Just back from Curacao

[rockbeauty]

Thanks for the report! It makes me want to go...maybe next year!
Snorkelgeek, can I ask you about how much it was for a week and do you have an idea of the price for diving?

 

[snorkelgeek]

Thanks for the report! It makes me want to go...maybe next year!
Snorkelgeek, can I ask you about how much it was for a week and do you have an idea of the price for diving?

Well, we paid $165 Canadian per night for a room on hotels.ca (i.e. split between 2 people makes it $85 per person per night Cdn) The Sunset Waters website (www.sunsetwaters.com) quotes $140 US per person per night. We didn't buy any dive packages, but the packages are listed on the sw website. You might also want to check out the dive shop web site, they might also have some prices listed. Not sure the exact URL, but they're called Sunset Divers.

Airfare from western Canada was about $1000, so whole 14 day trip was only $2200 Cdn. That's cheaper than Mexico or just about anywhere else in the Carib.

snorkelgeek

 

[tvictory]

The diving is US$65 pp/pd for a 2-tank boat dive and unlimited shore dives.

 

[scuba jeff]

THat's a steal. I think I will now be switching from Key Largo to Cuarcao for my Feb 2006 vacation! Thanks for the write up.

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

This is the deal we took on Curacao in May 2004. This is a very 'Dutch tourist' area on the other side of town from where Sunset Waters and Captain Don's are located.

The shore diving we did from the beaches on Curacao was quite good. I'm not sure how much shore diving is available on Key Largo.

http://www.caradonna.com/caradonna/displayresort.aspx?id=324

 

[snorkelgeek]

This is the deal we took on Curacao in May 2004. This is a very 'Dutch tourist' area on the other side of town from where Sunset Waters and Captain Don's are located.

The shore diving we did from the beaches on Curacao was quite good. I'm not sure how much shore diving is available on Key Largo.

http://www.caradonna.com/caradonna/displayresort.aspx?id=324

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Papagayo is not right on the beach? So any shore diving would have to be done via rental car and driving around? It's a beautiful hotel - we drove by it on tour - but I remember it not being right on the beach. May not be a consideration if you're divers, unless you have a non-diver in the group.

With Sunset Waters, unlimited shore diving right off the beach. Most of the divers that were there when we were there took advantage of this for night dives, and went out on the boats for the day dives.

Brenda

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

You are a bit wrong - Papagayo is across a paved road from Jan Thiel beach. Maybe 50 yards / meters distance from our villa to the beach. The package we took did indeed have unlimited free shore diving, just as advertised, whether we chose to do those dives at Jan Thiel beach walking over from Papagayo or to pick up tanks to put in our rental vehicle to drive to other shore dive spots like Porto Marie. Scuba Do would also happily trade boat dives from the package for guided shore dives, at either Jan Thiel beach or other shore diving spots of our choice. This was how we came to dive Director's Bay for instance. But unlimited shore diving was in fact available no matter what our choice.

One thing that was very attractive to us is Scuba Do supplied hyperfiltered air, so our O2 clean & compatible equipment stayed that way. Their boat was undergoing service, so a year ago boat dives from the package were taken through Ocean Encounters, at no change in price, although Ocean Encounters has a significantly higher a la carte price for boat diving.

http://www.papagayo-beach.com/

http://www.divecenterscubado.com/

There are several other properties right by Jan Thiel beach also - Livingstone Jan Thiel, Chogogo, etc., and as I posted, this is predominantly frequented by Dutch tourists, not Americans, but for us, that's part of the charm of international travel - certainly other folks' have other preferences, to each his own. Part of international vacations for us is the fun of 'dining around', others prefer all-inclusive. Again, to each their own - there's no dive vacation litany of one and only one way as far as we know. The Zanzibar restaraunt at Jan Thuel was good, and we'd often drive into town to try other spots like Tu Tu Tango, as the mood strikes us.

Curacao is maybe second to Bonaire in terms of shore dive site availability - Grand Cayman as well. However, a number of the beaches on Curacao have a nominal few guilders parking / access fee, which helps with security issues. Jan Thiel was such a beach, but part of the package is free passes to that beach with the accomodations and dive package, just as advertised. Porto Marie was another such site, Director's Bay another, etc. If we had limited our shore diving experience on Curacao to one and only one shore dive site, I don't think we would have enjoyed the shore diving as much - but each individual has their own tastes.

http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/ABC/Curacao/index.htm

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

Here's a few pictures from some of our Curacao dives at Jan Thiel Beach area, Director's Bay, and Porto Marie, for example. The big scaly-tailed mantis in particular was something we hadn't seen elsewhere in our travels.

 

[snorkelgeek]

You are a bit wrong - Papagayo is across a paved road from Jan Thiel beach. Maybe 50 yards / meters distance from our villa to the beach. The package we took did indeed have unlimited free shore diving, just as advertised,

Thanks for the clarification. When we were booking our trip we looked at Papagayo and Chogogo. We drove through Chogogo when we were on tour. Beautiful place. Sounds like your "trek" across the road was no worse than the trek we had to go to the beach at Sunset Waters from our room, though the diver's gear was stored down at the dive shop right on the beach.

Thanks to for the pix. We thought the snorkelling was supreme in Curacao...better than anywhere else any of our group had been - including South Pacific, Indonesia, Mayan Riviera, Cuba, DR. Glad I found Curacao and convinced the others!

Snorkelgeek

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

Me too - Chogogo advertises itself as 100 meters from the beach, so my estimate should be pretty much on the money for Papagayo at 50 meters. You can store your gear at Scuba Do's shop on Jan Thiel beach if you wish to, but we're finicky about keeping track of our own gear and its handling, and we had a rental vehicle already.

We were in the Florida Keys last year between Hurricane #1, through hurricane #2, and left before Hurricane #3, so we didn't get to see much there, but I was pretty sure there isn't much in the way of shore diving opportunities there. Thought I'd pass along other opportunities for scubajeff to consider. But, rental vehicle security while diving can be an issue on either Bonaire or Curacao - and not just break-in or petty theft. The post from the person on http://www.shorediving.com/Earth/ABC/Curacao/Superior_Producer/index.htm
http://www.shorediving.com about doing the Superior Producer as a shore dive, to surface and find his rental vehicle had disappeared while he was diving, is the sort of thing that could really put a crimp in one's vacation! A 3 guilder parking / beach admission fee was 'chump change' to us for minimizing worries when shore diving various sites on Curacao.

The rocks marking the shore dive sites we saw on Curacao were all painted red with a white diagonal stripe, like a dive flag, although numerous magazine articles say they are grey on Curacao (they are yellow on Bonaire). Did you notice these on Curacao?