The best value for diving in the Caribbean

[diversteve]

so I've found a consensus to be Bonaire. Now I've started checking into prices there, is there any reason why Buddy Dive Resort is so overpriced compared to the other places to stay, is it worth it? Also, about how much are island-hopper flights from Aruba to Bonaire these days?

I'd say no, although Buddy's is one of the nicer dive resorts. The other's being Lion's Dive, Capt. Dons, and the Plaza Resort. Harbour Village is the nicest(priciest too) and Sand Dollar to me was a little tired looking. I'd say Lions Dive was a little nicer than the others. Also there's the condos at Port Bonaire, they share all the facilities at the Plaza. Except for the Plaza they're all North of town and share the same general reef structure. Diving at the Plaza is poor/non-existent. All of them are driving distance only to town. The Divi is the only one near enough to town to walk to, but I don't get the Divi, to me it looks like a jumble of older buildings all joined together with the restaurant and casino in the middle.

Another nice place(we stayed there) is the BelMar condos, right on the water maybe 2 miles south of town, nice house reef and a Buddy's diveshop onsite. Used to be Toucan but last month Buddy's took over so if you boat dive with them you'll probably have to drive to the other Buddy's. 24/7 driveup tank pickup at Buddy's too.

I think last summer the Aruba/BON flight was $70 one way. But if it's DCA, they shutdown last month so I don't know if it still exists.

If you're looking for a package deal, we did pretty good with Aquadreams, saved about $100/pp. over booking everything direct. www.aquadreams.com

 

[WarmWaterDiver]

We really enjoyed our stay at Bellafonte Chateau de la Mer on Bonaire in May 2004.
http://www.bellafontebonaire.com/

We had the drying room to ourselves as the only divers on the premisies the week before Memorial Day. It's just south of the airport and north of Belnem - just south of the North Belnem dive site / public beach. There's a research grid on the reef just past the dock at bellafonte that serves as a great navigation reference when diving there.

Dive Package was with Photo Tours - great for shore diving, pick up tanks just north of the airport at the condos there. The boats for boat diving though left a lot to be desired for us - the boats were in need of repair (the ladder on one came loose from its fastening on the boat when the dive guide was going aboard finishing a dive).

Lots of good info at www.shorediving.com if you go to Bonaire - we printed out the details of every site listed there, and left the printouts at the Bellafonte for future dive guests to use.

 

[sharky60]

Ok, here's my 2 pesos worth, Cozumel seems to be the best value of the 2 you have been steered to, I checked into Bonaire and the flight alone was as much or more than what I usally pay for an entire week of hotel stays and airfare to Cozumel.
It was $750+ for a 3 stop flight, Dallas to Miami to San Juan to Bonaire, (whew!) and $1100+ for a non-stop per person.
I can can get a Funjet vacation for a week at La Ceiba including airfare and transfers for around $1600 or less for 2 people, and an all inclusive package somewhere for just a couple of hundred more at the most. (prices from Dallas)
Now for the diving, I've never been to Bonaire, but hear it is wonderful and definatly intend to go sometime. having said that COZUMEL IS THE #2 DIVE DESTINATION IN THE WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! next to the Great Barrier Reef, so do the math.
If you can get a reall good deal to Bonaire, jump on it, but for the value and the less time on the plane think Coz.
We visited Grand Bahama island in April, the diving wasn't as spectacular as it is in Coz, but it was good, (hey anytime you get wet with saltwater it's good!). they usually have some really good deal to the Bahamas on websites like travelzoo.com and with the hurricanes blowing thru there this year those folks are going to be hungry for visitors. We dove with Sunn Odyessy divers, Nick and Karen Rolle are great people and run a very good dive op with over 20 years of experiance and a perfect safety record.
just some more food for thought,
what ever you decide have a great trip and happy diving!!!

either way, happy diving and have a great trip

 

[Drewpy]

Having been to both places- I think it depends where you are traveling from!!
Coming from Nor Cal flights to Bonaire do get $$$-Its much cheaper and easier to get to Cozumel from the west.

