Hi all new to the board. Planning a trip in March for a week. Looking at Divi's site they do not provide a vehicle for shore dives and their tanks for shore dives are located on a pier is this correct? So if I stay at Divi I would have to get a rental truck from a separate entity and then drag the tanks down the pier to said vehicle to go diving? Where as Buddys has a package that includes a truck and they have a drive thru tank service? Please advise on the ease or lack there of of doing shore dives with Divi.

divi is a nice place to stay...i think i would rent a truck from someone and perhaps even get the diving package from someone else too...that way you get the nice location of the divi but can also do shore dives with a "drive thru" dive shop...

not sure if your package allows this?

well, good luck

William,
I have stayed at Buddy's 5 times and you can not beat the dive package and folks at the dive shop. Good house reef and over all place to stay. Many other good locations to stay on Bonaire, I just like Buddy's, for what it is worth.

I've stayed at Buddy's twice over the last two years and have been very happy with hotel facility and dive operation, both. They provide trucks with the room rental, making a trip into town for groceries or shore diving anywhere simple. Breakfast is provided with the room rental, they have comfortable rooms with air conditioning and kitchens, two restaurants on the property, a swim-up bar, clean, clear swimming pools, air and nitrox tanks oceanside 24/7 and also a drive-thru air station. The house reef is a colorful, beautiful dive and there are several dive boats on the property with excellent dive masters going out several times a day - just sign up on the chalkboard and show up on time in case you want to do more than shore diving. I've always been happy with the ease of diving, good food, and the professional, friendly staff at Buddy's.
I've never been to Divi, but I'd expect that to be good, too.

Divi does have a tank pick up area outside of the gate. When you stay there they give you a key to unlock the door for shore tanks... It is located inline with the south peir. There is a road that goes to a locked door.

(Message edited by ronindiana on December 31, 2007)

Thanks for the replies, the reason I was thinking about staying at Divi was some things I read on another post in the archives about Buddy's being pretty run down. Some were saying that there's an old part of Buddy's (Lions Den?) and some newer (3 story apartments?) and it was a crap shoot as far as which you got unless you know where the "good" rooms are and ask for them. However there were so many conflicting posts in that thread that I was'nt sure which was which. Do'nt get me wrong Im not looking for the Hyatt on a small dive island but these guys were reporting dead a/c's, broken furniture, rock hard beds (which is the one thing I really do'nt want cause the only thing the room is really for is sleeping after a ton of dives ). So can you guys recommend any section/room that is clean and in working order? Hell on one trip to Cozumel I stayed at the hotel Aguilar which was a 1 star at best the guy at the front desk kept trying to pimp girls to us, after the second night of that we would look around to see if he was in sight before trying to leave our room. But then its the quirky things that make a trip memorable.

Hi William,

Let me address some of the confusion regarding Buddy's.

The resort has two sections. At some point Buddy's acquired the Lion Dive resort. These are two story buildings and some have been remodeled while others have not. The newer section of the resort is comprised of two three story buildings. If I were making reservations, make a specific demand to stay in the three story buildings.

Would I stay at Buddy's again, absolutely! The house reef is fantastic, the dive operation is first rate and the breakfast is pretty good. Just stay away from the "crap shoot" on one side of the property.

The trucks that Buddy's rents are old, and really need to be replaced. That was the opinion of the staff. We had two of them die on us in one week.

According to Buddy's website a few weeks ago, they were supposed to have received a bunch of new vehicles just before Christmas, with more scheduled to arrive the first part of January. Just in time! 16 days and counting...

Ken, I can never remember the unit number that Buddy's gave it. 1202 is the Lion's Dive unit number. If you stand at the pool and look towards the water, it is the closest building to the water, top floor, on the right. It is a great unit. The only better one, from a view perspective I think, would be the one right next to us on the top floor.

Sorry, posted my to this thread versus the Buddy's versus Lion's Dive question.

Thanks Mel,

That is great news. The choices we had back in July were getting pretty long in the tooth.

We were there the week of Dec 8 and new trucks had arrived while we were there! They look nice too!

Of course we had a real OLD one but it ran and got us to the dive sites!

Regarding new trucks: When I rent a truck, I prefer the older ones. By the time we do the initial check out, I have a sheet with so many x's and check marks that any small scratch or dent I may incur would be covered by the check sheet. Nothing worse than a brand new pickup to worry about IMHO.

Well, hoping it's not too late to add a response here....

