keesmon
Contributor
Last month we took a family trip to Bonaire and Curacao, spending a week on each island.
This was my fourth trip to Bonaire and third trip to Curacao.
I usually go on a week long trip with 3-4 dive buddies, so this was a new experience.
One of my regular dive buddies and his OW certified family traveled with us for the Bonaire portion of the trip.
Getting there:
Jet Blue from NYC to Curacao for $339 round trip PP! No issues whatsoever.
Divi Divi to Bonaire. There were 7 of of us, so each way we just had one additional passenger.
Service was on time. One kid loved it, the other one was a bit well, overwhelmed. 25 minutes there, 20 minutes back.
Their plane looks to be 30 years old, but it flies fine. Luggage was taken at average weight, allowing for our 7 bags to be counted together, which helped.
We rented a dive truck from Poppy and a Jimny from Hertz in Bonaire. Both worked fine and did the job as we envisioned.
My wife doesn't drive stick, but we wanted the 4 wheele drive for Slagbaai and were glad we had it.
Of course Poppy took all of 2 minutes to check out, while Hertz was the usual rental agency nonsense.
We will continue to rent from Poppy whenever possible.
In Curacao we rented a Kia Rio, as we were not planning to go off road much or shore dive in places without dive shops.
the Rio does not have enough power IMO and we had some issues getting up hills.
Lodgings:
We stayed at one of the Crown Ridge Villas in Sabadeco in Bonaire.
It is a beautiful villa, right between the Andrea dive sites.
It has a fantastic pool overlooking the ocean.
Everything worked as advertised.
We used just up to the limit in electricity, using AC's at night only.
With 4 adults, 2 kids and a teen we probably had over 10 gadgets charging at various times though.
In Curacao we rented one of the Pueblo's at Coral Estates.
Unfortunately, service was not up to standard, with a broken fridge that would not get cold, WiFi available only by leaning over the deck towards the neighbors, and a check in process that involved me having to track down the property manager, who changed his cell phone without notifying us. This took over 2 hours, which thank goodness my kids spent in the pool of our Pueblo, which we accessed via a 6 foot ladder leaning up along the side of the building. The fridge was looked at eventually, but never fixed. This made for the daily shuffle of beer bottles from the barely there fridge to a functioning freezer an hour before happy hour. The non working DSL connection was never fixed. The property manager claimed ignorance, but we suspect that service had simply been shut off, and wasn't going to be turned on for our one week stay. The WiFi password for the neighbors was written in the guestbook, so we weren't the only party who had had this issue. Life without internet is fine, but not so much with kids and when it's advertised.
The Pueblo itself was fine, with a fantastic view and a nice pool, but having to go into Willemstad every other day to buy groceries, and still ending up with spoiled food should not have been happening.
None of this did anything to ruin our trip, but we will rent through a different property manager next time.
The Coral Estates location was perfect. Close to all the beaches, and close enough to Westpunt, without being so far out there that traveling to Willemstad was a day long journey.
The cafe/ store in St. Willibrordus was a nice center to check in, get some provisions and get the boys their Williwood shirts.
Diving:
We dove with Wannadive in Bonaire.
Great service as usual. They fixed a free flowing regulator during the checkout process, had plenty of (nitrox) tanks around, and left us to do what we do, which is dive when ever, where ever.
I do wish we would do our checkout at a different dive site next time.
Not their fault, but Eden's rubble is just not an interesting place for me.
The current near Wannadive's dock was ripping that day and we never got far.
We literally could not swim against the current and even on the surface it was hard to return to the ladder.
Checkout dive was 19 minutes and took half a tank on each of us.
The (OW certified) teen with us actually got turned off by the checkout dive and didn't dive the rest of the week.
Next time I'll ask to take everyone to dive at Bari (through the public access) if that's OK with Wannadive for our checkout dive.
The rest of the week was fantastic. All the usual creatures were there.
We dove Nukove and Taylor Made for the first time. Very nice sites, and easy enough entries.
We used the new guide, which I had delivered to my Dutch friends beforehand, who brought it with them:
Dive guide Bonaire (English edition) - GoDolphins.nl
It helped for the sites north of Karpata. BSDME stayed in the bag and is probably retired now.
Highlights were really the entire week in general. Being able to dive with a varied group of people in different places made for a great diving experience.
Two tank mornings by three of us were followed by house reef afternoon dives, or naps, and a quick 4:30PM northern site.
We did our night dive at Bari, and were shadowed by the tarpons the whole dive.
We also snorkeled every day with the boys.
I thought the dives in Slagbaai (Wayaka 2 and Boka Slagbaai) were actually the least interesting dives on this particular trip.
Unlike my memory from previous dives there, the coral was smothered in a corn flake type algae and compared to the rest of the island was not in the best shape.
