We had our whole trip cancelled at the last minute by Air Jamaica. I called to confirm the day before and all was well,just to get to the airport RDU at 5AM and find out Montego Bay To Bonaire cancelled for several days.My wife and I had planed this for months. The disappointment was devastating.

Hi James, I do not know whether this is any comfort for the time being.
AJ still flies Montego Bay via Kingston to Curacao - If you make it to Curacao your chances are good to make it to Bonaire. AJ promised that they will maintain this connection for as long as AJ is undergoing reorganization - Please check with your travel agent to see if you can reroute your flight Montego Bay through Kingston to Curacao. This flight goes back the same route.
Good luck. There maybe a difference in price for the route and adding to that will be your trip to Bonaire from Curacao - you can use BE or Divi. It is a long and exhaustive route but it may get you to Bonaire.

James,

Any chance AA will honor your tickets?

-David

JM has been re booking clients on other carriers..all of my clients and myself..The Tate incident is VERY odd. Just make sure if you have an e ticket you know where it was issued, price paid, fare basis and ticket number.

This is the first instance I've seen of Saturday flights being canceled, and now I'm very concerned. We have an AJ Saturday flight towards the end of July. Is there anything I can do at this point?

James, I cannot believe there were no other options offered or sought by you to reach your destination. While I sympathize with your horrible experience, I think you gave up way too easily. If your mother was dying in Bonaire you would have gotten there. Since you have started four threads on the same subject on the board, you have opened up a bag of questions.

AJ offered no alternative, and you did'n't ask?

There was no other way to get to Bonaire or Curacao or Aruba?

Did you take names or everyone you talked to and did you also talk to the highest ranking supervisor AJ had in the airport?

Did you try to get yourself on an American flight?

Did you try ANY other airline to CUR or ARA

Did you contact Travel Guard from the airport?

Did you give up too easily for some bizzare reason? Do you feel you don't deserve a vacation?

Frankly, it sounds like you are not built for adventure travel, and more easily gotten to destinations are better suited for you than a trip to Bonaire. I hope, in addition to posting all over BT, you are spending some energy on rattling AJ's chain.

Be sure and take precautions against crime in Grand Cayman, it has been on the rise.

Good luck to you.

Pursuant to point 4 on Williams list, we've been to Bonaire 5 times on American and have never had a problem.

I typed and retyped a response to Mr Tweed .. but maybe I should be more general;

Why is it that some so often react to negative experience postings with skepticism, pshyco ananlysis of the poster, and insults? I prefer the friendly supportive educational culture I see much more often on BT.

James, I hope that further rattling of Sand Dollar's chain results in a refund.

Denise, I concur regarding William Tweed's post, for what it's worth.

The "you are not built for adventure travel" slam was way out of line.

I travel to and from Bonaire more than ANY of you (well over a dozen round trips in the last 6 months alone), and I truly don't want to see my travels from and to Bonaire become an adventure.

When something does go wrong, I have the benefit of frequent flyer status and frequent flying experience (as well as a wife who use to be a travel agent and knows what airlines can and should do) to assist me in coming up with an acceptable travel alternative, but most people don't have that, and simply don't know what their options are - just assuming that what the agent on the other end of the phone line says is the only possibility. Empowering travelers comes with positive support through places like BT, friends, and nice airline employees. And not from being denigrated because one didn't do what someone else thought they would have done in the same situation.

James - good luck with Sand Dollar and your future travels to wherever. I hope my relatives coming down on AJ next Saturday aren't beset by similar woes, but if they are, I have suggested what alternatives they might have in getting down here to Bonaire to see us.

Jake

(Message edited by jake on June 5, 2005)

Jake: I always fly American to Bonaire. I have plenty of frequent flyer points but it seems like I can never use them because the Advantage seats are never open on the dates I want to fly. You state that you have the benefit of frequent flyer status and that your wife used to be a travel agent - is there something you or your wife may know about how the frequent flyer system works that I may not know and may help me to be more successful at getting the frequent flyer seats on the dates I want to fly? Thanks in advance for any input.

