Question Curacao-What's Your Experience with Marazul Dive Resort?

[morecowbells]

It has been a few years, but I have stayed at Marazul twice. I enjoy the diving and location. The one bedroom units are closer to the ocean than the three bedroom units. I am a light sleeper and had no issues with barking dogs, road noise etc. The only downside is some units have louvered windows which I am not a fan of since they really don't insulate from ambient noise i.e. birds or people walking by. The walls are also quite thin. Fortunately, this place does not attract the party crowd so neighbors were typically quiet.
I cannot recall the specific units we stayed in, but they both had a/c on both levels. One unit only had hot water from the kitchen sink and master bedroom shower. Not a deal breaker. Hoping to book a place there within the next year.

 

[DirtFish]

I'll be at Marazul the end of March thru April. I'll give you an update when I get back.

 

[RIHappyDiver]

I'll be at Marazul the end of March thru April. I'll give you an update when I get back.

We had a really good time there a year ago, but always curious what has changed.

Erik

 

[deep down under]

@living4experiences, to answer some of your other questions, we stayed in 1B, booked through Marazul Dive Resort on the beautiful island of Curaçao. All of the units on this site are ocean front and 1 bedroom 2 bath, with the second bath being downstairs and a great place to hang gear. The owners were great to work with, and the unit was nice. It was a little short on utensils, but is was only the two of us. We really liked that it was next to the pool as this turned out to be the nighttime gathering spot for our group (one of our party was in 1A, another couple in 10B and one member at Rancho el Sobrino).

We did not have a problem with ants as long as we kept food in the refrigerator and dishes clean. This meant any type of food that did not come in a completely sealable container. So, cereal, chips, bread, anything like that went into the fridge. We had a massive swarm on our kitchen wash sponge once because we didn’t rinse it well enough.

Both floors had a/c, which we were all asked to only run when we were there, and to turn off the downstairs unit at night. We found that we didn’t really need to run the units during the day as we would get a great breeze through the condo with the windows open. The owners all asked for the downstairs windows to be closed when we weren’t there, but they cooled down quickly with the breeze when we returned.

The property is nice, the two sets of stairs running down the wall to the water were fantastic. The one thing we all agreed was an issue with the units was the stairs to the upper floor. Rather steep and shallow, with no landing at the top by the door to the bedroom. If you forgot anything in your bedroom during the day, or forgot something that you wanted to go over lying in bed at night, you were up and down the stairs.

Ultimately, would I stay there again? I would. It’s a great place to dive and hang out.

I’d be happy to answer any other questions that I might be able to. you can ask on here, or DM me, which ever works best for you.

Erik

Erik we are going end of April for 2 weeks .I have been talking with Rene from Marazul. I am wondering about tank rentals and weights ( Sublime dive operator) .Do you know can you get 4 tanks from them if you want to drive south from Marazul or do they only give you 1 tank at a time ? We are going to rent from Sublime but are not sure what there policies are ? Also can you suggest any maps or books of shore dives and how to drive to them ? Thanks so much you seem to be quite Knowledgeable on Marazul Dive Resort and Curacoa .Any info will be appreciated . Claude & Mark& Rose & Sandy from Canada

 

[RIHappyDiver]

Erik we are going end of April for 2 weeks .I have been talking with Rene from Marazul. I am wondering about tank rentals and weights ( Sublime dive operator) .Do you know can you get 4 tanks from them if you want to drive south from Marazul or do they only give you 1 tank at a time ? We are going to rent from Sublime but are not sure what there policies are ? Also can you suggest any maps or books of shore dives and how to drive to them ? Thanks so much you seem to be quite Knowledgeable on Marazul Dive Resort and Curacoa .Any info will be appreciated . Claude & Mark& Rose & Sandy from Canada

Well, you flatter me. However, I have to give credit where credit is due, and that is to a lot of folks here on Scuba Board. Before our trip last year I read a bunch of Curaçao threads, and asked a bunch of questions of people who had been before, just like you’re doing now. I’ll be glad to share any information I can, and, hopefully others will add to it.

Regarding Sublime, the owner is a very nice man. I tried contacting him before our trip to try to arrange tank rental and storage but, like many places in the Caribbean, and outside of the Caribbean for that matter, he was not really responsive. Definitely send him an email, though. Now that tourism is returning in force he may be watching his emails more closely. There was a Dutch couple who seemed to have run of the shop, so you might be able to arrange better access for tank pickup. As to how many tanks you can take at a time, I’m not sure. His price list has pricing for unlimited diving, so I find it hard to believe that you couldn’t get at least 2 tanks per person at a time.

Two other options to consider is 1) checking Go West to see what their policy is on the number of tanks you can take at a time, or do what others on here have written about and 2) take one tank each to do a dive on your way to different dive sites that have dive facilities. This allows you to rent tanks there as well as leave your valuables safely with the dive shop. This thread lists a few of the sites that @Saturated and satisfied, from the Dive Bus, came up with that have on site dive shops How to find out which sites have an on-site dive op?. Curaçao seems to be a bit unique in this regard.

