Curacao Diving, lodging and dining Recommendations for early July

[ffixxer]

Thank you everyone for all the great information to help us plan our trip.

We (wife and I) will be enjoying as much diving as we can get in during our 10 day stay. Lodge Kura Hulanda is the choice we have made for lodging and CheapCaribbean.com got us a good rate for the room and airfare they were over $400 cheaper than any other web deal for the same itinerary per person!.

Still need to nail down the rental car and start e-mailing the dive shops to build a package; I want to max out the dive computer.

 

[Diver OnLu]

Hi ffixxer,

when are you arriving on the island? If you're staying at Kura Hulanda Lodge, come to visit me at Ocean Encounters West. I am sure we can provide you with all you need for an unforgetable dive vacation

Best regards from Curacao
Andreas

 

[Jon Voiles]

Just got back from Curacao last week. The Sea Aquarium Resort was excellent, however it is a time share. Right next door was Lions Dive Resort, it looked great. If you enjoy shore diving, get hooked up with the dive bus. We rented equipment from them and had a great time, they provided us with information on all the dive locations, places to eat, night life, and the island in general. The shore diving that we did all had easy access, all had dive shops on site and snack bar/restaurant.

It was nice to dive, hang out for an hour or two, dive again and relax and have some food and drinks. By the way, you can easily eat for that price. They have McD's, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hut. But the local restaurants are affordable as well. We ate at the Rib Factory (recommended by the Dive Bus) and the food was great. Also for breakfast/lunch try DeliFrance, coffee, espresso, croissants etc.

If you are going to shore dive, get the drive and dive map, it's the best map of the island. Available at the Dive Bus.

Always ask if prices are in florins/guilders or US dollars, most of the time they are posted but sometimes not.

If you rent a car make sure it has a trunk, if you leave things in the car that are visible, we were told they might not be there when we got back. Storing extra tanks is a necessity. All of the shore dives we did had facilities, but some do not. If you dive tugboat, do not go before 10:00 AM. The site is a vertical wall and the sun does not shine on the wall before 10:00 or so.

Have a great time, Hook up with the Dive Bus, you won't be disapointed.

 

[ffixxer]

Staying at Lodge Kura Hulanda for the entire trip. Interested in car rental suggestions and dining off site. Any non typical auto rental places? Just needs to be reliable not new and with a trunk to haul dive gear.

My wife and I are arriving June 28, 2008 and stay until July 8 when we fly out back to the States. We are vacation divers and have not dived since July 2005 in Grand Cayman. We are not "strong" swimmers as we have not been in for 2 years.

We are interested in dive computer for the wife the length of our stay, I have one. Refresher dive to ensure safety, tanks and weights the length of our stay. Mostly shore diving, we think but a couple of boat dives would be nice.

We do not have wetsuits, wife has exposure skin; I usually use a T-shirt. I was almost too warm in Grand Cayman with 80F water temp at 60 feet. Is there a lot of stinging nettles (jellies)?

We are hoping to build a Scuba package and get preferred pricing. Please make any suggestions for recommended equipment and services.
Regards,
Jim (ffixxer)

 

[Rand]

For local dining, there is Janchee's, which is within walking distance of Kura Hulanda. It's a decent place. The food was good, and there are a few selections like Iguana soup that set it apart from the usual fare. The owner is very nice and goes out of his way to make sure you are happy. There was fancier place that was about a 25 min. ride inland. I'll try and find the name of it for you. It was more expensive, but very good food.

Just a heads up on site at Kura Hulanda and probably elsewhere on the whole island (at least in my experience), the wait staff will take your order, bring your food, and refill your drinks as they would in any other restaurant, however, be prepared to have to ask for the check becuase it seemed that they assume you just want to sit there until you ask. This can be a bit of a pain, especially if you are in a hurry, just keep that in mind.

Kura Hulanda has three places to eat on site. One is a buffet style place that was more expensive than the others and offers breakfast and dinner. There is one down by the dive shop that is lunch only and had some good tasting and reasonably-priced selections. The third offers lunch and dinner and has patio seating overlooking the water (Very cool to watch the divers doing night dives on the house reef).

One word of caution, there are trees that grow throughout the property that have signs that say don't eat the fruit. Some of these overhang the patio eating area overlooking the water. The leader of our trip somehow got an eye infection from 7 days of eating under these trees. The best we can determine is the pollen from the trees got on the tables and from contact with his hands and skin, was transferred to his eye. He is ok, but spent the last two days of the trip and 2 weeks afterward with an eye patch on.

The Lodge offers diving packages with OE West, but if you are looking to do primarily shore dives, you might be better off paying for individual boat dives, although I'd recommend contacting them ahead of time to ensure your spot is reserved. Maybe they can give you a modified dive package. We did all boat dives except for a few at the house reef. We just find not having to haul all your gear up and down the beach/rocks easier and more enjoyable.

We we were there last year, the water was unusually cool, about 75 degrees at depth. Many in our group ended up renting shorties to wear over their skins as they were not expecting this. We were told this was a rare Atlantic current or something and it is usually not that cool. No stinging jellies or anything like that. There is some fire coral, but that is easy to avoid. We were there the end of July last year, so I'd assume your conditions will be similar.

