Hey everyone we are just back from our first (certainly not the last!) trip to Bonaire!!!
We had many troubles getting there but they were well worth the effort!
Delta is a horrible airline to fly to Bonaire from BWI with!!!
Anyway, we stayed at Den Laman where Monique was fabulous, when we arrived our room air conditioner didn't work and she upgraded us to a 2 bedrm condo, very nice!
Diving, (since our first trip,we had nothing but dive magazines to go from) was great but the north had a lot of damage to the hard corals.
We did see quite a few juvenile turtles and small fish but no BIG fish to speak of except the 4 Big Tarpons on Hilma Hooker!
We didn't see any dead eels and were happy for that as it's sad when these creatures die and no one can figure out why. Hopefully Bonaire Dive & Adventure will get the mystery solved.
The people of Bonaire were so warm and friendly.
We hope to be back soon!!!
Any idea as to where to book a villa/condo for 2 weeks?

Scubachickemt..Glad you had a great trip! Getting to Bonaire has always been a problem and usually an adventure in itself. However like many others , we've always found the end result was worth it.
For a variety of accommodations to chose from, check out the info bonaire site.
http://www.infobonaire.com/hotels.html

Planning your next trip is a sure fire way to alleviate symptoms on PBD!

Thanks for the advice! I already miss the sound of the ocean and the warmth of the sun!!!

Why not just stay at Den Laman for two weeks?? We stayed there for 2 weeks this past summer and have another 2 weeks scheduled for next summer as well.

We are thinking we would like to be in a water front house as it would be more private and quiet.

What was the issue with Delta? Somebody can tell a travel horror story for EVERY airline that flies to Bonaire, but Delta has been more reliable than most. I'd like to hear your story.

Hey Scubachickemt. Tell me about your Delta experience. I'm planning a trip in the spring and I hate the 6 hour layover in San Juan. I sure miss Air Jam.

Our Delta trip disaster started on Oct 25 at 5 AM at BWI where we were told our flight crew was 38 mins late and we would miss our connection in Atlanta. We don't have any flights today, Sun, Mon but we can fly you there next Saturday!!!
I asked if they could fly us to another island close to Bonaire say Aruba and we could take a commuter flight and they said NO and by the way your ticket was actually issued by Air Jamaica not Delta so you have to go to the AJ desk for help with this. All the way to the other end of the terminal!!!
We went and were told Delta dropped the ball as AJ doesn't even fly to Bonaire anymore and the ticket was sold to Delta. Can you believe this stuff???
Anyway, the AJ supervisor was actually really nice and got us booked on a later flight with Continental thru Newark. So we went home for a few hours and returned to Continental for our 5:50 flight and were told...Sorry your flight has been cancelled!!! They put us on a train from BWI airport to Newark and we made it in time to catch the red eye at 11:55 pm only to sit on the ground for an hour before take off. Hey, we were at least on a plane!!!!
We arrived in Bonaire at about 5:30 am and made out way to the car rental then on to Den Lamam.

On our trip home Nov 1 as we went to check in the Delta girl told us we don't have a seat for you as you were a NO SHOW last week for the flight!!! I said Delta didn't come here last week as we had to fly Continental. After 45 mins and 5 women they found us two seats home but we originally had row 15 C & D aisle seats and now we were in middle and window seats 4 rows apart!!!

Soooo, there is my Delta disaster story! We lost a day and night in Bonaire much to our dismay but once there had a wonderful time!

have you checked into Eden Beach resort. We stayed there last Feb and going again this coming Jan. They have 2 bedroom condos or hotel type rooms. We really like the beach (albeit small) and the close proximity to the bar. Also the guys at wannadive were very good, helpful..

What a nightmare. We flew Delta in April, but because we were worried about connections, we spent a little extra money and spent the night in Atlanta. It worked out well, and the extra money was well spent for the alleviation of stress.

Sorry it happened-traveling really is a hassle these days.

Thanks Mary! I think it would be a great idea to stay in Atlanta next trip!
You are so right, travel is a hassle these days!

