Hi,

We are coming this Monday 5/17/04 and departing on 5/24/04 and were expecting to stay at Kristin's Beach Villas 10C but there is no response to emails sent lately, cell phone appears to be not available when I call, and she never called us to recieve our credit card info at the beginning of April but all emails were very friendly up until then and I assumed all was well. You know what they say about assuming. Does anyone have any information about what may be going on at Kristin's??? I am now frantically trying to find an affordable place since I am leaving this thursday for a visit elsewhere on the way to Bonaire. Any information would be very much appreciated!!!!!!! Thanks a bunch.

Kathleen,

We had a friend who knows Kristin try to contact her, and phones appear to be disconnected and out of service, and an older alternate e-mail address appears to no longer be valid.

Draw your own conclusions from that.

Alternatively lodging options can be found at http://www.bonairelodging.com and on the Accommodations pages of InfoBonaire (use the pull down menu to select Budget or Superior).

Jake

If you let the BTers know how many people/bedrooms info, they may be able to give you some good ideas where to try first.

For a nice affordable place, try Bonaire Town Homes. They have a one-bedroom unit and a two-bedroom unit. We've stayed in both and loved them both. Don't know their availability, but they'll accommodate you if they can, and they are very affordable, as well as being lovely people, with clean, comfortable, fully equipped units.

Website is: www.bonairetownhomes.com, and you can link to their email from there.

Kristin,

Try Traveller's Inn at www.travellersinn.com nice studio apartments in Hato, VERY reasonable. Jesse is great, he will help you out.

Thanks.
Liz

Kathleen,
Hopefully you made out okay at Kristins. I have sent repeated E mails since end of March concerning a mix up in billing and received no response. Please post your experience, and hopefully you had a good one. Diane

We've had some people try to contact them on island when Kathleen posted her first message. All the phone numbers have been disconnected. Since then someone told me they saw the property listed for sale on one of the Bonaire realtors' web sites.

Linda,
The real estate listing may be old or new, as I also pulled it up awhile ago and it was still on the site after Dan and Kristin bought the place. Hub at Bonaire Beach Villa may be a good source of info as he is next door and previously managed the property. He can also be hard to get hold of via Email based on my past experience. Diane

Kathleen,
Whatever happened when you went to Bonaire? I see Bonaire Beach Villas next door to Kristin's is also for sale. Where did you stay, did everything work out for the best? Diane

Hi,

My husband and I want to THANK Diane, Jake, Linda, Josie and Liz for responding so quickly for our urgent request to find out what was going on at Kristin's. Sorry, it has taken so long to report on our trip. We stopped trying to get in touch with Kristin after hearing back from you all within 24 hours-I was impressed with your thoughtfulness. We were able to get in at Diver's Paradise and found it to be very nice. We had a second story apartment with a good view of the ocean, and Klein Bonaire and nice breezes at night. We saw flocks of parrots daily and had peace and quiet-the little bit of time we were in our room. We believe in saving energy so the programmed air-conditioned in the bedroom was interesting. The bathroom and bedroom door had to be closed securely for the a/c to work and if no one was in the room for 15 minutes the a/c would cut off-somehow based on recognizing body heat. Of course having a/c throughout would have been preferable but I recall alot of lodging options had a/c only in the bedroom.

Of course, the highlight of the trip was snorkeling twice a day. We saw two octopus this trip (which we had never seen before) a school of squid and five turtles so that was really neat. It seemed every spot we went to we found at least one if not more new fish or plant life not seen previously. We only saw two eels, which is fine by me. When we were here in 2000 or 2001 there were so many eels it was annoying and scary. Anybody know what happened to the population of eels? We enjoyed all the snorkeling spots north of Diver's Paradise, Klein Bonaire, Lac Bay Reef (sorobon side) and the Washington Slagbaai National Park. The roads at the park are to say at least-NOT desirable. We enjoyed the adventure and the snorkeling there. Lac Bay Reef took a little extra walking but was worth it, and different from the other side of the island. The turtles we saw there were not scared at all and I floated within 2 feet of one of them. My husband enjoyed Lac Bay Reef the best, I think I enjoyed Karpata and Turtle something at Klein Bonaire the most. We tried to snorkel the mangrove at Lac Bay but found signs prohibiting it and found a lot of junk floating on top. Have you all tried snorkeling there?

We rented a jeep from Island Car Rental since it was about $100.00 less than other quotes we got BUT being a safety professional I was not happy to find that there was no seat belt holders-so here it was 10:00 pm-we were tired no seat belt holder-no inner light working to read the map and Island Car Rental employees seemed to think it odd I wanted a jeep with a seat belt that functioned and indicated they didn't have a bulb for the inner light. (I wonder why the jeep manufacturer has a large warning label on the soft top). Oh well, we survived but I was not pleased. The jeep ran rough and the fumes were terrible.
On our first trip to Bonaire we had our gas stolen, saw divers personal belongings get stolen on shore while we were out on a boat, met people who had their tires stolen while diving and watched someone search our jeep while we were snorkeling. So what a relief this trip to see no thefts against us or anyone we met BUT we were mentally prepared this time for the possibility.

We love your island-what a blessing to be able to retreat to the ocean world!!!

Thanks again

Kathy and Mike

Kathy,
Glad you had a good vacation and Diver's Paradise worked out well. I see from the web site that Bonaire Beach Villas is also for sale (next to Kristin), so we will be considering other options if we come back next year. Diane

I am glad that you found a place in time and had such a nice trip! Thanks for sharing.