My review is based on two trips to Bonaire staying at the Plaza and diving with Toucan (most recent was 2011 so my comments will be based on that trip).
I enjoyed diving with Toucan. Their dive shop, gear rental, tanks and gear lockers are all right together. They do have lockers for your gear. It is in a small building about 40 steps from the dive boat. I recall that that building has a gated door which is locked later in the evening. The lockers are wood (or some particle board like material) with locks. Its a bit smelly in there (understandable I guess given what's getting thrown in there and how warm it is down there). Either they asked us to, or we needed to share lockers as I think I shared a gear locker with someone on both trips. On the second trip the resort definitely was not full so call it a data point (perhaps some of the lockers were used by staff or broken, etc).
Here are the quirks to diving with Toucan (things that seem different compared to Mexico, Aruba, Belize, etc).
1.) You handle your dive weights at all times. Basically you are assigned your weights for the entire stay. That means you are humping them to and from the locker, on and off the boat, etc. This distance is not that far but if you are used to diving in places like Mexico where they do all of this for you it will be a bit of a surprise.
2.) You will be quite "involved: with your Nitrox experience. In Mexico the Nitrox is on the boat ready to go, you test and you are off. At Toucan they only have EAN33 (great choice for their diving profile) but you need to get there in the morning early, measure each tank in the compressor room and log it. It can be loud in there sometimes. We found it a bit of a PITA but while we were at it we also checked tank pressure and about 1 tank in 10 was low so we sorted them out. With two people you can do this pretty quickly. While doing this you put your name on a sticker and put it on the tank. Then you place your tanks outside the door. I am pretty sure they would carry them to the boat for you but we got into a pattern where we just walked them down beside the boat (say another twenty steps). If you had a disability I am sure they would help. If you are fit - you might get a look like "we're waiting for ya"
3.) You need to do a check out dive before you can go out on the boat with them. They usually do these in the morning. That means you won't be doing a boat dive the first morning after your arrive. About 50% of the group (on each trip) found that a bit sucky. However, about 1hr after the 30min presentation you are in the water at 18 palms doing a awesome shore dive. And on the second trip we were more savvy and arranged for our first boat dive to that same day in the afternoon! So did away with the "we got robbed of one day of boat diving" feeling.
On our first trip our divemaster's were awesome and really set the bar for diving I had done anywhere. On the second trip with the economy down, one of those had left. My take goes like this - in Aruba and Bonaire if you are with a larger operations (say 8 divers) they just aren't nearly as engaged as they are in Mexico. In a way they seem more the role of a lifeguard than a dive guide. They are in the water with you, keep an eye on you but not really aggressively trying to find things for you.
Now that might sound a bit off putting but I look at it this way; The most we had on a boat was about 12 with 8 of those from our group. They had two Dive Masters in the water. But there was never even a speck of current and we basically just followed along with the DM and were free to go off and do our own thing, etc. I think they want to keep dives to 60 minutes but I recall several over 70 minutes and I think around that point they would give us some grief (kidding) on the boat but it was never an issue.
Boat rides are very short, the water is very calm and we enjoyed using the boats for the morning dives and then doing shore dives in the afternoon.
You can park your vehicle very close to the dive shop and gear lockers. You can even back the truck right up next to the gear locker which makes the shore diving support very easy.
On our earlier trip you could drive your truck around and come in by the beach to stage for your shore dive. On the later trip they didn't allow that anymore. Instead they had wagons (think heavy duty version a radio flyer kids wagon). You get them at the dive shop , gear locker area and put all your gear into it. Just tell them about 1hr in advance and they will have your tanks waiting for you by the water.
We stayed in the 2 bedroom suites on the other side of the property. They didn't seem to be updated as nicely as the buildings you will be in but they had a separate parking lot and you could drive your truck right up to your condo. So every morning we just loaded up a truck with dive gear (wetsuits, heavy cameras, etc) and one person drove it around while the others walked over for breakfast. The 2dr suites are huge, two separate bathrooms, huge living room and full kitchen. There was always a security guard at the main gate and the separate rear parking lot for the larger suites. And the rear lot had a security gate.
We never had an issue with theft but we always kept things locked up and took nothing of value with in the truck that didn't also go in the water with us. If all you leave in the truck is a t-shirt, towel, cheap sunglass, old hat, bottles of water you are doing great. Anything more valuable than that will most likely vanish.
If you've never shore dived there yet, try oil slick leap first. You get to giant stride in and a nice ladder to come back out. This is the best shore dive to completely avoid entering in any surf, surge and iron shore. After that starting trying some of the sites directly from shore. Everyone has their own favorite. I love Invisibles.
If you shore dive, you will regret not having thick soled booties. One diver with us just brought regular booties. As he walked across the iron shore to get to the edge of the water (with his gear on) it actually cut through and cut his foot. That is not typical but clearly it can happen. Since it happened at the start of the trip he was reluctant to shore dive again which was a bummer as it is the ultimate in diving freedom.
One last recommendation - try a wild side dive is possible. We did the one with the guys that have the rigid inflatable - it was awesome!!!! Of the few of us that did it, it was easily our most memorable dive (mainly because of the ride and how many turtles we saw!)