WOW...now THAT'S a flight nightmare story. You win the prize for the worst I think I've ever heard on BT...glad you were able forget about it and enjoy your trip, that's the glass half full

(Message edited by cyndelee on November 4, 2008)

when we flew last february we were scheduled to take a 630AM AA flight from cleveland to chicago to san juan to bonaire. AA called the evening before to tell us they cancelled our flight due to the snowstorm in chicago but they would put us on a later flight to JFK and we could then get a flight to SJU but we'd miss the SJU/BON flight so we'd have to spend wednesday night in san juan (at our expense since it was a weather delay) and fly to BON thursday night. oh well, final destination was BON so it's worth it.

we were at CLE late morning. by late afternoon they cancelled that flight and told us to be back thursday morning and they'd get us on a CLE-DFW-SJU-BON flight.

back home...turn the furnace and HW tank back up. up early thursday morning and back to CLE. we actually boarded the plane at 620AM. all set to go. as they close the cabin door we hear "uh oh...oh darn" or something like that. "ladies and gentlemen, our door is broke. you'll have to get off the plane while we fix it". since we only had a 45 minute layover in dallas we knew we'd miss our connection.

to AA's credit they tried everything to get us to bonaire thursday...even trying to get us first class seats on any other airline. no luck.

we ended up on continental flying to boston then back on AA to san juan and spending the night (this time AA's expense). we toured old san juan on friday and finally arrived on bonaire friday night, 48 hours late.

still, since we were going to be there for an extended time the delay wasn't too bad. i classified it as "the trip from heck". not bad enough for a trip from hell, but not all that smooth either.

the flight home at tne end of our trip was uneventful.

as vince said, it's not an easy place to get to but definitely worth it once you arrive.

For those of us flying out of BWI and using Delta to Bonaire it does present challenges.

This past July we took a 6 AM flight to Atlanta to connect with the 10 AM flight. No problems.

Return was a different story. We new it was going to be a tight turn around in Atlanta to BWI. As such we booked their last flight to Baltimore from Altanta.

OK, the plane was 45 minutes late getting to Bonaire, not good. They made up the time in flight to Atlanta. Good. Lost it by sitting on the taxi way as the cleared our gate. Bad. We got to the gate and there still was equipment at our teminal. Waited longer. Finally get in. Waited 55 minutes for our luggage. Bad. Went through customs, immigration, security then to re-check our luggage.

Now our connecting plane was going to be leaving in 5 minutes, which really mean it should be on the taxi way. We did the old O.J. Simpson dash through four terminal in bare feet (never put on my shoes after security. Get to gate A6 and find out the moved to gate A22 which we pasted. We made the flight just barely. Found out later the original plane that we were going to fly back to BWI had a "mechanical" and they used another plane. Otherwise we wouldn't have made the original flight. This is the first time a "mechanical" was i our favor.

If that's not bad I'll tell the sorry of how Delta lost all of our luggage on our trip to Greece and we hadn't even left the airport!!!!

I wish AJ would fly out of BWI, they always held there connecting planes and I never had any problem with them.

Pat, I remember all the trouble you had getting to Bonaire on your last trip. Quite the adventure you and Mary had! I kept thinking that scenario would happen to us, but our trip in May on Delta was fairly flawless.

Amazing how many people have "flightmare" stories getting to Bonaire!
Hopefully in the future it will get easier for all of us!
Thanks for the sympathy!

Scubachickemt..Believe it or not, it has gotten much much easier! For many of us now, there are direct flights & more coming on all the time (newest is Delta out of Kennedy @ NY starting in Dec).

Our first trip to Bonaire was in 1985 & for many many years it was always a 3 stop trip. Then when AJ came on it was merely a 2 stop trip. Now we have non stop. So from my personal perspective, the air travel is actually getting better & I suspect will continue to do so.

Hi Vince,
Well I'm very happy to know it has gotten easier!
This was our first trip to Bonaire so nothing to compare it to!