristine, there is an abundance of life on the house reef, "Alice in Wonderland."

The shore diving is easy and convenient. It is easy to sign up for boat dives at the last minute with the on site Op, Ocean Encounters West. The staff is nice and the prices are fair. My only regret last time I was there was that I had signed up for boat dives in advance, and I was committed to that. It is worth a 2 tank boat dive on Watamula and Mushroom forest. Otherwise, shore diving the house reef, neighboring Playa Piscado, and Playa Forti, Grote Knip, and Klein Knip, are more than enough to keep you busy and interested endlessly, and on your own schedule.

I would have happy doing 20 dives at Playa Kalki (Alice in Wonderland) It has great formations, tons of macro-life like lettuce nudibranchs, eels, frogfish, etc. Night dives are easy and even more interesting.

Jaanchies restaurant is down the street in addition to some very good restaurants at the Hotel. The pool, the seaside lunch cafe, a good dive shop, hundreds of wild amazon parrots atop the cactus, and the views, make the Kura Hulanda Lodge and the West end of the island, tops IMO.

Below is a shot of the pier at Playa Piscado, about 5 minutes from Kura Hulanda Lodge.

 

[Damselfish]

Curacao is a good place to do either boat or shore diving, whatever you prefer, don't let anyone tell you it's all one or the other.

Kura Hulanda is a beautiful place to stay with good food and a gorgeous house reef. Habitat is more of a divers hotel, functional but not anywhere near as nice as it used to be they've let it get rather run down, and the restaurant there tends to be not so great. I much prefer the dive operation at Habitat, it's all around more convienient for boat or shore diving - lockers, hours, tank pickup in the parking lot, attitude, many things. The shore dive at Habitat is also nice but not as nice as at Kura Hulanda at this point, probably because Habitat has been heavily dove for some years now and down at Kura Hulanda has not had nearly as much traffic.

You are best off with a car either place, but since you'll be shore diving you obviously plan to have one. Both places are a distance from town - good for diving and relaxation, not as good if you want to hit more restaurants, shopping, sightseeing. Habitat is not quite as far so a bit better for that sort of thing.

One thing about Ocean Encounters at KH that I learned the hard way last summer, you cannot count on their boat running. Unless something has changed they won't run without at least 4 and sometimes they do not even have that many people for the boat. So there isn't even any such thing as a guaranteed am boat even if you book ahead with them. (If you book a dive package with boat dives through the hotel the hotel said they will make sure of the boat running, but I didn't laern that until we was leaving.) If you are mostly interested in shore diving this shouldn't be a problem. The OE shop at Kura Hulanda is at the bottom of a long flight of stairs and there is no tank pickup in the parking lot I am aware of so you might have to hump tanks up there. They also close at 5 and there aren't tanks available to grab 24x7 like at Habitat, so you have to plan ahead for after hours. One day they closed early on us because they had a meeting at the other shop, which I thought was pretty lame.

Watching the wild parrots around KH is very cool. They played in the trees or in the air near our balcony most of the day. Actually lots of neat birds to watch there. (Watching the bats during dinner at night was fun too, we cheered them on to eat the bugs! )

 

[natalieinca]

Thanks for the tips. Looks like we're going to book the Kura Hulanda and rent a car.

From what I've read it looks like a lot (or at least some) of the shore sites have rental tanks so we don't necessarily need to lug tanks from KH every day.

I'm really looking forward to it. That pier pic is great.

 

[diversteve]

From what I've read it looks like a lot (or at least some) of the shore sites have rental tanks so we don't necessarily need to lug tanks from KH every day.

Given the custom - no two are alike - design of the steep rock steps from OEWest up to the parking lot that's what I'd do. There's a little winch-pulled trolley that ran along the staircase, but when we were there in April it looked like it hadn't been used in years.

Sites that I know of that have on-site tank rental/facilities are Playa Lagun, Sunset Waters and Varsenbaii. If you dive at Habitat one day - it's a great reef - Porto Marie is just a few minutes up the road. Can't recall if there's a rental place there so get tanks at Habitat's pickup as DF mentioned above.

At any of the dive sites where there is an operator, you usually pay a small usage fee so carry some guilders with you.

If you do dive the Tugboat - probably an hour drive one way from KH - there's an on-site dive op there. Go in the afternoon, otherwise the cruiseboat operators will be dropping a hundred snorkelers on your heads. Go around the point first and then back to the Tug. My friends saw eels in the cliffs there.

There are no facilities at Playa Jeremi so that's one you'd need tanks for. Not the best dive we did though. It's a beach entry but the reef is out past the bay so a long swim out.

If you do want any sort of food/market items while at KH, better get them in Willemsted on your way out. My friends found one little market in Lagun and that was all. If there was one in West Punt - you'd think there would be - we didn't see it.

 

[Rand]

I just got back from Kura Hulanda and a week of boat dives with Ocean Encounters West. The dive operation was excellent and they did a great job handling our 40 diver group.

2 quick tips. For after hours shore dives at KH, ask about the locker room next to the beach grill restaurant. The front desk has a key to the room and you can pick up tanks from the dive shop before 5PM and store them in the locker room and use them whenever you need them. You store the empties back in there and OE takes care of them in the morning. You can also get keys for the lockers in the room from the front desk. It saves you from having to lug all your gear up the steps.

Now, we were a large group, but I assume these features are available to all hotel guests.

Second, the wait staff is extremely slow. Keep that in mind as there is no "quick bite to eat" available. Be prepared to ask for them to bring you the check, as they almost never will until you ask for it.

Have fun and make sure you get to dive Black Coral Forest, Watamula, and Mushroom Forest. There's a seahorse at 65ft on Watamula if he's still there.

 

[Divedoggie]

The advice to go grocery shopping in Willemstad is smart. The Brazilian Market just East of Lagun can take care of some snacks and basics, but the supermarket between the airport and Willemstad is the place to stock up on stuff.

Westpunt has Jaanchies(so good!), EL Rancho, and a place that is sometimes open on the cliff above Playa Forti. Otherwise the restaurants at Kura Hulanda are excellent, but expensive. Its impossible to get food after 9:00pm though, so its smart to have some of your own! Water is safe right out of the tap, but have ice on hand!

The dive shop does close at 5:00, so making arrangements ahead of time for tanks is a must. They will explain and help with everything at the OE West Diveshop.

 

[ScubaCrash]

The advice to go grocery shopping in Willemstad is smart. The Brazilian Market just East of Lagun can take care of some snacks and basics, but the supermarket between the airport and Willemstad is the place to stock up on stuff.

There's also a Cost-U-Less (sorta like Sam's Club and Costco) and the Centrum along the way heading into Willemstaad. Both offer a pretty decent variety of food commonly found here in the States (PikNik Potato Sticks and Goober Grape Peanut Butter and Jelly woohoo) I shopped a lot at the Cost-U-Less because I found a better variety and could by in quantities that would last me a couple weeks at a stretch, and with the exchange rate it turned out be a really great money saver. Just be wary of the milk if you buy any. Double and triple check the expiration dates and don't go guzzling any before you had a sip, that turned out to be a bad experience.

 

[natalieinca]

Thanks again and keep it coming.