United dinged me for the last time

[tkaelin]

Curacao does not hold a candle to Bonaire with regard to diving

Curious as to your experience in this regard. Most who have dived both think they are very comparable as far as the quality of the diving. I have been to both and also think the quality of the diving is very similar and I find CUR less expensive than Bon.

 

[KeithG]

Booked 11 months in advance. That's not short notice. And if I wanted to fly all over the US (Albany => Huston => Chicago => Washington => Bonaire)I would have booked that. I did not. I booked Albany => Newark => Bonaire.

Sorry - I was unclear - was the cancellation short notice?

More than once we have had a flight cancelled while we were at the airport (weather, mechanical, flight crew ran out of air time). Often they could book us on a flight the next day (hence my point about being flexible in travel times) but once at xmas the next available seat out of Toronto was 4 days away. We drove to Charlotte to catch a flight the next day.

 

[tkaelin]

The only thing that gives me pause is that every inquiry I made re. solo shore diving was met by abosolute NO we won't rent tanks to solo divers, you need to have your buddy here to get tanks, we don't allow that, etc. I need the Bonaire idea of unlimited air and let me dive.

This may be changing on CUR on an op by op basis. Gowest changed their policy to allow solo so long as you have a solo cert and appropriately equipped. Diving (getting tanks from them) with Gowest should open solo diving for you at all the beach shore dive sites. There are places to stay out in Westpunt for $500-$700/wk that is either across the street from the water and great shore diving or right on the water. I do understand the value though of knowing a place well and not wanting to start new somewhere else.

 

[KathyV]

I have to investigate Curacao. Though I love (and know like the back of my hand) Bonaire, maybe Curacao would be an alternative. The only thing that gives me pause is that every inquiry I made re. solo shore diving was met by abosolute NO we won't rent tanks to solo divers, you need to have your buddy here to get tanks, we don't allow that, etc. I need the Bonaire idea of unlimited air and let me dive.

Scubaboard is hosting a Surge to Curacao in Jan 2019; if you could make it that might be a nice way to check out the island and there will probably be other divers looking for buddies:

ScubaBoard Surge 2019 Curacao Package Deal

 

[tkaelin]

KathyV, I shouldn't answer for Kharon but from what I gather from his posts he would have zero interest in diving with a large group of divers, staying at an AI and being tied to the group schedule.

 

[tridacna]

Curious as to your experience in this regard. Most who have dived both think they are very comparable as far as the quality of the diving. I have been to both and also think the quality of the diving is very similar and I find CUR less expensive than Bon.

To be honest, the best thing about Bonaire has always been the freedom to be able to shoredive whenever and wherever. The quality of the diving in both is typically ho hum Caribbean. Absent the shorediving opportunities, Curacao has never appealed to me that much. I’ve been there twice and decided not to return again. Cozumel, Saba, Cayman and Dominica are IMO much better dive destinations.

On my last visit to Curacao about four years ago, I was amazed by the large quantities of red slime algae covering the reefs and paucity of fish life. I enjoyed the island just not the diving. Just my two cents.

 

[JamesBon92007]

I usually fly SouthWest and only had one bad experience with the way they handled being snowed-in in Denver. My main gripe, in general, is that they say they fly to various locations in the Caribbean but you can't get there from here. We would have to book a flight to Florida or Texas and book a separate flight to The Caymans or wherever and figure out for ourselves if there is enough time between flights etc, plus we would have to allow at least two hours for each transfer due to the usual requirements (which they say is three hours, but actually isn't) and we'd have to get our bags and go through TSA again. They do supposedly fly to Aruba but all I found was very long waits to get on a plane to Bonaire from there and when you add it all up it was not a very good deal. OTOH we get cheap, direct flights to Cancun so consequently we often go to Cozumel especially after spending hours in from of the computer trying to figure out details which might include a night in Florida or Huston and then saying to heck with it. They put us on United when we were stuck in Denver after they booked us on a non-existing flight which we got up at 4am to get to and my main gripe with United was that they seem to need to train their passengers not to put their under-the-seat carry-on in the overhead bins. The pilot was great and it was the smoothest landing I have ever experienced.

 

[Kharon]

Sorry - I was unclear - was the cancellation short notice?

More than once we have had a flight cancelled while we were at the airport (weather, mechanical, flight crew ran out of air time). Often they could book us on a flight the next day (hence my point about being flexible in travel times) but once at xmas the next available seat out of Toronto was 4 days away. We drove to Charlotte to catch a flight the next day.

Nope. Flight was Dec 8th-15th.

 

[BDSC]

Another one in the camp of never flying United.

Had a liveaboard trip booked and the boat was leaving Sunday morning so we booked United to arrive Saturday. About three weeks before the trip I get a notice that my flight times had changed. My arrival flight had been “rescheduled “. Rescheduled to SUNDAY afternoon. A reschedule of 24 hours later.

I call and tell them that because they canceled my Saturday flight I would need a refund. They actually told me my flight was not canceled, it had been rescheduled. I said a 24 hour time change was considered as being rescheduled and they said yes. Eventually I got a full refund but I’ll never deal with them again as I had to go thru a full explanation of why I couldn’t arrive Sunday afternoon and had to explain what a liveaboard was.

 

[scubadada]

So.....United is worse than American, neither is very good