In Curacao we dove the house reef at Coral Estates (Rif St. Marie) with Divers Republic and did some boat and shore dives with Go West as well.
Divers Republic DiversRepublic | for a unique diving experience was great. They helped track down our elusive property manager, worked in an early 6AM dive, a night dive (sans tarpon), an early AM lion fish hunt, and did the bubble make course with my 9 year old, who is now hooked, and will go for full certification next time he's near a reef. Divers Republic had no boat, and the Superior Producer's site was shut, so I only used their services on the house reef.
Both go West and Divers Republic let my kids hang out at their dive shops, so my wife and I could do a dive together at each location.
A refreshing change from the US, where that seems much more difficult to arrange.
Go West GO WEST Diving - EN - Curacao Padi Scuba Dive Center - GO WEST Diving also allowed the boys on board of their boat as stowaways, so I could show my wife the Watamula dive site.
Though I had my gear in the trunk at most of the beaches, the opportunity never presented itself to buddy up with others and shore dive some other sites in Curacao this time, but I didn't try too hard, as I just came off a week of diving in Bonaire. On a previous trip we dove most everything from Kalki down to St. Marie
In all I did 17 dives in Bonaire, and 9 in Curacao. Not bad for a family vacation
My wife went from 4 dives (OW certification in DR in 2013) to 14, doing 10 dives between the two islands.
Miscellaneous:
My youngest son got an ear infection the second week, putting his head out of the water for 3 days.
The nice surprise was the doctor's office and pharmacy in Tera Kora.
Wait time was about an hour to see a Dutch doctor, who confirmed the ear infection diagnosis and prescribed antibiotic drops.
Doctor visit was Nafl. 50 ($35) and the prescription half that, which is less than I would have paid WITH insurance in the US.
A nice cash transaction for services rendered.
The kids loved the donkey sanctuary and riding around in the truck in Bonaire.
In Curacao it was all about the beaches, from Daaibooi to Kalki, though we had some fun at the ostrich farm as well.
Two weeks was a great amount of time to be gone.
Meals were almost all home cooked in Bonaire.
In Curacao we did breakfasts and dinners at home, while eating lunches out at the beach restaurants and Landhuis Klein St. Martha.
Next diving trip up is a guys only trip back to Cozumel in February 2016.
We'll probably be back in Bonaire in 2017, at which point I hope to have the entire family diving.
Bonaire continues to be the place for me to go dive dive dive, and Curacao is such a fantastic place to go on vacation (while getting some dives in).
This was my fourth trip to Bonaire and third trip to Curacao.
I usually go on a week long trip with 3-4 dive buddies, so this was a new experience.
One of my regular dive buddies and his OW certified family traveled with us for the Bonaire portion of the trip.
Getting there:
Jet Blue from NYC to Curacao for $339 round trip PP! No issues whatsoever.
Divi Divi to Bonaire. There were 7 of of us, so each way we just had one additional passenger.
Service was on time. One kid loved it, the other one was a bit well, overwhelmed. 25 minutes there, 20 minutes back.
Their plane looks to be 30 years old, but it flies fine. Luggage was taken at average weight, allowing for our 7 bags to be counted together, which helped.
We rented a dive truck from Poppy and a Jimny from Hertz in Bonaire. Both worked fine and did the job as we envisioned.
My wife doesn't drive stick, but we wanted the 4 wheele drive for Slagbaai and were glad we had it.
Of course Poppy took all of 2 minutes to check out, while Hertz was the usual rental agency nonsense.
We will continue to rent from Poppy whenever possible.
In Curacao we rented a Kia Rio, as we were not planning to go off road much or shore dive in places without dive shops.
the Rio does not have enough power IMO and we had some issues getting up hills.
Lodgings:
We stayed at one of the Crown Ridge Villas in Sabadeco in Bonaire.
It is a beautiful villa, right between the Andrea dive sites.
It has a fantastic pool overlooking the ocean.
Everything worked as advertised.
We used just up to the limit in electricity, using AC's at night only.
With 4 adults, 2 kids and a teen we probably had over 10 gadgets charging at various times though.
In Curacao we rented one of the Pueblo's at Coral Estates.
Unfortunately, service was not up to standard, with a broken fridge that would not get cold, WiFi available only by leaning over the deck towards the neighbors, and a check in process that involved me having to track down the property manager, who changed his cell phone without notifying us. This took over 2 hours, which thank goodness my kids spent in the pool of our Pueblo, which we accessed via a 6 foot ladder leaning up along the side of the building. The fridge was looked at eventually, but never fixed. This made for the daily shuffle of beer bottles from the barely there fridge to a functioning freezer an hour before happy hour. The non working DSL connection was never fixed. The property manager claimed ignorance, but we suspect that service had simply been shut off, and wasn't going to be turned on for our one week stay. The WiFi password for the neighbors was written in the guestbook, so we weren't the only party who had had this issue. Life without internet is fine, but not so much with kids and when it's advertised.