Most of the dives we did with OE West were easy ones that I think would be fine for your skill level. We did end up doing two with a very strong current that should have been drift dives and left many of us completely spent after the second one. I think the area we dived in for those dives (Paradise and Koratape) don't usually have such strong current and that surprised the DMs. They managed it well though, and kept everyone together. It was our first experience with current and we got through it ok, so I wouldn't worry. The rest of the sites we dived on had little to no current.

For dive sites, I would check out Black Coral Forest, Playa Kalki (house reef), Watamula, and Mushroom forest, with Watamula being my favorite.

You can rent wetsuits and a computer from OE West. Again, I'd check ahead of time to make sure they are available.

Another heads up, the Lodge says you don't need electrical adapters, however there is only one US-style outlet in the whole room. The rest are the two cylindrical prong plugs. I would bring a few adapters, especially if you are charging camera batteries or running other electronics.

Also, bring an ethernet cable if you are bringing a laptop. You can rent them at the front desk, but if I had known that they were needed, I would have packed my own.

I think you'll enjoy your stay there, and the diving is excellent.

Feel free to ask any questions here, or PM me.

Have fun!

 

[Diver OnLu]

Hi ffixxer,

Let me add "Sol Food" to the local dining hints, the place of Sunshine and David who open their restaurant every weekend from Friday to Sunday - very good food, affordable prices and the best familiar athmosphere you can get for a nice dinner It is only 10 minutes away from Kura Hulanda Lodge, if you decide to walk there instead of taking the car.

I believe my colleagues from OEW already replied to you via email regarding dive equipment and dive packages. If you are interested in shore diving on various locations, just ask me upon arrival, and I will explain some to you. If you want to shore dive more to the centre/east of the island, for sure Suzy of the DiveBus can help you out with additional information.

Best regards
Andreas

 

[Diver OnLu]

Forgot to give you more information about water conditions:

Temperature at 60ft is 27°C at the moment, I think that is a bit over 81°F. Water most of the time lately was very calm and easy to dive. I didn't see any jellyfish so far, occasionally there might be some plankton in the water that can irritate your skin, but it is rare.

If you use a T-shirt during your dives, you will may make me and the other divemasters feel cold just looking at you (I use a 5mm semidry + hood), but if you were not cold on Grand Cayman, I see no reason you should be, here.

Best regards,
Andreas

 

[ffixxer]

Thanks for all of the great feedback fellow divers!

I got the best rental car rate directly from National Car Rental (nationalcar.com) $247 US for Compact car for 10 days, right from the airport. On the home page choose: (CAR RENTAL SPECIALS TO GO!) then on the next page choose: (Go with National and SAVE in Latin America & Caribbean!) So save your time looking for a better deal on the internet; believe me I tried.

As far as wetsuits go, I guess that mass dose have an advantage in keeping one warm.

 

[diversteve]

There was fancier place that was about a 25 min. ride inland. I'll try and find the name of it for you. It was more expensive, but very good food.

Landhuis Daniel? Landhuis Daniel Restaurant, Curacao Restaurants :: Caribbean Edge

Interested in car rental suggestions and dining off site.

If you're going to drive to town one day to shop, I second the Ribs Factory for dinner. But it's sort of east of downtown so probably an hour back to KH from there.

There's some options in Piscadera Bay, Hooks Hut - just what it sounds like, a combo bar/outdoor restaurant/diveshop, good reasonable food, great views. Sand underfoot kind of place. I think they have a band some nights.

The Marriott has a really nice oceanfront restaurant. It's the one past the pool complex. We had a table 20' from the water, the food was Marriott quality and it was a nice calm night so they lit the torches and everyone dined by moonlight. It's a really nice Marriott. Small casino on-site also. I also ate one night at the better Hilton restaurant next door, it was fine but they have no view.

But plan on 20-30 mins. driving minimum between Piscadera Bay and West Punt.

Closer to you, Habitat's restaurant is good for lunch if you're diving there. I wasn't as impressed with the Sunset Waters restaurant. Both are high on the hill which is good since there's no A/C. Not worth going to unless you're diving there though as it's a 10-15 min. drive in from the main road to either place.

Going farther east along the coast into Willemsted, we had big lobsters at the SurfnTurf, a small local place adjacent to the Dive Bus hut. If you're going to do some shore diving with them, it's a good place to eat afterwards. Real casual dining but not inexpensive. I think they might've gone and got our lobster out of a pen on the reef after we ordered.

We stayed in Lagun for several days, about 10-15mins. east of West Punt. For dinner we mostly wound up driving to Willemsted, there's not a lot of options once you get farther west.

One other thing to mention, I'm not sure if Kura Hulanda has a small store but if not, there's not a lot of options in the area to buy packaged food/drinks. There is a small market (West?) of Wilbrordus on the ocean road but she didn't have much.

If you're arriving in the afternoon, you might want to consider stopping at Centrum Market in Piscadera before you drive out to the Lodge. It's about 2 miles or so south of the rotary where you turn off to go to West Punt. Instead of going right there, go straight through (south) and Centrum will be about 2-3 stoplights down on your right. Big sign, it's on the SW corner. They even sell cheap styro containers so you can keep a few things cold on the drive out.

hth,

 

[Rand]

Thanks sjspeck, Landhuis Daniel was the place we ate at. Like I said earlier, excellent food.