Just got back from Curacao (24th - 30th) late last night. Ok trip that could have been great... read on.
I'll start with All West Apartments first. I decided to stay there based on 2 reviews (I know) on Tripadvisor and from a occasional poster here. The room, which was a 1 bedroom on the second floor, was spacious, reasonably clean, and had a fantastic view. Now onto to the not so good things... I'll start off by saying that I was not expecting elaboarte accomodations or to be pampered. I knew what kind of place All West was... for divers, and independent travelers who do not need to have their hand held or be waited on hand and foot. That being said... I was very disapointed with what we had. Allow me to elaborate...
First... no hot water the first 2 days. My wife was really ticked about this, and when we finally found someone to ask about it we found out that the hot water heater was unplugged. My question... why? Were they trying to save a quarter while no one occupied the room? Now maybe it's partly my fault for not noticing it was unplugged when I checked it... then again I had a tendency to look at the hot water heater and not the plug. You shouldn't have to worry about such things on a vacation. But, we finally did get hot water. It was just a PITA.
Second... I'm on a tropical island and I expect bugs to be a problem... outside. But inside is a whole different ballgame, especially in a complex with numerous rooms that have windows and screens. This isn't a bungalow over water here. There were ants, mosquitos, no-see-ums and the thing I detest the most on this planet outside of liberals (just joking :05: )... spiders. I hate, absolutely hate spiders... any size, any shape, any species. I despise and loathe them. Way too many spiders in this room. One spider had even spun a web from the wall to the corner of my side of the bed... that's just unacceptable to me. We drove 25 minutes to the nearest market for bug spray and repellant. My wife is a trooper cause I make her kill them. I wont go anywhere near those devils' spawn.
Third... I realise All-West had nothing to do with this next scenario but it bears mentioning. After dinner one night we arrive back from the restaurant to find the power out. So now we are back to no hot water, pitch black darkness... and now no air. We opened every window that had a screen to get air flowing through the room but I didnt dare open the sliding glass doors to the balcony and the insect world beyond... they may have sucked me dry and my wife may have woken up next to a mummified husband. The power came back on 24 hours later... so that meant I slept on top of the covers where I was raped by every insect and probably spider in the room. My legs look like I bought them at a leprosy garage sale. Sheesh...
Fourth... this one is really minor and it did not bother us at all. But All West is adding more apartments so there is construction going on most of the time. With construction you get noise. Like I said that didnt bother us, as we were diving most of the time during the day, but it may be annoying to non-diving spouses or friends who are trying to chill out. And I only mention because on one of the reviews I read(Trip Advisor I think) the writer said he got 20% knocked of his room bill because of the noise. We got no such benefit.
I will say that I think we deserved a minor discount with all the crap we dealt with, especially the hot water. Management knew of our struggles, in case you were wondering, and we got nothing... didnt bother me much but it would have been a nice gesture.
We rented a car from All-West (part of the package) it was a Chevy S-10 with heavy wear, and it was manual (no biggie). I didn't really care about the appearance of the car, but I could have done without the exposed rusty metal rod exposed on the left side of the drivers seat... rather uncomfortable getting in and out of the truck. All in all... the truck didn't bother me much as it got it's share of abuse from us. The odd thing was Sunday afternoon after our boat dive one of the All West Employees came to ask us if they could borrow the car. One or two of their other cars broke down or some story like that... so being the nice guy that I am I gave them the car to borrow, since they said it was only gonna be an hour. Well 2 1/2 hours later we get the car back... so much for doing 2 afternoon shore dives. Instead we just hit the reef behind the apartments.
As for All West Apartments, I would not stay there again. It's just a bunch of little things that compound and made it a not so enjoyable stay. Attention to detail would make this place alot better in my opinion... like removing the rocks and broken coral at the bottom of the stairs so shore divers dont break their freaking necks. Little things like that go a long way. Oh, no TV by the way... suprisingly that didnt bother as much as I thought it would.
Cont'd...
