Where would you go for your honeymoon - with the following restrictions . . .

Hi,
I'm going to be getting married in fall. My fiancee and I are looking for a dive vacation - we're bother avid divers - for our honeymoon.

We want to go for 2 weeks.
Airfare can be from anywhere in the US (I live in Canada, and will be using frequent flyer points to get to whereever I need in the US)
We are on a budget - I don't want to be spending 10k on the honeymoon
Looking for unlimited diving place.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Darryl

Originally posted by dvleemin
Hi,
I'm going to be getting married in fall. My fiancee and I are looking for a dive vacation - we're bother avid divers - for our honeymoon.

We want to go for 2 weeks.
Airfare can be from anywhere in the US (I live in Canada, and will be using frequent flyer points to get to whereever I need in the US)
We are on a budget - I don't want to be spending 10k on the honeymoon
Looking for unlimited diving place.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Darryl

Click to expand...

If unlimited diving is a big priority, I'd suggest Bonaire. Otherwise, Pirates Point or Southern Cross Club on Little Cayman - IMHO, the best of Caribbean diving - either resort will let you load up on nitrogen in two dives, staff's nice, food very good, and accomodations attractive.

Cozumel is not too bad with some great diving, and pesos are where it's at if you want affordability.

www.cobaltcoast.com

Give Arie and the gang a call and see what he can do for ya.

I'll be going down for the last week of March to attend the wedding of a friend. We all plan to stay at Cobalt Coast.

It may not still be available when you want to go, but right now, if you go for 7 days or more, they throw in a rental car free...

This is important, you will want to have a rental car. It's all the way at the north tip of the western side of the island. To get to 7-mile beach and the nightlife it is a pain to use the local buses.

www.divetech.com is located right at the resort. Their headquarters was at the turtle farm a few miles west but was destroyed in a hurricane several months ago. I heard they are rebuilding the main site but I have not seen it since last year before the storm.

Cobalt Coast has a dive package/room rate that includes a 2 tank boat dive each day and unlimited air fills for diving the north wall (just walk from the room to the dock, grab a tank and start swiming) or anywhere else on the island (just grab a tank or two and toss em in the rental car and go..

I was with a group of divers and we lost our reservations at another resort because it went out of business just a few weeks before our trip (they did refund our money).

We found the website above and eded up being Aries very first guests... He got the final hotel licenses etc. on a Thursday and we showed up on that Saturday!

There were a few minor issues as everything was new and a few odds and ends were not perfect. Arie was more than happy to take care of any problems we had ASAP. He's a really nice guy.

The food at the hotel was very good when I was last there. They didn't have a set menu yet so we'd just ask the chef for whatever we wanted and he'd tell us if he had the ingredients or not. Often when he didn't, he would the next day.

If you want, I can give you more current info in about 6 weeks when I get back from this trip.

"And that's all I have to say about that."
-Forest Gump

What do ya think? Should I give up my day job and write add-copy?

If you want some privacy and not a lot of people around with still plenty to do you might take this into consideration.

http://www.wildernessriver.com/barbareta/




Later, Hawk.

Thanks for the replies guys.

I think the Cayman is going to be too expensive. I know it was some of the best diving in the world, but we don't want to spend that kind of money. We're looking closer to the $800/week, rather than the $1300/week.

Cozumel is probably where we're leaning right now. It has a good mix of price, with great diving. We're considering the Scuba Club Cozumel. Any thoughts on that?

Bonaire also sounds great. I love the idea of having a vehicle and driving down the coast, stoppping somewhere, and throwing on your gear to go for a dive.

I would also love to go to the Bay Islands, but thats a little bit more pricey.

Anybody else have any thoughts on this?

Darryl

If you want to dive, eat and sleep, then Bonaire is your best bet. If you also want bars, night clubs and the like you need to look elsewhere. The 800/wk, is that for everything or just lodging. Also, PP or for the both of you? Not trying to be nosey but the more info you can give us, the better we can help you. Here is a package for you to look at, the "Dive and Drive" package at Buddy Dive on Bonaire, condo,unlimited air fills, rental truck and buffet breakfast. www.buddydive.com I have stayed there several times and am returning in June.

Hi,
Not really looking for bars/night clubs. We find that most vacations we go on we're in bed fairly early as we have to get up fairly early to go diving.

The $800 was pp, and I meant to include the diving and accomodations, but not flights. This is not a really firm number, but an appoximation.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Who do you use to book trips to Bonaire?

Thanks,

Darryl

We had a good time there a couple of years ago. It has been a while, but I would go back again.

I use a local dive shop that also handles dive trips as well, it's just a lot easier to call him and book. I noticed on Buddies site that they list "Caribbean Dive Tours" as one of their listing agents, seems like that's who my LDS works with. If you drop the boat dives from the "Dive and Drive" plan it comes in at about $650 US/wk/pp. We spend about another $150-200pp/wk on the rest of our food. We hit the local food store and stock up on sandwich material for most of our lunches and then have a good evening meal. We don't get the boat trips, there is just too much shore diving to do and we like to keep our own schedule. You can always add some if you change your mind. We fly into Atlanta and then take Air Jamaica on to Bonaire, I would suggest you avoid ALM. American Airlines also flies to Bonaire via San Juan PR. AJ and American have flight from several US cities. Here is another board to look at http://www.BonaireTalk.com/newsgroup//messages/board-topics.html . There are lot of great people on it as well and you can get any question you have answered. You can also email me via the board if you have specific questions. I noticed on another post you ask about other places to stay, I don't have any first hand knowledge of any of the others(except Capt Dons, Lions Dive and SandDollar- all of which are nice places as well). There are a couple of island locals on the Bonaire board that can give you reliable information on any other places you may be interested in.