Hi, I am new here. Now that the entire family are divers, we just can't afford to go places where we have to pay for boat dives every day, so we will finally come to Bonaire.

We can only travel during school breaks, including the summer. I am the official dive trip planner for the family and am thinking of coming down there in the summer. GENERALLY SPEAKING, of June, July or August, are any of these typically "cheaper?" and any particular time of year when I should be looking to make reservations for a summer trip?

By the way, we are coming from Denver.

Thanks for any help!

John, the flight from Houston to Bonaire fills up real fast. August 8-August 16 is $668 right now. Continental has a habit of changing flight prices daily. I saw some prices for over $1,000. Gary

Hi John,
We just bought our tickets to go to Toronto this summer from Bonaire, end of July for 4 weeks, going through Houston. We paid only $677 each, practically half price! (Taxes included). Normally, we each pay a minimum of $1100. Try to book on other websites than Continental, where prices seem to be most expensive, if you're comfortable with that.
Don't know if it's allowed to post websites of where we searched, but I'd be happy to send them to you - just sent me an email.
Good luck!

John please do post the links.. thank so much for this information

LATE summer and fall are hurricane season in most of the Caribbean, although the ABC's are less affected normally.
So the airlines typically have a Fall Sale announced sometime in July. In 2006, AA's sale allowed travel from August 7 through December 13 at reduced prices, especially mid-week.
I priced out Boston-Bonaire (via San Juan) for $440 per person at that time, including taxes & fees.
The details on hurricane season sales will vary from year to year, but I'll be keeping my Visa card ready in July

Ok Edward & Nydia - we want links... we love links...please link for us...

Hey, those links are for me, hands off! (Just kidding..I don't see any way to insert those little smiley faces to show humor)

Thanks for the input. Due to school schedules we typically do a dive trip around Spring break, again in the Summer and again in late October. That pretty much puts two trips right at the beginning and right at the end of hurricane season, but we have done okay so far. Summer is usually our cheapest trip because that is low season for most of Mexico and hotels and flights are pretty cheap.

We have traditionally gone to Mexico because of short non-stop flights and low airfare, sometimes under $200 pp, but the cost of boat dives is killing us and we are a bit tired of going to the same places every trip. We spend $500-$600 per day for two 2-tank dives for all four of us in Cozumel.

So far the cheapest airfare I have found to Bonaire is $613 plus taxes, but that still seems high compared to what we are used to. I guess that is pretty good for summer though?

I don't know what Edward and Nydia's links will be, but I often check Kayak.com and Airfare Watchdog. I frequently still get the best price form the airline's own web page, but that may be a function of which airline is used.

OK JD we'll keep our hands off and if they get posted we PROMISE not to look. hehehe

Just make certain that you do ALL of the math because while the airfare may seem high - and it is higher than say $200 look at how much you will save in the diving. Let's do a low down number crunch.

Mexico
Airfare at $225 (went ahead and added some tax) for 4 people = $900
Diving 2 tanks for 6 days @ $600 per day = $3,600

Air and diving total - $4,500

Bonaire
Airfare at $650 (went ahead and added some tax) for 4 people = $2,600
UNLIMITED shore diving for 6 days = $500

Air and diving total = $3,100

So which one is the better deal?????

$150 a day per person for 2-tank boat dives on Cozumel is not an accurate number.
The best operator on Coz would be http://www.aldora.com/pricinglist.htm with 100 cf steel tanks and small boats and they're quoting $87.
A cattleboat operation like http://www.aquasafari.com/ is quoting $60.

Those prices assume standard boat dives, not cenotes on the mainland. They also assume you have all your own dive gear, but do not include tips.

I like both Coz & Bonaire, but let's be accurate about the details

Yo MO:

You are correct. And, with fuel prices going up, my airfare for our trip in a couple weeks was more like $450 per person. Additionally, it is painful when I have to pull out those $100.00 bills every day or two and hand them over to the dive op. That airfare charged to the credit card just feels less like real money (until later).

I just stumbled across the kids sea camp and since one of my divers is quite young and the other a teen, I'm thinking I should check into this a bit. Doesn't change airfare, but I was looking at staying at Buddy anyway and it could be fun for the kids to get away from mom and dad and still dive.

