Bonaire Report - Just Returned

[wwguy]

The biggest problem is that a lot of the good schedules only fly weekly and 5 days of diving just isn't enough after spending all that time to get there.

This is how it starts. Our first few trips were 7 days, and then we tried 10 days (connecting through Curacao.) It's amazing how much more enjoyment and relaxation comes with even a few extra days when travelling a full day or more in either direction. Before you know it 10 days on Bonaire will become 2 weeks, and then 2 weeks becomes 3 weeks. This winter we're looking forward to our 4th consecutive 3 week trip.

My wife is a corp travel agent and is now telling me that we can go SEA - ATL - BON with only one change in ATL, full size jet all the way and only 9-10 hrs of total travel time. Delta. We'll just have to see if theres a way to trade or use our American miles. Also...we'll have to suck it up and stay for two weeks instead of 10 days.. :cool2:

I looked into this previously and couldn't find a practical means to transfer AA Advantage miles to Delta SkyMiles. The only method I could find discussed on the internet is to transfer up to 50K AA Advantage miles to Diner's Club Club Rewards Card at a 2:1 loss, and then transfer 1:1 from Diners Club to Delta SkyMiles. This would only give you 25K Delta Sky Miles max for 50K AA miles. It's a bad deal and wouldn't generate enough Delta miles to be useful for travel to Bonaire.

I do like the Delta schedule to Bonaire though. I don't do well with redeye flights because I can't sleep on planes. FWIW the Delta flights from the Pacific NW to BON are currently as low as I've seen them in the past 5 years or so. Just in case you need help rationalizing your next trip.

 

[papanano]

We will be there for 14 days this time in 1 week 4 days and counting. We stayed at buddies last year for a week, our first time on bon and LOVED the diving but buddies dive operation sucks wind, especially the boat diving. Careless dive masters who could give a crap about showing us anything, there were two seahorses at the bottom pf the mooring line and she didn't show us. We found out about them when we got on the boat post dive and the captain asked if we saw them! We will never go back to buddies, this year we are staying at a small B&B who have there own dive operation and are rated number one on trip adviser, we will see. Last year we went to grand cayman for a week first then to bonaire talk about a crazy flight schedule! Seattle-charlotte-GC then GC-miami-bonaire then bon-miami-LA-seattle, never fly insel air!EVER! The flight right before ours lost an engine so we had to circle for a while then they had aircraft problems so we had to wait 5 hours for a floght to cjra ao then on to miami, we missed three flights to LA! This year it is united seattle to houston to bonaire then the opposite back. Yes it is a red eye but the kicker this year is when I tried to book extra legroom seats it charged me for them but put us in the back of the plane! Great news though, when I called united it was aboit 1 in the morning and got a really nice guy on the phone and when I explained what happened he said "let me see what I can do to help" so naturally I thought nothing great would happen but much to my suprise he put us in first/business class both ways all the way and get this, for $168 each! It was also a savings of $44 over what I had booked,.

 

[sparkinator]

That's the way we are getthing there in 10 days!!! XNA - ATL - BON...

My wife is a corp travel agent and is now telling me that we can go SEA - ATL - BON with only one change in ATL, full size jet all the way and only 9-10 hrs of total travel time. Delta. We'll just have to see if theres a way to trade or use our American miles. Also...we'll have to suck it up and stay for two weeks instead of 10 days.. :cool2:

 

[Gdog]

Hey, great video! Thanks!

 

[sparkinator]

We will never go back to buddies, this year we are staying at a small B&B who have there own dive operation and are rated number one on trip adviser, we will see.

We stayed there on our 1st & only (T-10 days & counting) trip to Bonaire and It was a really nice place. The hostess was wonderful and the breakfast tasty -prepared on our schedule. We only did shore diving so can't tell you about the boat experience. The host runs the dive operation while the hostess more or less runs the home. Maybe it was just our perception, or a personality thing, but we seemed to get a vibe from the host that we were the step children compared to the other guest that were boat diving... Nothing specific and again, it could just be our perception, otherwise it was a wonderful stay! It sounds like we are going to be on island about the same time... http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/abc-islands/456713-bonaire-trip-6-29-13-7-6-13-a.html

 

[papanano]

We will be there the 28th thru july 13th. Where are you staying this time?

 

[sparkinator]

We will be there the 28th thru july 13th. Where are you staying this time?

Den Laman... Click link: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/abc-islands/456713-bonaire-trip-6-29-13-7-6-13-a.html

 

[deeper thoughts]

Very nice, thnx for sharing