General Curacao info....

[wgw04024]

Greetings, looking to make the jump and try Curacao instead of returning to Bonaire. Just trying to leverage peoples experience for best area of the island to stay at with a mix of convenience to dive sites, and closeness to good restaurants. We plan on doing all shore dives. Four people, 1 truck. We'll need a dive op I suppose to get tanks/weights from as well. Right now tix are pretty reasonable from Boston, so I think I'll pull the trigger this week.

Thanks,
Bill

 

[tkaelin]

Here's my take. Westpunt area is the quiet side of the island with the best diving. There are a number of restaurants in the area but some are only open weekends. If you want to go out for dinner every night and want higher end dining experience at every meal and not willing to eat local you may find options limited in Westpunt. We like to mix it up and eat some meals in and some out. Trio Penotti, which is in the area, is excellent and there some other good choices as well. We plan on eating dinner out on the weekend nights (Fri-Sun) with the rest in so this works for us.

As far diving, we started diving CUR using our Bon experience: Truck with divers and tanks that we had from a package and hit shore diving sites. After two trips to CUR we have found shore diving CUR more enjoyable using a modified version of our Bon shore diving experience. We will now stay at a place like Allwest that has tanks and a good house reef right on site. Will dive the house reef at least twice a day. For shore diving else, we dont' bring tanks but prefer to use the dive op on the beach.

The best shore dive reef we have found is at Kura Hulanda at the Gowest dive shop. You can shore dive this site every day of your stay and still not see everything or get bored with it. Because we have stayed at Allwest with our diving through Gowest, diving the Gowest house reef multiple times a trip is a no brainer. We drive over with our gear and get tanks there. Even if we didn't get our tanks as part of Gowest package we still wouldn't bring our tanks. There are a number of reasons but for this site, they have all the amenities right there: Lockers, shaded set up area, showers, rinse tanks, bathrooms, drying racks, dock, rope out to the reef and not to mentioned friendly informative staff. $10-12 a tank for all this is worth it for us. There is also a set of stairs down from the parking area to the dock. If you bring your own tanks there still may be a fee to dive from Gowest's facility.

Our preference not to lug tanks also goes for places like Playa Lagun and Cas Abou. Both have dive shops right on the beach, facilities, and staff. By using the on beach dive op, you get to do something you don't generally do on Bon. You can hang on the beach between dives, grab a bite to eat right there and relax. You can rinse and dry your gear right on site. At Cas Abou at Bdiving, for the price of your tanks, you get their friendly help and advice, shaded set up area, rinse tanks, drying racks, gear storage area. You can also park right in front of their shop where your car is visible and can be seen all day long. Again for the price of tank you get all this which we found quite enjoyable. You feel safe. You feel your car and personal belongings are safe. Easy set up. After the dive, rinse, shower, hang your gear, maybe set up a second tank and go to a snack shack for some food, grab a couple beach chairs and hang out, go for a swim and then maybe another dive.

You can do all this on your own but without the amenities and without a dive op who is there to give advice, help and providing a place for your stuff. Again, it seems the best of both worlds and that is how we plan on shore diving CUR going forward.

Having said this you can certainly dive CUR like BON with your truck, gear and lugging your own tanks, but I don't find it as enjoyable or as necessary. Unlike BON, CUR has an abundance of beautiful beaches and by shore diving this way we get to enjoy the beaches. On BON, while the ironshore parking areas and entries have their own charm, I have never felt the pull to simply hang out there after the dive.

Happy planning and diving.

 

[wgw04024]

Thanks so much for that. Great perspective and comparison. This was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for! Food wise, we'll probably eat out every day, but we look for good middle of the road places that might not be so obvious. It's a game we like to play. Sometimes going high end it's just to easy to be let down, since the expectations are so much higher.

Your take certainly sounds like a great way to mix the two types of diving.

The house reef is important since we really enjoy night diving close by if we can.

Thanks!
Bill

 

[tkaelin]

Your welcome. Let me know if you have more questions. I have stayed at Allwest twice and will likely again in Jan. There are others here on SB who have stayed at Marazul in Westpunt and have positive things to say about Marazul. There are two at Playa Lagun that I have been looking at Lagun Blou and Bahia Apts. I have not stayed at either but look interesting. All three have tanks on site and access to a house reef. There are likely more as well.

Reservations on the weekends for Trio Penotti highly recommended. Sol Food is another popular place. Only open on the weekends and more casual menu then Trio but fun and great host. Reservations also recommended. Jaanchies is very local and we enjoyed it but not for everyone. The menu is given in the form of the owner sitting down at your table and letting you know what is on the menu for the day.