Diving- You really cant compare the two-they are very different, to say the least!
Bonaire lacks the structure/swim throughs/walls of Cozumel but makes up for it in abundance of life! There are schools of fish in Bonaire that seem to go on foreever!
I also like the freedom of Bonaire-no boat to catch/no timetable-just dive when and wherever you want!It truely is 24/7 diving!

Culture-Bonaire gets my vote! A very interesting mix of cultures from creole/african to Spanish to Dutch all intermingled. I really enjoyed the european/dutch aspect of it-like a tropical trip to Holland with great diving!CA often feels like mexico these days.

Cost- If you look beyond airfare-I think Bonaire is a bargain! I too, stayed at Buddys and got the dive and drive deal-a great room with a kitchen,breakfast included,rental truck,some boat dives(4 I think?)and unlimited tanks for shore diving-the house reef is great too-about 20 fin kicks from the dock!Try doing that in Coz?
I dove with Aldora and the 5 days of diving really added up(I think our total dive cost was around 400$+ with tip)-factor in breakfast/meals (I hate AIs) and car rental/cab fares and it gets up there. We paid 60 bucks for a real POS for a tour around the Island.

 

[parrotman]

Bonaire for sure over Cozumel. I have been to both. In my opinion the diving on Bonaire beats anything you will do on Coz. The reefs are healthier and way more sealife. Topside is much more relaxing, you don't have the traffic and the street hustlers bothering you all the time. Don't get me wrong, I had a great time on Coz but it was way way more expensive than on Bonaire and I much prefer the quiet laid back attitude of Bonaire. If you stay away from the big resorts you can get really low rates on rooms. As others have said here, all the diving you want for $100 for the week, compared to three to four times that on Coz depending on how much diving you do.
As for airfare, since I live on the left coast it is actually cheaper for me to fly to Bonaire than to Coz. I know this is not the case for everyone but one trick I learned is to book separate flights. Don't book straight through to Bonaire, get a cheap flight to Mia or Atlanta and then a separate ticket from Mia or Atlanta to Bon. Usually saves me quite a bit of money. And if your flexible you can even do better by laying over night in one of those cities. My last trip to Bon, the airfare was $598 from CA and I upgraded to first class on Air Jamaica out of Atalanta for another $100.

 

[tangfish]

Wow, thanks for all the great advice guys. I've already been to Coz, and it was great but I'd like to try something different. I have to dispute the claim that its #2 in the world though. As far as airfare, I'll be using miles on continental so actually the more expensive the regular ticket is the more I feel like I'll be getting out of those miles, I think Bonaire is the ticket. I can only get a flight into Aruba though so I'll have to get an island hopper in and out of Bonaire at another $150 or so, RT. As far as where to stay you've all offered some good advice, and I guess Buddy is a little higher priced but worth it for the all around, especially for the first time. Has anyone ever stayed at Golden Reef Inn? I got offered a stay dive and drive package for $465, it sounds like a scremin deal, what's the catch? Buddy dive seems to be about 3 - 4 times this price (but with boat dives). I heard that most of the dives are reachable from shore, is there any point in paying for boat dives?

 

[Damselfish]

Wow, thanks for all the great advice guys. I've already been to Coz, and it was great but I'd like to try something different. I have to dispute the claim that its #2 in the world though. As far as airfare, I'll be using miles on continental so actually the more expensive the regular ticket is the more I feel like I'll be getting out of those miles, I think Bonaire is the ticket. I can only get a flight into Aruba though so I'll have to get an island hopper in and out of Bonaire at another $150 or so, RT. As far as where to stay you've all offered some good advice, and I guess Buddy is a little higher priced but worth it for the all around, especially for the first time. Has anyone ever stayed at Golden Reef Inn? I got offered a stay dive and drive package for $465, it sounds like a scremin deal, what's the catch? Buddy dive seems to be about 3 - 4 times this price (but with boat dives). I heard that most of the dives are reachable from shore, is there any point in paying for boat dives?

Golden Reef and Buddy Dive are just different kinds of places. Buddy Dive is on the water (with the option of jumping right in the water without even driving anywhere) and is a larger place with a pool, more of the resort stuff. Golden Reef isn't on the water and is a small place rather than a whole resort thing. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it, just a matter of what you want, and want to pay for.

