Do cruise ships come to Bonaire? When we went to the Caymans, you knew when not to go to town by how many cruise ships were anchored off shore.

Yes, we have cruise ships, mostly during the winter high season. No more than two can anchor here at a time. We rarely have more than one. I guess we get three or four cruise ships per week. Makes driving a bit tough for us locals, but shouldn't bother you much.
We are NOT Grand Cayman!!
More like Cayman Brac.

Bye the way. QM2 is in Long Beach (LA) Harbor for a few days. She is not tied up near The Queen Mary so shots of them by each other are not possible. One beautiful dowager and one ugly pod ship.

Linnea, howdy! See this Michael said he could see her from the CG station yesterday and took the camera today...we will see!

There are only 8 ships (total) coming between Feb 27 & March 31.

Thanks, Ruth! Definitely not Grand Cayman!

Thanks Ruth...3 or 4 a week had me a bit worried...8 means an average of 2 a week...definitely more palitable. When we went to St. Maarten, there were 4 or 5 a DAY in Phillipsburg...now THAT was a bit much. We only went into town twice because it was a zoo during the day when the ships were in port. We would watch them leave every evening from our balcony...

We were there the first of Feb. and 1 day we had 2 boats in. We were staying at the divi and we could not find a chair to sit on. They rent them out to the cruise people. I noticed that day the plaza was packed. Other than that, we didn't notice anything different.

When we dove in Grand Cayman, there were sometimes 4 cruise ships docked at one time, the locals told us when there are more than one, don't go to town. When we saw pictures of cruise ships in the Trip reports I was surprised because I didn't think there much for cruise shippers to do. It sounds like it's not much of an impact on Bonaire, especially in April.

Right, especially in April.

How does one obtain the ship list so we know when the boats will be in? I've been twice now to Bonaire and don't remember seeing a cruise ship at all. I do have pictures of what looked like to be a Barefoot Cruiser (3-staff mast etc), but no cruisers. It might be fun to see such a big boat bellied up to a Bonaire dock.

Ruth, where did you find this info? Is it a source only for Bonaire businesses such as yours, or can others access it?
Jeanine, maybe try info.bonaire.com
The Bonaire Reporter posts this week by week.

http://www.infobonaire.com/cruises.html

Remember not to really "count" Freewinds as a cruise ship, as it is really a Scientology cruise for scientologists who rarely seem to disembark, except to run (you know, the "exercise cures all" approach). I think of it as their version of Bible Camp.

I have the tourism board fax me a list of ships at the beginning of the season (Nov) so I can be prepared (have English speaking cashiers if possible, etc.).

Ruth, do a lot of them eat at KFC when they dock? I'm just curious because the topic has come up on the board before in regard to how much money the tourist bring to the island (which has been said not much) in that they don't buy much when they are there.