Various incongruent observations:

The Plaza Resort activities/towel hut is at the north end of the beach. At check-in we received two beach towel cards, which were exchanged for towels – easy system. There’s a $25 charge for beach towels if they’re not turned in, and be aware that this will appear on your bill until you return the towel cards to the front desk upon checking out. Same deal if your room has a mechanical safe and you want to use it: you’ll be issued a key at check-in, and a $100 charge will appear on your room bill until you return the key at check-out. The Plaza Resort’s Casino is still closed. We didn’t use the internet nook in the lobby, nor did we call home from the hotel as Mike’s cell phone works in the Netherlands Antilles.

Breakfast in the Caribbean Point restaurant is still good, with lots of choices. The fruit was outstanding, as were the eggs made to order. The breakfast staff is very pleasant… it’s nice to start the day with smiles. On past visits, there was a horde of iguanas waiting outside to see whether they could score anything left over from breakfast, but now there’s a “Please Don’t Feed the Iguanas” sign. It’s working, as we saw only one lonely iguana when leaving breakfast:



The Coconut Crash happy hour runs from 5 to 6pm daily and also from 9 to 10pm. On previous visits, this was a “2-for-1” happy hour, but now it’s a “half-price” happy hour. It was less crowded between 5 and 6pm than in the past, and very quiet in the later evening.

Toucan Diving was hopping – there were a couple of large groups as well as many “unattached” divers, like us.



There’s been quite a bit of turnover in personnel since our last visit, although a few of the long-time divemasters are still there. Toucan is a good dive operation – very efficient, with an easygoing, fun staff. They offer a “Toucan Dive for One” special a couple of times per year and Nitrox is free. There are two analyzing stations and a logbook for Nitrox tanks in a little room near the equipment desk. There are always air tanks for shore diving near the parking lot, near the pool and near the Tipsy Seagull. Just ask, and a staff member will truck your gear and nitrox tanks to the pool area or to the Tipsy. (They have both aluminum-80s and 63s for both air and nitrox.) A locker hut with a wetsuit hanging area is right at the dock, as are rinse tanks. Unfortunately, the gear lockers are small and when they’re busy, it’s necessary to share a locker with your dive buddy. Two sets of gear fit, but stay wet. There’s also not a lot of airflow around the wetsuits, so they stay damp. You do set up your own gear on the dive boats… we don’t mind, but some folks might. I noticed my gear bag got heavier and heavier during the week.


Our room had been renovated, as many have at the Plaza Resort. They are still renovating rooms at the south end of the resort. Our bathroom had a separate shower with a glass block wall, two large sinks in a granite countertop, a large bathtub and new floor tile.



The toilet was in a TINY room across the hall.



The bathroom looks good, but it’s difficult to keep water from the shower off the floor because the glass block wall is only on one side and doesn’t go to the ceiling. The floor tile is very slippery when wet. With the renovations, the only lights are small ceiling lights – and not quite enough of them. We felt the bathroom and the bedroom were a little dim. Having the toilet in a separate room across the hall is convenient; however, the door opens in, which makes for tight maneuvering. When you turn on the light for the toilet room, a fan goes on, too. Bugs (mostly mosquitoes) come in through the fan when it’s not running and one night we had a little lizard.

There was a main switch inside our door that controlled the electricity and air conditioning. The deal here is that you insert your room key card into the switch, which then turns everything on. When you leave the room, you take your key and everything turns off, thus conserving electricity. Good idea in theory, but some problems in application. It’s all too easy to walk out, close the door and leave your room key in the switch – locking yourself out. Forget about using the electric digital clock on the nightstand – either you’ll be setting it repeatedly or (like us) unplug the thing so we didn’t have to see the flashing 12:00. The air conditioning takes a while to cool the room after it’s been off during a day of diving. And along with the room renovation, there’s new bedding: a duvet, but no top sheet. So we found it necessary to drastically lower the temperature in the room at night so we wouldn’t roast. Kind of defeats the conservation purpose. We’d had rooms at the Plaza with ceiling fans before, but there was none in this renovated room. A top sheet and a ceiling fan, and we would have turned the A/C quite a bit warmer at night.

Most days housekeeping got to our room before 1pm, when we’d return from our morning dives. A couple of times the room wasn’t done until later in the afternoon, which was slightly inconvenient. It would be perfect if housekeeping was informed who was diving and who was “beaching.” That way, the divers’ rooms could be done first (since we’re out of the room and at the dive boats by roughly 8am) and the beach people could sleep in, if they wanted. Probably too difficult to figure out that kind of system, though.

This year there were sandwiches available at the Coconut Crash until 4pm, which was really the only lunch option at the Plaza that didn’t take forever. The toasted ham and cheese baguette was pretty good. We had one sit-down lunch at Banana Tree, which has good salads and burgers. We ate all lunches “on campus” this trip.

The Plaza’s Tuesday beach barbeque was okay, not great. There was plenty of dry chicken on sticks (with peanut sauce available), but no burgers and not a lot of ribs. The grilled fish (mahi-mahi, I believe) was the best of the bunch. There were side dishes: potato salad, cole slaw, cucumbers, tomatoes and rolls. Some kind of red punch was included, but we got drinks from the Coconut Crash. The beach barbecue was well-attended; I’m not sure it’s worth $15.00 per person, especially since the servers make it very clear that you can only go through the food line once. But an excellent steel drum band played on the beach, and it’s a good time to socialize with other divers.

We walked into town a few times during the week… the sidewalk all the way into Kralendijk is new since our last visit, and very nice.



I think I'll move on to Part Three now...

great photos . Really enjoyed them . We stay at the Plaza also