Another restaurant that gets high ratings in Landuis Misje. We will have to try the restaurant. We only had take out which was great.

 

[diversteve]

I pretty much agree with everything tkaelin posted. To us - we stayed in both Lagun and later in Piscadera Bay - we either drove for food or drove to the best diving.

On reflection next time we'll stay farther south - around Lions Dive somewhere since some of the better dives are south of it and there's food/nightlife in the area.

Downtown seems too congested and frankly Piscadera Bay does not have the best reef access due to topography - it's a healthy surface swim out,

If you do stay in Westpunt - there's maybe 1/2 dozen restaurant choices. I doubt you'll find anyone in the few bars there after 9pm either.

Lagun makes Westpunt seem like a big city. Two restaurants I know of and all condo/apt.rentals - most not waterfront but on the cliffs above it. Our mgr. said it's where locals go for the weekends.About 30,mins drive to town from there. If you do rent condo's in the area stop for groceries in town before driving out - both Centrum or Cost-U-Less are a few mins. south of the airport rotary. Centrum has disposable coolers available for $1. - and I believe dry ice

Downtown Willemstad is also pretty congested and parts of it are above the water on low cliffs so resorts like the Renaissance don't even have water access - or a beach. Carib Sea Sports shuttles you to their proerty at the Hilton at the north end of Piscadera Bay - where they keep their boats also.

Look at Blue Bay Resort also but some of the condos are up the hill on the golf course - not waterfront. There's a shop on the beach and Blue Bay Wall a pretty good dive. Blue Bay is rouind the bay on the north side so five mins to the other PBay restaurants - there's a seldom used convention center so some resorts but most across from the water. The Hilton is vintage 70's with nice grounds.

Just a little south of downtown is the Suncape AI resort - the SB Surge was there a few years ago - and going back this year. There's a house reef there and Ocean Encounters shop. Also the Dive Bus is practically across the street for escorted shore diving.

Maybe look at Lions Dive also - they have rooms and larger suites. The main Ocean Encounters shop is next door and they do the Dolphin Dives on the breakwater there since the Sea Aquarium is just across the channel. IDK their shore dive but the resort seemed pretty nice - I walked around one morning.

Also they've developed Mambo Blvd next door - shops/restaurants plus Mambo Beach Club is walking distance away.

From there sites like Tugboat and Director's Bay are a 10-15 min. drive.

Note that some of the resorts south of town like Avila have little/no house reef due to the breakwater out front - no way to get around it. Nice Jazz club there though.

If you like crowds - there's Scuba Lodge downtown - but it's real congested when the cruise ships moor on the other side of the harbor. We walked in downtown about 15mins. after spending 1/2 hr. going nowhere in traffic.

We found ourselves driving West to dive about 1/2 the week even after moving to Piscadera. The rest of the time driving south of town to dive those sites - there's one main bridge across the harbor to go between Punda and Otrabunda.

Some nightlife seemed to be in Salinja based on the noise we heard but did not stop.

hth,

 

[ChuckP]

All West with Go West - NO NO NO Kura Hollanda - tell Lewis hey

We stayed at Kura back in February and dove with Go West - first time there for me. We rented car at airport and got tanks from Go West and lugged them around - it wasn't that bad but yea, some of them beaches were a hike. We dove outside Go West watching the sun both rise and set - it was great.

I did one boat dive with Go West as some of the swim outs sucked but got to chat with Lewis a lot - sounded like his apartments had kitchens maybe which would help with food - I'm just not into that food down there. There are burger joints and a few of the beaches had bars or places to eat.

Taking my son somewhere in July, was going to do Bonaire but heard about harder shore entries, I duuno, never been there so probably going to go anyways, could always boat dive..... plus Lewis would probably talk me into buying a few apartments

 

[wgw04024]

Hey Thanks Chuck. Sure, you watch your step getting into some of the shore dives, but it's not really a big deal. Maybe I'm less concerned with it living up here in the northeast. Bonaire is a great place all around. It's just so different.

 

[Damselfish]

NO NO NO Kura Hollanda

In the past I often recommended Kura Hulanda, it used be quite nice with just a few annoying issues. But I've read some pretty bad things about it recently on tripadvisor or some travel site. Sounds like the place has really gone downhill, I take it those reports were accurate? From the stuff I read I wouldn't trust that the place will remain open.

 

[tkaelin]

Last Jan I walked through the lobby of KH and noticed that they prominently posted their TA rating which was very low. I remarked about this to GW staff and I think they said that it was posted on purpose by a new manager to motivate staff to improve and that efforts were underway to improve. I would pass on KH until you see some tangible signs of improvement.