Just got back from Bonaire and a one-week "dive-and-drive" package deal at Buddy Dive. My 3rd year there at Buddy Dive. Was there from December 27th - January 3rd. I have gone back to Buddy dive because I really like the dive masters and have gotten to know the other staff members and the boat dive "program." The rooms I have had have been good, and I like the convenience of having the truck rental right there on premises. I also did my OW and AOW certification courses there the past two Decembers, and think they have an excellent house reef (this year with a sea horse in 43' just off the dock).

I have to admit that I did some lobbying ahead of time for an ocean-view room in either Building 3 or 4 (you can go on their website and look at the resort layout if you want to see where those buildings are). They obliged, and gave us room 405 -- first floor corner room in Building 4. Excellent room! Everything worked, including the AC, and was cleaned promptly and thoroughly every day. It was in the "one bedroom hotel room" category. Had a nice big refrigerator, microwave, kitchenette with gas range and stocked with dishes and utensils -- nice TV (which was never turned on) and even a dishwasher (which we didn't use -- washed the few dirty dishes we had daily by hand). Could walk right out the door and be at the pool and restaurant/bar in 15 steps. The truck we got was a new Chevy Colorado, which was actually on loan to them from Bel Mar. Great vehicle! However, I do understand the logic of getting an old dinged up truck where they would find it impossible to locate any "new" dings! So -- as far as room and vehicle were concerned, we were most pleased!

On the downside, the bed (two twin mattresses piled on a king/double frame and box spring) was really hard. Bothered my partner Carol more than me. We also found the food at their bar/restaurant to be mediocre, at best. We ate there for lunch only out of convenience. Never for dinner. But the most difficult to fathom part of the stay was the fact that they had 3 large groups hit the resort on the 29th or so, and they took their 2 or 3 largest dive boats out of commission to serve those large groups. The rest of us were left with the small dive boats and limited availability and room on them. While I got my 6 boat dives in, barely, there were a number of people who could not utilize their dive boat allocation because there simply were not enough spots on the couple of small boats available, and because the large groups were tying up the other boats, they were only booking one boat for the two morning dives and one for the afternoon dive. If you were not in line when they erased the chalk board for signing up for the next day's dive boats, you were out of luck! Complicating matters was the fact that NO dive boats went out on the morning of January 1st (so the staff could "sleep in"), and only one in the afternoon. What I do not know is if those who could not get their boat dive package dives in were able to recoup a refund.

The final aggravation is that those of us NOT in the large groups saw that there were so many "no shows" from those groups on the large boats that were held aside for them. Many trips that the Harbour Lady took with one of these groups, which I believe is their largest boat, had no more 4, 5, 6, or 7 divers on them -- which means that they were less than 1/2 full while the rest of us were standing there unable to get on a boat for that day!

So, I would really reconsider going back to Buddy Dive under similar circumstances. The dive masters were, once again, great. They worked really hard to see that our dives were good ones. Murphy, Scott, and Carlos, in particular, were excellent. The other staff members, including the front office ladies, work hard to please The room and vehicle were tops, so no complaints there. I realize that no place is perfect. In spite of whatever drawbacks we encountered, the week was excellent and I have already developed a bad case of PBD.

Hope this helps.

Steve

U just
booked the red eye thru Houston with Continental for 3-8-08 for a week. Gonna stay at Dive Buddy the one stop shopping is too hard to resist. Seems the apartments are the ones to be careful of as far as quality. The hotel rooms are getting better reviews? Thanks for all the replies and maybe I'll see some of you on Bonaire


(Message edited by Im2bent on January 9, 2008)

Steve, what did you mean by "Lobbying for a good room"? Give me a hint, as I want a good room march 5-17!! Thanks.

Well after all the debating and research I made my decision a day late Buddy has nothing available for March 8. The 9th and later is open but Im arriving the 8th.So I tried Belmar....same thing. Carib Inn .....full. Sand Dollar had rooms so I jumped on it. Funny thing is a two bedroom with them for 2 divers is cheaper than a 1 bedroom at BD and they also offer Nitrox same as air. This being my first time to Bonaire I'll take a look around for next time in case Bon is better than Cozumel.

Deborah --

I just sent a few e-mails to the reservations ladies, starting about 6 months ago, just telling them -- gently and in the context of a message sent for another reason -- how much I would REALLY appreciate having an ocean view room (as I did not get one last year), in either Buildings 3 or 4 -- which I knew to have nice rooms. If they could swing it, etc. Every time they would respond with "...we'll try, but cannot guarantee...", etc. So, I was pleased as punch to have gotten a room in Building 4 on the ocean view side. Don't know if that would have worked out otherwise, so I really thanked them when I was there. That was all!