You can certainly do nothing but shore diving, many people do. But there are some places you can only get to by boat (like Klein Bonaire) and others that can be done from shore but are much easier from a boat. When you do boat diving, you don't have to worry about someone breaking into your car.

 

[diversteve]

Wow, thanks for all the great advice guys. I've already been to Coz, and it was great but I'd like to try something different. I have to dispute the claim that its #2 in the world though.

I'd agree with that, maybe 2nd in the Caribbean. Scubadiving lists Bonaire #1 and Coz #2 in January's Divers picks. PNG, Fiji, Cayman and Indonesia beat Coz in a heartbeat.

Has anyone ever stayed at Golden Reef Inn? I got offered a stay dive and drive package for $465, it sounds like a scremin deal, what's the catch?

It's a new place, so maybe they're trying to build their business. It's not a full resort like Buddy's (No pool, restaurant etc.) And it's in Hato so most everything would be a drive, I can't place exactly where it is so I don't know how near it is to downtown Kralendijk, but it's got to be pretty close, maybe 3-5 minutes or less by truck.

Anything not on Buddy's property is a drive also. There's not really any good way to go between the dive resorts on the North side, besides geography, I think it's also probably intentional.

Buddy dive seems to be about 3 - 4 times this price (but with boat dives). I heard that most of the dives are reachable from shore, is there any point in paying for boat dives?

You can't get to Klein except by boat. Most of the best dives on Klein are on the far side so you need a ride out there. It's only about 10-15 minutes from anywhere so whoever you dive with gets out there quick.

About the only Bonaire dives that I know of that are inaccessible from shore are Rappel (unless you want to "Rappel" down a 50' vertical rock wall and La Dania's leap, actually it's not inaccessible, but once you "leap" off the ledge you're committed and have to drift to the next divesite to get out. I've heard some diveboats also go to Salt Pier which is absurd, it's probably one of the easiest shore entries on Bonaire, there's a little sandy beach right by the pier and a short swim to the two best piers, including the one pictured in Scubadiving last month.

Any of the sites south of the Airport are easily shore accessible, you just pull off the road and the water is 25' away. Any sites off the resorts are easily accessible from their docks, only Capt' Don's charges $5.00 for use of their facilities, but it's worth it, they have a nice covered changing area with lockers and showers, and a 30' walk to their dive dock.

And the North sites are all easily accessible with at worst a short walk down a path from the parking areas. Only exception is 1000 steps (which is actually 67 flat rock steps down to the water).

So you could easily dive most of Bonaire from shore, We did 6 boat dives over 3 mornings out of 16 total. And that was probably enough.

 

[tangfish]

Golden Reef and Buddy Dive are just different kinds of places.

Well I guess if I'm just there to dive there's no sense in shelling out tons of bucks for a better room that will sit there vacant all day. Yes, hopping straight into the water from my place would be nice, but not $1000 nice. I think Golden Reef sounds good. Anyone know anything about their partner, Bini Bon divers? I'd just be renting a truck, tanks and weights from them so it doesn't really matter that much unless someone has nightmare stories.

I'd agree with you on the fact that SEA beats Coz hands down. Plus to think of how good the diving is at the prices, its insane for me to think of paying 60 bucks for a 2 tank dive after spending all summer in Indo, PI and Malay, paying 50 a day for unlimited boat dives with my personal DM.

 

[Addict]

I have to butt in here. If you are looking for value, I cannot imagine a better value then Roatan. I just got back from Anthony's Key on Roatan.

All inclusive from $599.00 per week - includes: room, meals, and Boat Diving (3 per day). This pricing knocks Coz out of the water. In fact, at under $100 per night for food and room, the diving is like a free add-on.

I have been to Curacao, Cozumel, Cayman, Roatan. The best overall value is definitely Roatan. It is quite tropical as well. Go to Bonaire or Curacao is is like being on a big rock with cactus growing here and there. Coz is $50-$60 for a 2 tank boat trip - not much way to shore dive to get out of taking a boat.

Granted the viz is a bit shorter in Roatan then the other options, but the coral is pristine & the diving is great... again, I can't imagine a better value.