I'm also thinking of going to Bonaire for maybe a week in March-April. I won't be hiring a car/truck, & may or may not be with a buddy. I'm looking for somewhere I can dive when I want to & spend the rest of the time lazing on a nice beach (need a relaxing holiday!). Can anyone recommend a hotel / other accommodation that is:
- close to dive sites and a beach (i.e. walkable, or with a dive centre on site).
- Also near to a small town or somewhere to get away form the hotel if I feel like eating elsewhere?
Regaldive do packages with flights included; anyone know if these are good value? Harbour Village is 'From £1794', & Buddy Dive is 'from £1505' flights included.
Short version:
Every waterfront dive resort on Bonaire has it's own operator. And house dive. Many are named dive sites also.
None of the resorts mentioned above have
everything you want.
Harbour Village comes the closest if you want a
beach - especially one you can access the water from. As Vince mentioned it's also the nicest property on Bonaire - has it's own dive operator but there's just a small wreck and some coral rubble for a house dive. It's at the south end of "resort row" so you could walk to the other resorts for dinner etc - all have at least one restaurant. There's also a small plaza in the area - small market, ATM, ice cream shop etc. From Harbour Village it's about a mile+ walk to downtown Kralendijk.
Buddy's
"beach" is a strip of sand near the bar and pool(s) 20' above the water fronted by ironshore cliffs. Eden Beach has ironshore just off
their beach. It's also compact, backed by their new Spice Beach Club. Eden Beach is just north of Harbour Village so about the same walk. Buddy's is an empty field and 2 other dive resorts farther north. I wouldn't want to walk that far personally.
The other resort with a
"beach" is the Divi Flamingo. The advantage the Divi has is you can walk north to downtown from there in about 10 minutes. Their house dive is Calabas Reef. That's the whole beach though.
Farther south is the Plaza Resort. Their main beach is volleyball/beach bar but they also have several areas where they have lounges waterfront.
Beach | Van der Valk Plaza Beach Resort The Plaza is about as far south as I'd want to walk to town from - it's a big resort and by the time you get from the villas to the north gate it's already a hike. The hotel rooms are arond the pool so wouldn't be my choice. The 18Palms dive site is their house dive. It's also kind of a hassle, the dive shop/lockers are at the far south end on the lagoon and 18Palms is on the far north side of the property. They do stage tanks there though.
Past there is the lagoon, airport and then Belnem. Not much in Belnem meets your criteria and you'd have to drive for any food - it's mostly condos.
Fyi, there's 16 cabs on Bonaire. So availability might be an issue. Especially when there's a cruise ship or two at Town Pier downtown. There's only one "town" on Bonaire - Kralendijk. The other small town - Rincon is away from the coast in the hills.
For L300 difference I'd stay at Harbour Village. Buddy's isn't anywhere close to as nice.
Although Richard mentioned Curacao meeting your requirements would be difficult there also. The in-town resorts don't have the best shore dives and anything further west would require a car to access the shore dive sites.
Given any thought to Grand Cayman? Stay at one of the nice resorts on Seven Mile Beach. All the dive operators pick up daily streetside in their vans and shuttle you to their boats. SMB is not diveable though - the reef is too far out. And the AI dive resorts - have decent or better shore dives but no beach - they're all on ironshore. There's also bus (small van) service all over Grand Cayman. And lots of expensive cabs...
