We spent a wonderful few weeks on Bonaire in April 07 and found this forum an invaluable source of advice and help in the planning of the trip. We wrote this review soon after we returned and are finally getting around to posting it now. Hopefully better late than never!
Flying: We flew from London to Amsterdam then onto Bonaire with KLM. It was a very smooth trip.
Staying: For various reasons (long story!) we ended up staying at three different locations, Carib Inn, Deep Blue View and Black Durgon Inn (we’ve put reports into trip advisor). We loved them all, they were all excellent in different ways and we would have no hesitation in staying at any of them again. If we really had to pick though, we would probably stay at a combination of Deep Blue View for a week and Durgon’s for another week to have a seafront location. These places are very different but we couldn’t say enough about both. We loved DBV’s hospitality and the quality of the overall experience including boat dives. We loved Durgon’s common outdoor covered area right beside the sea and the house reefs provided excellent diving right off the pier. The rooms are basic but comfortable. If you wanted boat dives, Carib Inn would be a better option for a seafront location.
Eating: Staying so long we were grateful for the self catering facilities at Carib (our own kitchen) and Durgons (shared kitchen/outdoor area). DBV also offered a guest fridge and facilities for simple catering and take-aways and the bonus was a "magic table" that all dirty dishes disappeared from. We did most of our grocery shopping at Cultimara (in town) and Warehouse (on the road down from Divi casino), as well as the fruit stall near the town pier. We got take-away from La Plazita Limena (near the tourist office) and Surinam Bar (at far the end of the road that Warehouse is on).
We ate at a number of other places and overall would go for local eating experiences any day (might be out of date now since these were from a year ago):
- Chibi Chibi: uninspiring and too expensive for what it was though an excellent location right on the water
- Mambo Jambo: Ok but who serves a teriyaki sauce with cream in it!!!
- Run Rummers at Captain Don’s: we enjoyed a couple of chicken burgers/sandwiches here with interesting salsas etc.
- Den Lahmann restaurant: great location right on the seafront and we enjoyed the meals we had here though it was on the expensive side.
- Cactus Blue: surprised by how much we liked this. The seared tuna sashimi was excellent.
- La Plazita Limena: a little Peruvian restaurant just past the tourist office, served excellent simple meals. The salad that came with the meals is an indicator of the quality – fresh crispy lettuce, avocado, grated carrot, capsicum, tomato. We ate here one night and had take away another night (26 NAF for a whole flame grilled chicken, salad and chips)
- Il Fogon Latino: a great local Columbian restaurant (turn right at the crossroads after Warehouse) with excellent value fish etc and a good garlic sauce
- China Nobu: past Warehouse, for simple but tasty Chinese and local dishes – we enjoyed the goat stew here. Great value.
- Surinam Bar: at the very end of the road past Warehouse – excellent Chinese/Indonesian and local dishes. We ate here one night and had take away another. Great value.
- Rose Inn: at Rincon, a real local restaurant that we’d highly recommend for local stews and soups and fish meals. It opens 11-4, closed Wed.
- Maike Snack: on the road from Kralendick to Lac Cai. Another real local experience. The fish was a little dry but the goat soup and goat stew were both excellent. Only opened for lunch, closed Thurs.
Diving: One of us did an open water certificate at DBV and couldn’t fault the personalised training. Esther was excellent. We also saw people doing a dive course at Durgons and were impressed with the attention they received as well.
I mostly did boat dives in the beginning until my partner got his certification. The advantage of the boat dives is getting to locations that aren’t so easy otherwise, eg over on Klein or doing drift dives. It was also good having a local dive master who could point things out to you. We saw sea horses, frog fish, scorpion fish among a host of other things that I otherwise would have missed.
For the last week (post certification) we did shore dives and loved the flexibility of being able to go when and where we chose. Even though I was certified, we were both beginner divers really but the diving was easy and all the sites amazing! We especially loved Rappel and Karpeta.
We used 3 mm suits but I found I was getting a bit cold towards the end of the dive and especially at the end of a second boat dive. Bottom temp was 26C. Next time I would probably get a hood. We used full foot fins for boat dives but boots and strap fins were essential for shore dives.
Getting around: We hired the car through AB and we have no complaints about them. We had no trouble with anything going missing. We were advised to leave the windows down and the car unlocked, obviously without valuables inside. We would leave our t-shirts and shorts/sarong on the seats while we went diving. We saw lots of other people doing the same thing and it seems like a good strategy to advertise what is there when it’s not that valuable and so remove temptation.
Misc: We found the local people to be incredibly friendly. The diver ear drops from the Botica pharmacy in town were an ear-saver. We found the Carib Inn dive shop to have a good range of kit and bought a lot of gear from them as we didn’t have much to begin with. We also went to Bonaire Dive and Adventure for other kit and found them very helpful. We did an early morning mangrove kayak trip with Outdoor Bonaire and had a brilliant time with just us and Hans.
Overall we loved Bonaire. It was much more laid back and low key and undeveloped than we had expected. We’ve been spoilt by the diving and, like so many other return visitors we met, we’ve already planned our next trip back.
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By Geraldine Fitzpatrick (New BonaireTalk Poster - Post #1) on Monday, May 26, 2008 - 11:38 am: 
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