I have usually used two small dive operators running six packs in Cozumel in the past, divewithalison and scubatony. They charge $60 and $80 respectively for a two tank dive, and we usually do two of those per day, sometimes with an additional night dive. I won't willingly go on the cattle boats.

So we pay $120-160 per person for a full dive day. Both, I think, offer some discount for cash. You are right, Aldora is an excellent operation from what I have heard and they are a bit more expensive, but offer larger steel tanks and other amenities. I also often dive Nitrox and that is $5.00 more per tank.

So, for four of us, assuming no night dive, we spend $480 - $640 per day, less a bit for cash, plus another $10.00-$20 for nitrox. So I figure $500 - $600 per day is a fair number. And, I hadn't forgotten to factor in tips, which add up quick over a week. I think we frequently tip $20-$30 or so per day.

I did not mean to suggest a 2-tank dive was $120 and more.

We have most of our own gear, so rental isn't an issue.

AA has flights on sale right now!

Hi JD:
We also are in Denver. Right now airfare for under $700.00 pp. tax included is the reasonable limit to shoot for. We now fly only on Continental as it is the least assaultive and very reliable IMHO from Colorado. We have been diving many places in the caribbean, Mexico and other places in central america. Even with the higher airfare we still find Bonaire a bargain as the diving is incredible, practically unlimited and the island is very affordable. For Summer, August is usually the best deal. If you would like, you may email me with more refined questions about our experiences and your specific needs.

Hurricanes might not directly impact the island, but they do impact flights. Last fall we were one the last planes to get into Bonaire before the hurricane hit. A number of flights were canceled or delayed by days. I would go earlier in the summer.

Ok, here's the sites we searched this time:

www.onetravel.com
www.ultimatefares.com
www.airticketsdirect.com

We purchases with the last one mentioned.

Kayak, Yapta, Continental, Expedia, etc. all quoted over $1000.00, not including taxes, for the exact same flight schedule.

Thinking back to recent years, we've always had to pay minimum $850, and that was even flying out of Curacao. So you can imagine we snapped up this opportunity! Bonaire isn't always an "easy" place to get to, generally speaking, though the new Continental and Delta flights seem to be improving the situation and I definitely wouldn't consider it cheap either.

Hope you'll be able to find something,
Nydia

Thanks everyone for the help. I bought tickets at just under $700 pp including all the taxes and fees. If things work like they usually do, that means you should keep an eye on prices because now they will drop.

;)

JD
You have made a sound purchase for your flight on Continental from Denver to Bonaire.
We think they are the best way to go from Colorado. It is a popular flight and can fill up quick when prices seem to go below the $700 mark for any length of time. If you compare other Airlines from Denver, even if their fare beets Continental, it is not by much and certainly not enough to compensate for the extra connections, reliability issues and travel fatigue. No I do not work for Continental. They have just made our favorite island much closer to our city in the past 2+ years.
Patrick

JD ... if it makes you feel any better the Continental prices just went up over the last week! Of course I had also waited (which I know is not a good thing!). Now that I have purchased, like you, I am sure they will go down. I do have Yapta tracking them in case they drop enough for a refund. I do find that the Continental prices are less than AA and for this trip were considerably less than Delta.

john
if u haven't booked yet go unto bookingbuddy.com and where it says other search( bottom right side) go unto bookit. i didn,t know age of children but put in 12 13 and 14 to get an idea and came up with a great fare on cont. remember u have to fly over night so u must book for friday flt.
leaving den and sat date for return trip.
hope this helps
elaine

john
didn't realize u already booked. my fare wasn't great anyway. u got much better deal. so ignore what i said
elaine

Nydia:

Thanks for the tips on another set of places to check for cheap fares. My experience is you never know who's the cheapest. FWIW, I ran the same flights on the same days on Continental's site as well as those three. BON-IAH-SEA (where I have to go for a week) and CO was $902, Onetravel and Ultimatefares were both $1,032, and AirTicketsDirect was Cdn$1,202 and sent me from BON to IAH to LAX to SEA. (all before taxes and fees.) YMMV.