have 6 people coming to bonaire this feb. Boston to Curacao via AA. trying to get a divi divi flight from curacao to bonaire. can anyone tell me what size the divi divi plane is? how many seats on the plane? we have a few in party that are nervous about a small plane.

DiviDivi flies Islanders which have 9 passengers. I do not love flying but have no problems at all with these little ones ... and they are on time !

Divi Divi is IMHO, the best way to get from CUR to BON. They have flights back and forth between the island roughly every hour. It is about a twenty minute flight. They fly the Britney Islander and a Cessna, both are twin prop planes. One lucky person
gets to sit next to the pilot...

Also they a very liberal with your luggage weight allowance.....BE is not.

Jimmy

Agree with above comments. You can likely email them and arrange a flight for your group, esp as you will have more weight with your dive stuff. If the folks are as fearful as I am of flying small planes, two suggestions
1. 2.5 mg of valium from their doc as they land in Cur, it will take about 30 min to take effect and they will be ok.
2. or have the most fearful sit in the front with the pilot, as I did, that really helped.
I am plane phobic and love divi divi

Do they also fly after dark? I'll be landing in Cur at 18:05?

Thanks,

Peter

What is the cost of round trip air fare? From CUR to BON and back

Divi-Divi Doesn't fly scheduled flight after about 6PM allthough you could charter 1 of there planes. Cost is about US$100

Divi Divi has two types of planes. One holds 7 passengers and one holds 9.
They are a reliable airline but do not have a schedule which is terrific for connecting because they don't leave Bonaire until well after sunrise and they don't return late in the day or at night to Bonaire. They have no lights and so must rely on sunshine.

Richter's Route.

Using AA direct Miami to Cur and then Divi Divi to Bonaire provided excellent service. RT was on time and reliable both ways for both my wife and I on different days.

Thanks for the Richter Route, Jake.

Bud

Bud...Richter Route...LOL! RR...Love it!

That's my back-up route when I have a choice. My primary route is via San Juan as I hate flying through Curacao, though. Divi Divi is great, however. If you have to fly between Bonaire and Curacao I cannot recommend them highly enough, although you need to book well in advance because they are so popular.

But "choice" was not the option for me yesterday when I was scheduled to fly on AA to San Juan and on to DC where I am for the week.

Because of a printer failure at the Air Traffic Control (ATC) center in Curacao on Sunday afternoon, all ATC operations for Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao were imperiled. The result was that the AA flights from San Juan to Bonaire and to Curacao were both cancelled, leaving me with no plane to fly out on yesterday morning to San Juan.

I managed to scramble and find a seat on a flight from Curacao to Miami early in the morning, and then find a seat on the scheduled 6am flight on BonairExpress to Curacao to easily (hah!) make my connection. Divi Divi, with a 7:00am or so departure would have been tight to make the 8:16am AA flight in Curacao, but on a Monday morning the Divi Divi flight was full, and I wanted to not have to rush.

So I got up at 4am, got my tired butt to the airport by 5am to buy the ticket for the BE flight at 6am. I was successful buying the ticket, but learning in the process that the flight was delayed until 7am because the plane couldn't make it in the previous night (learning later it was all because of the ATC problem too). I checked in at the AA counter to ask them to advise Curacao I might be running late, finding out that the AA flight in Curacao almost didn't make it in either, and thus was leaving 75 minutes late from Curacao.

Adding insult to injury, I had to pay another NAF 60 to BE for 20kg overage (I was bringing a heavy box of documents and some other things to ship out in the U.S. with me) in my luggage.

And then the BE flight didn't ultimately leave Bonaire until after 8am. I had to beg and plead to be let on the AA flight in Curacao (and I suspect they only took pity on me because I'm an Exec Platinum flyer now), but they changed my connection to a later one in Miam, meaning a 3 hour layover, because they didn't think I would make my earlier (rescheduled) connection.

Ironically, I would have made it with just a few minutes to spare, but my bags were tagged for the later flight so I was hosed in Miami.

Made up for it with a nice lunch at the restaurant on top of the MIA Hotel by Terminal E in the Miami airport, and then a couple of hours of work at the Admirals club.

It was with a combination of exhaustion and amusement that I ended up getting into DC at the same time as originally scheduled had the San Juan flight been flying.

Apparently AA did send a plane to Bonaire yesterday to pick up the stranded passengers on Bonaire (and drop off those stranded in San Juan), but it didn't leave Bonaire until 3:30pm. Man - that must have sucked for connections in San Juan!

For all the hassles I went through, at least I made it to my destination at a reasonable time.

I will note that much to their credit, the AA reps on Bonaire tried to call everyone on the flight in the morning to tell them about the cancellation on Sunday night. They called me while I was on another line with AA in the U.S. changing my routings myself. Monday morning, at 6:15am there was only one couple waiting to talk to the folks at the AA counter in Bonaire, which means that they were pretty successful in contacting passengers. There's usually a hefty line by then.

I wish I had been able to take Divi Divi to Curacao instead of BE, in any event, specifically because of the luggage surcharge. Heavy luggage has never been an issue with Divi Divi - bless them. Of course, all but once that I have flown Divi Divi have they been on time, which is another plus.

Sorry about the diatribe, but I needed to vent :-)

Jake

Oh, my goodness, Jake. What a nightmare--but with a happy ending at least!
Just to clarify my earlier post on this thread, yes, Divi Divi is wonderful, much better than BE--BUT you can only use Divi Divi to connect with the AA nonstop to and from Miami if you take the first AA flight to Curacao and the second AA flight from Curacao.
The later AA flight to Curacao from Miami arrives long after dark, so taking Divi Divi to Bonaire would mean staying overnight in Curacao.
The first AA flight from Curacao to Miami leaves too early for you to connect via Divi Divi from Bonaire unless you stay overnight in Curacao.
So schedule AA carefully and, as Jake says, book Divi Divi early because their planes are small and they are popular.
Tish

Jake, vent away...did you make your meeting in DC?

Yep, I did. Heading home Saturday.

Jake

Whew, but what a way to get there! We WON'T call that one the "Richter Route"...might not be good for tourism...LOL! Oh, and thanks for a new word of the day for me...diatribe...must remember that one ;-)

Does anyone know an alternate phone number for Divi Divi air? I've been trying to call both numbers on their website and keep getting a rapid busy signal. Also e-mailed them a few days ago, but no response back. Thanks.

I have called them at 011-599-9-888-1050. Don't talk to long with them, my last phone bill for 7 minutes was $31.18 plus taxes. I hope someone state side will start issuing Divi Divi tickets.

Seeing as they are a charter Gary, that's not likely to ever happen.

However if you got yourself an International plan on your phone line (maybe $3/month for this) then the call would have cost you far less (between 20-30 cents a minute - just a suggestion :-) ).

E-mail address to use is "flydivi@interneeds.net". I get a response in 24-48 hours at most, but often in less than 24 hours (but not much less).

Jake

Jake,

Have you been able to figure if there is a regular time of day that Dive checks their email, i.e., each morning first thing?

http://web.net2phone.com/home_usen.asp
Gary, check this site out for PC to Hard phone service. I call Bonaire for $.32 a minute with net2phone. All you need is a head set and a credit card. The service is prepaid and you only pay for what you use with no experation.. Ron

I think it's usually evenings.

Jake