I wanted to report here about our experience in Bonaire.

Three of us spent ten days in Bonaire and I really can't say enough about how fantastic it was. As a fairly new diver I found the easy access to so many beautiful sites very handy. My preference for sites tended to run towards the North, but at no point was I anything but thrilled when I was in the water.I highly recommend renting a car and trying different spots.

We dove out of Bon Bini Divers, whose rates were reasonable and whose service was excellent. (With the exception of one mildly unhelpful captain.)

Our stay was at Deep Blue View, bed and breakfast. It was a great place to stay for those of us who like a little peace and quiet between dives. They even brought out their telescope and took us on a tour of the Bonaire night sky. They we available to us for whatever we needed, even when we decided to try a dawn dive.

We were also pleased to find that while the food on the island was not exactly cheap, the prices were no worse than what we are used to in Boston. Our dining experience ranged from good to excellent with only a single complaint. The Mona Lisa restaurant HATES tourists. We waited for an hour an a half for our salads, while every Dutch customer around us was on desert by that time. I don't mind having a relaxing slow paced meal. But the service was poor, the prices the highest we had seen and the food was just okay (when it arrived at the 2 1/2 hour mark, no joke) To make this worse, we later found out that the only people Mona Lisa's staff disdain more than tourists, are the island's Antillians, who they won't even serve. Please avoid these racist ***holes.

While I am on the trips few negative points, I should state that ALM seems to have a practice or re-routing flights through Port Au Prince, which is famous for its dangerously lax security. As everyone says, if you can avoid ALM, please do. You are taking your life in your hands.

A final note; As beautiful as the island is and as stunning as the diving is, much of the Snorkeling was ruined by Huricane Lenny. People will tell you that the hurricane didn't hit Bonaire, but it's spin control. The shallow corals have mostly been smashed to rubble. If you are planning on snorkling, this is something to be aware of.

We had a fantasitic vacation and we will definitely be returning. We did 20 dives while we were there, many of them from different sites, and I feel as though we saw a hundreth of what the island has to offer. We can't wait to go back!

-Greg

My husband and I have been going to Bonaire for ten years. One of our favorite restaurants has always been Mona Lisa. The service may be slow depending upon the number of patrons, but I cannot believe that you were discrimated upon because you were tourists. I think that most of the customers are tourists (not unusually, a large portion of them may be Dutch). Hans, has been nothing but the most gracious of hosts and we look forward to our next visit to the Mona Lisa. Wish it were sooner than next February!! Carol Collins

Mona Lisa does not descriminate against tourists, locals, or anyone. Sometimes folks get the wrong impression and then blow stuff up a bit. As mentioned, the service is not speedy, but for Europeans, it is quite the norm. If the place did not want tourists and locals for patrons, they would not be in business long.

Mona Lisa does not descriminate against tourists, locals, or anyone. Sometimes folks get the wrong impression and then blow stuff up a bit. As mentioned, the service is not speedy, but for Europeans, it is quite the norm. If the place did not want tourists and locals for patrons, they would not be in business long.

And, I'll add that I think Hans' wife is Antillean (at least I always see him with an Antillean woman when he's dropping off a horde of children at the same school my daughter goes to). Would be a very odd situation to be discriminating based on that.

Jake

i think some folks from USA are so used to speedy service, they forget they are guests of a different country and lifestyle. i have not yet eaten at the mona lisa, but have watched at other food establishments, people who seem hurried or anxious or demanding seem to get slower service than the happy relaxed carefree ones.(just personal observation-& i am not saying that anyone from this site would be demanding) i know that in any establishment anywhere there are times that a customer is overlooked while others are waited on. of course this can be very irritating, but it does happen. i do not mind waiting, it is worth it to me to be on paradise. i love the no rush attitude.

I was a little ticked off on our last visit because of what I thought was the waiters ignoring us after the meal. We were waiting for the check and it never came. Little did I realize that they were waiting for me to ask for it and just thinking that I was relaxing after a good meal. I still have a lot to learn about "island time" and cannot wait for the next lesson.

Barry Baker

Correct! It is considered rude to hurry the guest by giving them the check before they ask. Making eye contact with the waitperson and making a scribbling motion with your hand works great.

I've found that you can also state up front when ordering that you are in a hurry - gotta do a night dive or make a movie time and they will speed up the service. Works good for feeding hungry kids too.

Barry and others,

Look at http://www.bonairerestaurants.com/DiningTips.html - especially the section dealing with "Getting Service and your Cheque" (I wrote this about 3 years ago - still holds true).

Jake

Jake, thanks for the info. I was fortunatley able to learn of these things on my own. It is quite a culture shock visiting Bonaire and trying to adjust to the way things are there. I really appreciated the fact that they were letting me determine when I wanted to leave once I discovered the error of my thinking. Like I said, cannot wait for another live lesson.

Our experience was similar to Bakers. We could not understand why our check was never brought, until the wonderful owner of Mi Poron explained it to us. We, too, appreciated being able to savor a cuppa java or wine at the end of our meal. Bring on those life lessons!

We are used to asking for our check, even in the U.S., when we are ready to pay and head out. Different establishments or waiters seem to handle that differntly. So, that was never a problem for us on Bonaire, and we found wait staff at every restaurant where we ate fairly - very attentive. The one exception was at Chibi Chibi, but I've been over that ground already. I think the thing that floored us about that one frustrating dining experience was how very quickly the wait staff at Chibi Chibi moved on their feet, but how they sped right past us several times, and then messed up our order 2x. Even when we told the busboy who seated us that we were ready to order, it was about 20 more minutes before our waiter came. That may have been a feature of "island time", but it seemed a bit schizophrenic when seeing the fast clip at which they all moved. I don't take this experience personally at all. Others looked like they were waiting awhile for things to happen, and I saw others leave looking a bit disgruntled, as well. Maybe it was just a bad night...