The Pueblo itself was fine, with a fantastic view and a nice pool, but having to go into Willemstad every other day to buy groceries, and still ending up with spoiled food should not have been happening.
None of this did anything to ruin our trip, but we will rent through a different property manager next time.
The Coral Estates location was perfect. Close to all the beaches, and close enough to Westpunt, without being so far out there that traveling to Willemstad was a day long journey.
The cafe/ store in St. Willibrordus was a nice center to check in, get some provisions and get the boys their Williwood shirts.
Diving:
We dove with Wannadive in Bonaire.
Great service as usual. They fixed a free flowing regulator during the checkout process, had plenty of (nitrox) tanks around, and left us to do what we do, which is dive when ever, where ever.
I do wish we would do our checkout at a different dive site next time.
Not their fault, but Eden's rubble is just not an interesting place for me.
The current near Wannadive's dock was ripping that day and we never got far.
We literally could not swim against the current and even on the surface it was hard to return to the ladder.
Checkout dive was 19 minutes and took half a tank on each of us.
The (OW certified) teen with us actually got turned off by the checkout dive and didn't dive the rest of the week.
Next time I'll ask to take everyone to dive at Bari (through the public access) if that's OK with Wannadive for our checkout dive.
The rest of the week was fantastic. All the usual creatures were there.
We dove Nukove and Taylor Made for the first time. Very nice sites, and easy enough entries.
We used the new guide, which I had delivered to my Dutch friends beforehand, who brought it with them:
Dive guide Bonaire (English edition) - GoDolphins.nl
It helped for the sites north of Karpata. BSDME stayed in the bag and is probably retired now.
Highlights were really the entire week in general. Being able to dive with a varied group of people in different places made for a great diving experience.
Two tank mornings by three of us were followed by house reef afternoon dives, or naps, and a quick 4:30PM northern site.
We did our night dive at Bari, and were shadowed by the tarpons the whole dive.
We also snorkeled every day with the boys.
I thought the dives in Slagbaai (Wayaka 2 and Boka Slagbaai) were actually the least interesting dives on this particular trip.
Unlike my memory from previous dives there, the coral was smothered in a corn flake type algae and compared to the rest of the island was not in the best shape.
In Curacao we dove the house reef at Coral Estates (Rif St. Marie) with Divers Republic and did some boat and shore dives with Go West as well.
Divers Republic DiversRepublic | for a unique diving experience was great. They helped track down our elusive property manager, worked in an early 6AM dive, a night dive (sans tarpon), an early AM lion fish hunt, and did the bubble make course with my 9 year old, who is now hooked, and will go for full certification next time he's near a reef. Divers Republic had no boat, and the Superior Producer's site was shut, so I only used their services on the house reef.
Both go West and Divers Republic let my kids hang out at their dive shops, so my wife and I could do a dive together at each location.
A refreshing change from the US, where that seems much more difficult to arrange.
Go West GO WEST Diving - EN - Curacao Padi Scuba Dive Center - GO WEST Diving also allowed the boys on board of their boat as stowaways, so I could show my wife the Watamula dive site.
Though I had my gear in the trunk at most of the beaches, the opportunity never presented itself to buddy up with others and shore dive some other sites in Curacao this time, but I didn't try too hard, as I just came off a week of diving in Bonaire. On a previous trip we dove most everything from Kalki down to St. Marie
In all I did 17 dives in Bonaire, and 9 in Curacao. Not bad for a family vacation
My wife went from 4 dives (OW certification in DR in 2013) to 14, doing 10 dives between the two islands.
Miscellaneous:
My youngest son got an ear infection the second week, putting his head out of the water for 3 days.
The nice surprise was the doctor's office and pharmacy in Tera Kora.
Wait time was about an hour to see a Dutch doctor, who confirmed the ear infection diagnosis and prescribed antibiotic drops.
Doctor visit was Nafl. 50 ($35) and the prescription half that, which is less than I would have paid WITH insurance in the US.
A nice cash transaction for services rendered.
The kids loved the donkey sanctuary and riding around in the truck in Bonaire.
In Curacao it was all about the beaches, from Daaibooi to Kalki, though we had some fun at the ostrich farm as well.
Two weeks was a great amount of time to be gone.
Meals were almost all home cooked in Bonaire.
In Curacao we did breakfasts and dinners at home, while eating lunches out at the beach restaurants and Landhuis Klein St. Martha.
Next diving trip up is a guys only trip back to Cozumel in February 2016.
We'll probably be back in Bonaire in 2017, at which point I hope to have the entire family diving.
Bonaire continues to be the place for me to go dive dive dive, and Curacao is such a fantastic place to go on vacation (while getting some dives in).
