Wow, a week went by too quickly! This board was very helpful to me while planning, so I'll try to pay it forward by leaving my trip report. We chose Curacao and the Marriott because we wanted good diving, convenient/cheap flights, and enough non-diving activities for the family. All in all it worked out. The Marriott is a lovely resort, the dive shop Curacao Diving - Caribbean Sea Sports Curacao - diving, dive shop and boat trips folks were terrific and the lockers/shower/dunk tanks super convenient. We enjoyed shore diving and snorkeling the house reef on our own, and a couple boat trips (Mushroom forest and Superior Producer). The few other divers on our boats were friendly, competent, interesting people - so no good stories for the board there :cool2: We also went up to Playa Kalki and rented tanks for a shore dive from Go West, they were also super nice and helpful with good facilities and nice snorkeling.
Getting around Curacao wasn't much fun. Our National rental van from the airport was convenient, the gps we brought from home worked reasonably well (not great), and we never really got lost. But the scenery isn't pretty (flamingoes excepted); it seemed that razor wire surrounded every house, and the poverty and litter are a vacation buzz kill.
Food and gas are pricey, I was glad we had breakfast included and understand the appeal of AI resorts. I better understand, now, the appeal of staying at a resort and not really leaving....but that isn't our style.
Sadly, it wasn't until the last day that we got to Sol food, and met Sunshine. Better late than never, but I wish we'd planned better. Lunch at her restaurant included the most perfect Mojitos, delicious food, and reasonable prices of our entire week. And the view! If we go back to Curacao, we'll definitely stay up at that part of the island and better leverage Sunshine's expertise.
Getting around Curacao wasn't much fun. Our National rental van from the airport was convenient, the gps we brought from home worked reasonably well (not great), and we never really got lost. But the scenery isn't pretty (flamingoes excepted); it seemed that razor wire surrounded every house, and the poverty and litter are a vacation buzz kill.
Food and gas are pricey, I was glad we had breakfast included and understand the appeal of AI resorts. I better understand, now, the appeal of staying at a resort and not really leaving....but that isn't our style.
Sadly, it wasn't until the last day that we got to Sol food, and met Sunshine. Better late than never, but I wish we'd planned better. Lunch at her restaurant included the most perfect Mojitos, delicious food, and reasonable prices of our entire week. And the view! If we go back to Curacao, we'll definitely stay up at that part of the island and better leverage Sunshine's expertise.
