As for a deal, I can get a 7-day liveaboard on the Red Sea (Egypt) and 2 days in Cairo, 2 days in Luxor for $3600 including airfare. Bonaire costs us more than that and it does not compare.
Budgets will vary. Someone (e.g. OP) hitting Bonaire from another country will have a very different perspective from mine. Since the topic of cost came up, and for others who might view the thread & wonder what the cost would be, here's a rough budget I'd use for planning a 7 day Bonaire dive vacation.
1.) Airfare - $1,100. That is to fly from Nashville to Atlanta to Bonaire and back on Delta.
2.) 7 Day Resort stay with unlimited shore diving and a (stick shift) rental truck, free nitrox upgrade - $900 to $1,000. This is rough and varies with location, size of room, whether there's a kitchenette, etc... My figure assumes at least 2 people in the room, with a kitchenette and full size fridge. I haven't done any boat dives in 6 trips; sometimes you can get a discount for dropping boat diving from the package.
3.) A fresh tank of gas near the end of the week; $77.90 a bit over a week ago for me. Let's call it $80.
4.) Eating out for supper at fairly nice restaurants - maybe $25 apiece with tip (can vary considerably, and that's a rough guess). For 7 days, $175.
5.) Groceries (I mainly eat peanut butter & jelly sandwiches and fruit in the morning; for lunch might eat out, might eat frozen pizza, etc...) - very hard for me to guess. Just to get some numbers, let's say we mostly eat in and save some money doing so. Maybe $15/person/meal for breakfast and lunch, for 7 days, so $105 for the week?
Let's ignore tip for cleaning lady at end of week, and whatever you spend on souvenirs. Be mindful on a live-aboard you may tip substantially, though.
Maybe $2,500 apiece (throwing in costs of airport food) with airfare from a non-coastal U.S. location? And I recently got 22 dives in on a 7 day trip, and could've done considerably more if we'd pushed ourselves.
Now, if you stay at Dive Hut instead of Buddy Dive, or for that matter hit a more upscale place, or spend an extra $150+ to get a rental truck with automatic transmission, or eat all your meals in, or do lots of boat dives and tip, or can fly from a coastal airport and/or use 'less known' airlines' flights going through Curacao, etc..., your total trip cost could go up or down hundreds of dollars.
And you're not stuck on a boat most all week.
And you can dive when you want to, not when somebody tells you you can.
Buuuuut, nobody helps you out of the water, greets you with warm towels, provides really good cooked meals as part of your package so most all you have to do is eat, sleep, excrete and dive, etc..., so I'm not knocking live-aboards, just pointing out why Bonaire works for some of us.
Richard.