It seems when we have 1 bad experience, the temptation is to find a guilty party and to make our 1 experience a symptom of a larger problem (e.g. prejudice against tourists, Antilleans, or whomever), and sometimes to use rumors as evidence of that larger problem. Others may have axes to grind with an involved party, so corroborating one's own experience with just 1 other party and then making blanket accusations may be a bit tricky. Anyway, it's good to hear the feedback of other folks here who have personal experience with Mona Lisa.

I have a question. When the restaurant adds 15% to the check does the waitress get the whole 15%? I was told that they didn't, so I felt I had to tip even more to make sure that we took care of our waitress fairly.

It varies between restaurants but my understanding is that the tips are generally divided by all the service staff including busboys, bartenders, etc.

The tricky part is that each restaurant does their own thing with add on service charges - none, 8%, 10%, 12% and 15% are all ones I've seen here. So be sure to read your check carefully.

It's humorous to read how demnanding we as US citizens can be--- we are always in a hurry-- Especially those from the East coast(including myself)-- Maybe it's the lack of daylight we have to contend with 6 months a year--or always trying to stay warm-- as it is soooooooo damm cold out there--but that is really no excuse for the way some of us behave.
Working within the Food service industry on a daily basis--I deal with alot of Chefs and managers who like to hear both the good and the bad. If the critisim is dealt with in a professional manner than they will respond professionaly. But if the customer is out of control-- they will for the most part try and have them leave happy and hope that they never return.
Vacationing in Bonaire for many years my husband and I just learned this year ( in general conversation with an owner ) that when someone says they are all set-- it means to let the customer sit back and relax. If you want the check or another food related item you need to ask for it. We thought we were always being ignored.-----So we learned that we needed to ask for our check when we were done with our meals and not to say we are all set.

I disagree completely with you Greg when you say that the snorkeling was "ruined" by Hurricane Lenny. May be it is not nice as it was before Lenny but it is still very beautiful and very very interesting. You probably didn't spent a lot of time in some location like "Invisibles" or "Weber's Joy" (and more) to make this kind of comment. As a snorkeler I must tell you that Bonaire is the nicest place to do snorkeling (based on my experience in the Caribbean). Thanks.

I'm glad you piped up, Mitch. I was wondering if someone would do so.

The word "spin" might mean "putting something in a more positive light", not to be confused with some kind of lying. When you read that Bonaire didn't get hit by Hurricane Lenny, it's to say that the storm was hundreds of miles away. It was the waves created by it that travelled to the ABC islands and pummelled the shore in places that faced that direction. Not all places were affected. Some more than others.

After this happened, I took the attitude that Nature has its own cycles which exist apart from human expectations. I could moan and groan about what was destroyed or I could realize that the reef recovery process would also be interesting. People have described dives during which they hover near one critter or one habitat for an extended observation. The close-up view is rewarding, and rather hard to practice. The "spin" might be that snorkeling is alive and well. Just MHO, and my gratefulness that there is such a pleasant place to go on vacation. Can't wait to get there!

I'll pipe up, too.
I have snorkelled in Belize, on the Great Barrier Reef, on St. John, on Maui, off Baja, and Yucatan Peninsula, to name most of the fantastic locations I've been fortunate enough to experience, and BONAIRE is just about my FAVORITE place, and the one I most want to return to. The ease of getting to many different sites for snorkelling, the variety of marine life, the ease of possibly doing a resort course in scuba with any one of a number of places, and the variety of marine flora that is either still in tact or regenerating after the surge from Lenny, all make this island precious. Now, besides those great assets, the people, absence of tourist mob scene, good food, and mix of cultural influences keep Bonaire way way up there for me as a wonderful place to spend some significant amount of time in this life!

The weather effects on the Bonaire reefs go in cycles,
with the weather, of course. There have been at least
three damaging sessions on the west coast reefs since
1983: Lenny's run out waves, waves from a huricane up
near the Caymans a few years ago and a 50-year storm
back in 1983. Each time more damage was done to the
shallow reefs up.

I was on island just at the end of the 1983 storm:
Habitat's dock was gone (only had Baby Dock then)
(and the stories had it that Cap'n Don stood at the end
of the dock at the height of the storm, shaking his fist at
Poseidon and shouting 'You can't do this to me!!!'. Dock
was gone later. Don't fool with Father Ocean!!) and we
were trucked to the marina to dive. (Check out Stan
Waterman's film about the Moray Wheels Adaptive
Scuba Club to see the weather--five days of overcast,
showers and wind on Bonaire.) Much of the
standing coral on the reef top was gone. Don told of
hardly being able to get through the standing coral out
to the drop off when he came to the island in the '60's.
Must have been a long period without the waves.

As Niki says, nature has it's own cycles. And we are
fortunate to have Bonaire as it is. A quiet place for
watching fishes and their friends.

Although we didn't get a chance to eat at Mona Lisas last year we will make an effort this year so we can find out what all the fuss is all about. I'd be willing to bet that we're as pleased with their service as we were everywhere else on the island. We get a kick out of the differences that we experience in the places we visit. After all isn't that one of the big reasons that we all go to knew places? Oh, I did go into M.L. to use the john,they didn't make me wait and I saw no reef damage at all. But to be completely honest, I didn't snorkel there.