First, is solo diving prohibited in Curacao?
Man I hope not because I broke the law about 1/2 dozen times if it is...
Some dive operators don't allow it. The above mentioned Go West is one of them. Although they, like everyone else rent tanks to be taken off the property. The other that I'm aware of with a firm policy is the Ocean Encounters shops - there's 3-4 of them at the resorts SE of town.
If it's really an issue, there's a lot of good shore dives with no facilities on them at all. Playa Jeremi is the first that comes to mind. At Playa Lagun the dive shop is 2 blocks from the beach...There must be another 1/2 dozen plus I'm not thinking of. Probably Snake Bay, Directors Bay, and one of the Gnip sites also. And there's the old Sunset Wates site, the resort shut down and was partially razed but the breakwater and reef are still out there...lol.
Relaxed Guided Dives is a tank rental/fill station on the main road leading west. So you're not going to be diving
there with their tanks. We rented a lot of tanks from Discover Diving in Lagun - he never even asked. A couple of us realized that since we'd arrived a day later, he'd never seen our c-cards either.
Here's my take on Go West/Westpunt etc. for a 4 day trip.
My issue with Westpunt is the distance. It's 45mins. from town. So really quiet at night. But so is the nearest large food store unless something has changed recently. In fact many of the properties out there or in Lagun nearby (where we stayed) recommend stopping at a market in town before driving out. Centrum is that market - it's about a mile or two south of the airport rotary - go straight thru instead of right to Westpunt. They even sell cheap disposable $1 styro boxes to keep your food cold on the drive out. It just seems like a lot of driving for four days - if you did want to "see the sights" in Willemstad, with parking that's close to an hour drive each way - we did it twice.
Sunshine only opens Fri/Sat/Sun. so unless you're doing a long weekend...Otherwise there's 7 restaurants in Westpunt. Landhuis Misje seems to be the best listed on TripAdvisor. We ate at Rancho El Sobrino - it was average. Our apt. mgr. suggested Landhuis Daniel as one of the best but it's along the main road back towards town.
I like Go West. I think they're one of the better dive operators we used (6-7 of them over 2 weeks on the island) They have an excellent facility and are on arguably the best house reef Playa Kalki/Alice in Wonderland. I've been to All West but not inside. One thing to know about All West is there's a lot of stairs down to the beach you carry your gear back up.
We actually knew going in that we were going to spend a few days in Lagun then move to town. We relocated in the Piscadera Bay resort area - if I did it again I would've moved farther south and east of town. Except for the Superior Producer - which you can't dive if a cruise ship is in next door at the MegaPier there's not a lot of good dives from PBay south thru town. I think I'd plan to drive out to Westpunt for one whole day but stay closer to town for the convenience.
My suggestions might be Atlantis Apts. just south of downtown or even farther south at Lions Dive Resort. There's also the Sunscape AI resort nearby - it's an ex-Breezes kids resort though.
Atlantis has their own shore dive and Atlantis Diving on-site. They're just far enough south to not have a problem with the dowtown cruise/visitor traffic which can be really bad. Lions Dive is more upscale and has the main Ocean Encounters shop 50 yds. away - their house operator. OE does some nearby boat dives and some that are farther in either direction. They're one of few shops south of town that dive the famous Mushroom Forest dive but that would be a long ride from their dock.
Lions Dive is across from the Sea Aquarium so that area has a few shops and restaurants within walking distance. Also Mambo Beach Club for some adult (kids are allowed) nightlife. And it's five minutes drive from downtown for all the shops, many of the restaurants, the casinos etc. Downtown around the RIF fort area is nice after 5PM when the ships leave. The fort is interesting, there's shopping next door and some bars/restaurants in that area - many waterfront/view.
Should you be interested in doing a Dolphin Dive, they're kept at the Sea Aquarium and OE does them weekly. The boat ride is all of five minutes out to a shallow reef just off the breakwater and it's a pretty good experience. For $200pp. We enjoyed the interaction but the same dolphins also "perform" at the Aquarium so there's that...
I've only been by Sunscape so can't comment on it. Except that almost out front of their beach is where the Curacao Marine Park starts and goes east to the end of the island. Conversely we theought the better diving was in the West but we didn't do a lot of dives east for comparison.
This will give you a decent idea of many of the Curacao shore dives.
Scuba Shore Diving Site Listing for: Curacao, ABC Islands Besides the Dolphin Dive, we only did one afternoon of boat diving to dive a specific site we'd read about for seahorses. There weren't any but later we found them at Varsenbaai 100' off the beach. Ask Trunk Divers on-site.
Again I'm not trying to pan Westpunt/All West/Sol but if I had only four days I wouldn't want to spend several hours of it driving back to town for anything not nearby.
hth,