Habitat Curacao update, maybe.

[Korsu]

Former Habitat hotel transformed into vibrant resort center
This year Coral Estate will transform the former Habitat hotel into a vibrant and multifunctional resort center, including a luxurious spa, a well equipped fitness center, modern meeting and teambuilding facilities and a lively Kids club.

The Spa will provide relaxing facials, professional massages and excellent sauna facilities and the fitness center, well stocked with modern apparatus, will provide cardio sessions for groups. Our resort center will also feature a beautifully styled infinity pool with comfortable sun terraces and spectacular sea views. As visitors or residents you will be able to lounge and enjoy our settings to the fullest, while your kids are entertained at our fun loving Kids club.

A new accommodation for the diving school has recently been completed and is located in the newly constructed beach area, fringed by beautiful palm trees and shady palapas. Situated directly on the beach, you will find our new beach lounge restaurant, providing all sorts of culinary specialties in a warm and welcoming atmosphere.

In short our excellently equipped and multifunctional resort center will make your stay at Coral Estate even more worldly, enjoyable, relaxing and comfortable. At the same time our apartments and studio's will be upgraded, after which a central rental organization will take care of all the rental activities.

This was a press release from Coral Estate regarding their intentions for revitalizing the Habitat Hotel. Sounds less like a dive location and more like a "spa". Unfortunately the developer at Coral Estate has always presented grandiose plans that rarely get fulfilled, but one can always hope.

 

[ronscuba]

Curious if all the development will have a negative impact on the house reef.

My 3 trips to Habitat were some of my favorite diving vacations anywhere. The quality of the house reef, the layout of the dive area, the restaurant overlooking the water and the secluded feeling of the resort. In my mind it was a little slice of Caribbean paradise.

Converting it to a "multifunctional resort center with lively kids club" probably makes financial sense for the developer, but is not what I would want as a selfish diver. Hopefully the reef will still be healthy and they keep the relaxed atmosphere.

 

[fins]

Korsu,

Thanks for the update. We are thinking about returning to Curacao this fall (our 5th trip). I've done a lot of very enjoyable dives on the house reen including my first dive ever. I surely hope that things will be operating again soon.

 

[DeepFlyer]

My wife and I just returned from our honeymoon on Curacao. We stayed at Enchantment Villa in Coral Estates and found it to be an absolutely perfect place for a honeymoon. We drove down to Habitat just to see if there was anything happening there. It was pretty sad to see it in that condition. We didn't see any signs that there was much construction going on at this point. They appeared to be starting to do demolish a few walls and stairs and such but it didn't look like a major construction project is underway. This was our first trip to Curacao so we did not see Habitat in its glory days but it was still sad to see it in its current state. We would have really appreciated having a restaurant there during our stay as it was a long drive to town for dinner.

 

[WicketsMom]

We were in Curacao a few weeks ago and drove over to Habitat to try show other in our group where we had stayed before and hopefully make a shore dive. We couldn't even get past the gate, they told us that it was a construction area and was closed. We also couldn't get to the 'scary stairs' site. Hope it opens up again because the diving on that end of the island is much better than that where we were this trip (Breezes).

 

[scubeeee]

My wife and I just returned from our honeymoon on Curacao. We stayed at Enchantment Villa in Coral Estates and found it to be an absolutely perfect place for a honeymoon. We drove down to Habitat just to see if there was anything happening there. It was pretty sad to see it in that condition. We didn't see any signs that there was much construction going on at this point. They appeared to be starting to do demolish a few walls and stairs and such but it didn't look like a major construction project is underway. This was our first trip to Curacao so we did not see Habitat in its glory days but it was still sad to see it in its current state. We would have really appreciated having a restaurant there during our stay as it was a long drive to town for dinner.

That really is sad to hear. We did in fact stay at Habitat Curacao in its ‘glory days’, in 1999. That was our first visit to the ABC islands and it was wonderful in every aspect; I particularly remember some outstanding night dives on the house reef. We returned in 2001 for a week and it wasn’t quite as good as two years earlier but still a very enjoyable place to stay. We didn’t return until 2007; we had a complicated trip back to the UK from Bonaire which involved an overnight stay in Aruba and a day in Curacao, which we spent at Habitat. The resort had certainly lost a lot of its shine by then; our room was rather threadbare (it didn’t look as if it’d been updated since our first visit 8 years previously); the pool area in particular wasn’t in good repair and it didn’t look as if the gardens had had much attention for a while.

It was a shame to see how the resort had declined since our first visit, and I was very sad to hear that it had closed. I hope it can be rescued and restored to its former high standard, but like previous posters, I do hope that it can retain its 'dive resort' atmosphere; that was very special and made Habitat Curacao an exceptional destination for SCUBA divers.