Divi Flamingo Beach Resort Bonaire?

[bill harvey]

Well i did a search and only came up with one thread that mentioned the resort, has anyone been it would be our first trip to bonaire, i found expedia had very cheap trips to Divi. with free shore diving i am not sure how importand it will be where we stay. to give a price idea it was under $1000.00 per person including airfare from Boston, seems like a great deal perhaps i am doing something wrong on expedia. anyone stay @ Divi?

 

[caymaniac]

Hi bill, I've been to the Divi Flamingo several times. Would you be staying in the condos or hotel? If hotel then that would be good, they updated their hotel two years ago and it looks nice. It's not a 4star hotel, but it's nice enough with decent diving on the house reef.....not as good as it used to be ...which is true of all the west side of Bonaire after the Hurricane surge 3 years ago. The dive op is good (not as good as the Divi at the Brac), but still good. We stayed in the condos last year and dove with Divi's dive op.
One nice feature is that they are close enough to town if you like to walk and if you want a small beach you can walk south to the Plaza ( nicest resort on west side) There are many restaurants to choose from within town (north) and also south afew doors down ("Richards" is very good).
The condos are a bit run down but there have been promises to fix them:doctor: (like when?) For a price that you say you've been quoted, I think is a very good deal and I don't think you would be sorry.

Caymaniac

 

[TedJ]

caymaniac once bubbled...
you can walk south to the Plaza ( nicest resort on west side) There are many restaurants to choose from within town (north) and also south afew doors down ("Richards" is very good).

I'll second that about the Plaza. I've been staying at the Plaza for the last three years over Labor Day week. Toucan Diving, their op, is very good. shore diving 24/7 off their beach to "18 Palms". You have a choice of "regular" hotel-type rooms, which are very large, to suites that contain one or two bedrooms, a kitchen, dining area and living room. Air Jamaica has great deals with the Plaza. We go through Annapolis Scuba and the cost for air, room and two tank boat dives was around $1300 this past fall. Also the Plaza runs specials for extra days, etc.

The restaurant at the Lighthouse is excellent, best on the island. Richards is also nice as is the Rendez-vous in town. Capriccio's is also a fine Italian restaurant, also in town.

 

[herman]

Bill,

Try asking on this board www.bonairetalk.com lots of Divi people on the board, including the manager of Divi. When you compair cost, be sure to do a fair compairison. Most likely you will want a vehicle of some sort while on island, some packages include one, others do not (worth about $300/wk) To give you a idea of cost, my package for this July is $1200pp from here in NC(6 of us in one condo). It includes air/condo/buffet breakfast/vehicle/unlimited air for shore diving.
One thing we do to cut a little cost is to drop any boat dives out of our package. That usually saves us about $100pp. There are lots of good shore diving locations and we find we prefer to shore dive, no time schedule to meet. You can always add boat dives back after you get on island, usually for around $20 each.
We have a condo which allows us to do some "cooking", mostly PBJ's for lunch, which saves us a little on meals. The condo also is somewhat larger so we have a little more room. I think the Divi package you are looking at are just rooms.

No matter where you stay on Bonaire, the diving and people are great.

 

[bill harvey]

Thanks Herman, I had assumed that all the packages included shore diving but i will call before booking to make sure, just wish i had seen it before i went to st thomas last december for more than twice as much per person no diving included.

 

[herman]

Most places do include shore diving. Its cheap, if a package does not include it, the going rate is about $100 USD for a week. Some packages include 5 or 6 boat dives but like I said, we drop them. One thing I would NOT get is an all inclusive (except for breakfast). The resort restaurants are good but there are loads of good places to eat on Bonaire, I would hate to be stuck at one place.... 55 day and counting, can't wait to get back.

 

[jepuskar]

I just stayed at the Divi at the beginning of March. My next stay will also be there...do I need to say more?