I'll start with All West Apartments first. I decided to stay there based on 2 reviews (I know) on Tripadvisor and from a occasional poster here. The room, which was a 1 bedroom on the second floor, was spacious, reasonably clean, and had a fantastic view. Now onto to the not so good things... I'll start off by saying that I was not expecting elaboarte accomodations or to be pampered. I knew what kind of place All West was... for divers, and independent travelers who do not need to have their hand held or be waited on hand and foot. That being said... I was very disapointed with what we had. Allow me to elaborate...
First... no hot water the first 2 days. My wife was really ticked about this, and when we finally found someone to ask about it we found out that the hot water heater was unplugged. My question... why? Were they trying to save a quarter while no one occupied the room? Now maybe it's partly my fault for not noticing it was unplugged when I checked it... then again I had a tendency to look at the hot water heater and not the plug. You shouldn't have to worry about such things on a vacation. But, we finally did get hot water. It was just a PITA.
Second... I'm on a tropical island and I expect bugs to be a problem... outside. But inside is a whole different ballgame, especially in a complex with numerous rooms that have windows and screens. This isn't a bungalow over water here. There were ants, mosquitos, no-see-ums and the thing I detest the most on this planet outside of liberals (just joking :05: )... spiders. I hate, absolutely hate spiders... any size, any shape, any species. I despise and loathe them. Way too many spiders in this room. One spider had even spun a web from the wall to the corner of my side of the bed... that's just unacceptable to me. We drove 25 minutes to the nearest market for bug spray and repellant. My wife is a trooper cause I make her kill them. I wont go anywhere near those devils' spawn.
Third... I realise All-West had nothing to do with this next scenario but it bears mentioning. After dinner one night we arrive back from the restaurant to find the power out. So now we are back to no hot water, pitch black darkness... and now no air. We opened every window that had a screen to get air flowing through the room but I didnt dare open the sliding glass doors to the balcony and the insect world beyond... they may have sucked me dry and my wife may have woken up next to a mummified husband. The power came back on 24 hours later... so that meant I slept on top of the covers where I was raped by every insect and probably spider in the room. My legs look like I bought them at a leprosy garage sale. Sheesh...
Fourth... this one is really minor and it did not bother us at all. But All West is adding more apartments so there is construction going on most of the time. With construction you get noise. Like I said that didnt bother us, as we were diving most of the time during the day, but it may be annoying to non-diving spouses or friends who are trying to chill out. And I only mention because on one of the reviews I read(Trip Advisor I think) the writer said he got 20% knocked of his room bill because of the noise. We got no such benefit.
I will say that I think we deserved a minor discount with all the crap we dealt with, especially the hot water. Management knew of our struggles, in case you were wondering, and we got nothing... didnt bother me much but it would have been a nice gesture.
We rented a car from All-West (part of the package) it was a Chevy S-10 with heavy wear, and it was manual (no biggie). I didn't really care about the appearance of the car, but I could have done without the exposed rusty metal rod exposed on the left side of the drivers seat... rather uncomfortable getting in and out of the truck. All in all... the truck didn't bother me much as it got it's share of abuse from us. The odd thing was Sunday afternoon after our boat dive one of the All West Employees came to ask us if they could borrow the car. One or two of their other cars broke down or some story like that... so being the nice guy that I am I gave them the car to borrow, since they said it was only gonna be an hour. Well 2 1/2 hours later we get the car back... so much for doing 2 afternoon shore dives. Instead we just hit the reef behind the apartments.
As for All West Apartments, I would not stay there again. It's just a bunch of little things that compound and made it a not so enjoyable stay. Attention to detail would make this place alot better in my opinion... like removing the rocks and broken coral at the bottom of the stairs so shore divers dont break their freaking necks. Little things like that go a long way. Oh, no TV by the way... suprisingly that didnt bother as much as I thought it would.
Cont'd...
, but then again I dont think our air consumption is that great, maybe a little above average. We only did two boat trips and the second day there were only a total of four divers on the boat. Very nice indeed. The boat dives were to Mushroom Forest, Watamula, Sponge Forest and, Playa Jeremi which can also be done from the shore with a long surface swim. I highly recommend Watamula and Mushroom Forest.
