By Cathy Meyer on Thursday, August 29, 2002 - 7:18 pm: |
Hi. Hope someone can help me. As you know, flight times aren't the best getting to/from Bonaire. I'm thinking of taking the ferry from Bonaire to Curacao to catch a flight later than AAs 6AM flight back to the states on 9/9/02 as it looks like the Dutch Caribbean flights are booked at the times I want to travel. Is this difficult to do? How much time should I allow to travel from Bonaire to Curacao ferry dock to the Curacao airport? How far is the Curacao airport from the ferry terminal?
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By Jake Richter - NetTech on Friday, August 30, 2002 - 2:07 pm: |
Cathy,
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By Cathy Meyer on Sunday, September 1, 2002 - 11:01 am: |
Thanks, Jake. Interestingly, prior to seeing your post, I went to DCA's website and was able to book flights at convenient times. This after my travel agent told the the flights were full. Is this airline known for overbooking flights and then bumping people? (just want to be prepared!)
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By gregg brewer on Sunday, September 1, 2002 - 1:11 pm: |
Cathy,
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By lonnie hoover on Monday, September 2, 2002 - 6:42 pm: |
You might want to give Dutch Carribean Airlines(DCA) a try. Eventhough they are a spin-off of ALM, they seem to have made some improvements. They offer several trips each day to and from CUR/BON. Best of all, the roundtrip price of $86.30, including taxes is excellent. I would be very interested to hear from others who have used the DCA service, especially the hop to and from CUR.
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By Cathy Meyer on Tuesday, September 3, 2002 - 1:17 pm: |
Thanks so much for all your answers. I will post next week when I return to let you know how it worked out!
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By michael gaynor on Wednesday, September 4, 2002 - 7:38 am: |
A leopard cannot change its spots. See Jakes comments re divi divi.
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By lonnie hoover on Wednesday, September 4, 2002 - 11:33 am: |
Though a leopard can not chnge its spots, the spots will fade with age and appear to change. And, ofcourse, if the lepord is dissatisfied with the appearance of his spots he can go to the beauty shop and have a make over.
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By michael gaynor on Thursday, September 5, 2002 - 7:28 am: |
Still does not solve DCA's problems...no customer service
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By lonnie hoover on Thursday, September 5, 2002 - 5:49 pm: |
Customer service and reliability have always been a problem for ALM/DCA, whatever. Does anyone have any recent info or experiences with DCA, especially the CUR/BON commuter. Are they fairly reliable? Do they come close to sticking with their schedules,etc. Also, I am flying American from the states to CUR and back, and going down will have to claim baggage and re-check with DCA at their ticket counter. Comming back, I will have to claim baggage and re-check with American. I anticipate this will be a hassle, but remain eternally optmistic. The biggest problem, flying two carriers to BON, is that a delay in the scheduled departure on the first leg of the trip could create huge problems with the next leg of the trip. With options in and out of Bonaire so limited the classic conundrum is1) take the DCA commuter to and from CUR/BON and hope for the best,but prepare for the usual, (2) take the ferry, which is replete with its own problems,and is, atleast for the time being, out of service, or (3) Take the American flight from BON at 6:00am (which means leaving your accomodations around 3:00am) to San Juan. Wow, No clearly optimum choice among this lot. The best would seem to be the DCA option, if and only if they operate close to their schedule.
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By Sarah on Thursday, September 5, 2002 - 8:06 pm: |
Our route in December will be Dulles/MIA, MIA/CUR then CUR/BON with DCA or Divi Divi. We've booked seats on both flights to BON. Though our concern is with Divi Divi, we flew from BON to CUR with them about a year ago and had a few problems with our luggage (we always have 4 big bags). Anyway, we ended up paying for extra seats. But the service was excellent. I'm dreading this part of the trip, but at least we're flying home direct with KLM.... I'll give feedback upon our return in January.
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By Jake Richter - NetTech on Friday, September 6, 2002 - 5:07 pm: |
Recent DCA stories:
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By lonnie hoover on Saturday, September 7, 2002 - 12:02 pm: |
"Luck of the draw" or "Same ole crap shoot", any cliche you use to describe DCA, its still a gamble. It's curious, that inaccessibility is a prime ingredient in the mixture that makes
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By Ginny Stokes on Saturday, September 7, 2002 - 1:08 pm: |
Good point, Lonnie. If it were really easy to get there, it would be like many other island destinations ... too crowded!!
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By Lydia S. Segal on Sunday, September 8, 2002 - 9:03 pm: |
Hi everyone,
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By Cathy Meyer on Saturday, September 14, 2002 - 2:33 pm: |
Well, we're back, and as promised, here's my post of our "adventures" on DCA. Didn't check any luggage due to concerns over reclaiming it and still making our flights on time (since we aren't divers it wasn't too difficult). Flew from JFK to MIA to CUR on AA, then to BON on DCA. Our 4PM flight was delayed about 45 minutes to BON. Flight was totally full, plane was sitting on the tarmac with no air conditioning turned on. Really uncomfortable for 30 minutes waiting to take off. But we got there.
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By Lorraine Meadows on Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 12:00 pm: |
What's the story of the air Jamacia flights lately? I know Carol likes those flights, any recent returnee's via ny area?
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By Ana C on Sunday, September 15, 2002 - 2:51 pm: |
Lorraine,
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