I haven’t used any special maps or books. Mostly I used google maps in combination with information on this board or Scuba Diving in Curacao with Dive Curacao, Caribbean Dive Travel which is also on this board, @Dive Curaçao. We did have an interesting situation with our phones. My iPhone SE (second gen) did not have good coverage at all, whereas my wife’s iPhone 11 had great coverage. Same on Bonaire. Don’t no why, same carrier, same plan.

Hope this helps. Feel free to ask any questions that you come up with. Also, we all like trip reports, hint hint !

Erik

 

[DirtFish]

Thank you for the great info RIHappyDiver! We will be staying at Marazul the end of March and renting tanks from Sublime. I am also taking a Tec class from Alain at Tecdiving Curacao just across the road at Westhill diving.
Looking forward to not shoveling snow and some warm weather diving! I am a bit nervous about the dining out places since I am a vegetarian and the food choices near Marazul appear to be limited at best. Any suggestions?

 

[RIHappyDiver]

Thank you for the great info RIHappyDiver! We will be staying at Marazul the end of March and renting tanks from Sublime. I am also taking a Tec class from Alain at Tecdiving Curacao just across the road at Westhill diving.
Looking forward to not shoveling snow and some warm weather diving! I am a bit nervous about the dining out places since I am a vegetarian and the food choices near Marazul appear to be limited at best. Any suggestions?

Yes, vegetarian is a bit of an issue. My wife is a fish eating vegetarian, so she had some leeway. Cactus Cafe, right next door, had some good burrito and pasta options. Definitely get the peanut soup if they have it.

Pizza it Sol Food is a good option for the weekend, not open during the week. A lot of the other restaurants were closed due to COVID, so we didn’t have a lot of variety.

I would encourage making reservations ahead of time, we had trouble getting into places a couple of times which made us thankful that we had kitchens in our units, .

 

[glennster]

we stayed at Marazul a few years ago. excellent accomodations. we dove with go west diving, very nice operation and fun to dive with. they have lockers there to store your gear. the house reef at the dive shop is very nice and the boat dives are great, when you fly in to Willemstad, stop at the grocery store and get supplies. its about an hour drive or so to Westpunt.

 

[Derrick_J]

We stayed at Marazul for 2 weeks in Jan/Feb and are heading back in May. This will be our 6th stay there. We prefer the low key vibe of the area. The units are pretty much as stated in previous posts. Ants aren’t an issue if you keep the food in the fridge and don’t leave dirty dishes. We rent a car from D&D, they’re great. Definitely hit the supermarket, Centrum, on your way from the airport. It has just about anything you might need. There is a smaller market in Tera Cora and one in Barber about 10 miles away. The roads aren’t great but they have recently done some repaving. The kitchen is key. Only a couple local places to eat. Cactus Cafe, Sol Food and Blue View are all good but be prepared to be on “island time”. There are Weber grills at each unit, buy charcoal and lighter fluid at Centrum. There isn’t a lot of road noise to speak of. And yes dogs are barking and roosters crowing in the morning. Not a big deal. I usually dive with Go West. My wife doesn’t dive but hangs out and snorkels at the beach at Playa Kalki (Go West). Small beach there and they just rebuilt the snack bar and bar. It’s nice. If you do the boat dives you get to use tanks afterwards which is nice. The reef is pretty decent. There’s an underwater line that extends well beyond the edge of the reef. I think it’s down to 150’. The reef at Marazul is very nice too. Rarely any current when I’ve been there. Visibility is excellent. I was going to see about getting tanks next door at Sublime but just didn’t get around to it. I usually dive 2 days on , one off. The off days we check out other beaches, Willimstad, or Klein Curaçao. Absolutely love it there. Only 49 days, 10 hours and 22 minutes and I’ll be really happy! Enjoy.

 

[Red_Rock_Diver]

We have stayed at Marazul 7 times for a total of 162 nights since 2017. The majority of those nights have been in the September - October timeframe with 28 nights being in February. All of the fall trips have been over 3 weeks in length, while the February trips have been 2 weeks in length. We have stayed in on 3-bedroom unit and 3 different one-bedroom units. We have always used D&D for our rental car. Between the two of us we have 431 dives on the island. All but 8 of those dives are shore dives. I can echo what has previously been said about the Westpunt restaurants (Sol Food, Blue View and Restaurant Playa Forti), local dive shops (Go West and Sublime (run by Ellis), grocery stores (Centrum, New California Supermarket in Tera Cora. and the 2 small markets in Barber). Nearest gas station is in Barber. Add Discover Lagun Restaurant in Playa Lagun to the must eat at list. DM me if you need more specifics. Back on the island mid-September 2023.