For those of you who think " I would leave my Dying mother in Bonaire" Please read my Follow up post under trip reports. These tickets were bought in march from Delta and were mailed to me they were not E-tickets.The delta Agent could get me to Aruba using american air but could not from there to Bonaire I guess if my mother was dying I could charter a helicopter from Aruba, but since I have no knowledge of the are I bow to your expertise

What an extremely unfortunate circumstance. I am traveling to Bonaire on Wed and am getting concerned. Can anyone post the phone number/Website for Bonaire Excel or Divi airlines?

Thanks

James, Best wishes to you and your wife on future trips.

John, Check out:
http://www.infobonaire.com/airlineinfo.html
The information you seek is there. I believe it is up to date. Best of luck.

Thank you, Tom. I have printed off some numbers just in case.

I really feel for this poor gentleman. I know how much I look forward to my vacations and would really be bummed if everything was shot at the last minute.

I've decided if I get put in a similar situation, though, that I'll take my chances and fly to Aruba. As Jimmy Buffett once sang, " I gotta fly to 'St. SomeWhere' ." That's about how I feel right now.

John, according to AJ's web site their Wed. flight is still going. I talked to them (AJ) earlier, and the person was nice and explained some flights were cancelled recently due to open seats on the flight. We are flying with AJ this Sat. the 11th, and it looks like there is only 5 first class seats left on the way down, and roughly 12 seats open on the way home to Chicago. Hope all goes well with you.

Divi - Divi Air; Hato Int l Airport.................888-1050
....................................888-1755
Divi Divi Air N V; Brakkeput Ariba nr.7................563-1913 (personal connection)

Hope this helps a bit. -
I am trying to find the info which will give the BT fan direct access to some phone numbers - which may be of importance to you .

The worst thing that we can do with a bulletin board of this type is to react in a negative way when users give us a candid report of their negative experiences. James's experience was heartbreaking, and his misfortunes should be posted prominently and reacted to with sympathy. Truth to tell, it is getting harder to get to Bonaire, and unless we and the resorts (who will suffer greatly unless this situation is resolved) stand together to get some decent air service to this island, our dream of returning to Bonaire will remain just that--a dream.

OK, here is the essence of a letter I wrote to AJ on May 4th regarding our return from Bon on April 28th (this year) and to date NOT one peep from AJ. I doubt that they care. I had better response from DCA (Don't Count on it Airlines?? <grin>)and well, most of us know about them.


Upon departing Bonaire we were informed by other passengers that the flight would now be stopping in Curacao to both deplane and board passengers. Our tickets were purchased months ago with the understanding that we would have approx. 50 minutes to board from flight 67 to flight 59 in Montego Bay.
Since we made the stop in Curacao, which we were told would only take a short time, but in fact took 45 minutes; we missed our connection to flight 59 which was supposed to put us in Atlanta with a connection to Cincinnati (our destination) . When we arrived in Montego Bay we were informed that we had already been booked on AJ flight 45 which was already delayed on its destination to Philadelphia Pa. USA. And a subsequent connection from Phil. To Cincinnati on Delta flight 5175 which would not be departing until the following morning. . The reservationist at the desk stated that we would be receiving accommodations as well as a meal. When we arrived in Phil., it was 11:45 PM and an Air Jamaica representative who informed us that we would not be accommodated because there were no hotels available because of a popular sporting event in town. We then had to clear customs but when we attempted to go to the terminal for Delta we were told that it was closed and we couldn’t check our bags until 4:30 AM. We had no place to go nothing to eat and had to go back through Security which resulted in the confiscation of tools (used to repair SCUBA equipment) that were in my luggage probably about $50 value. We then were told by security that we could not stay in the terminal overnight however since there were about 15 of us they condescend to allow us to lay on the seats in the departure area providing us with a little pillow, a small half bottle of water and a thin foil-like blanket. The only comment that we received from your representative was that it was unfortunate and that she was sorry. End result was a long miserable overnight wait in the departure area.

So much for AJ and their customer relations.

David - that is horrible, there is no excuse for what they did to you. It sounds like you would have been better off staying in MoBay for the night.

Given AJ's financial problems and my expecations of no answer or compenstaion, I didn't even bother to write them a note on my horrible journey home in Feb05.

Just found out that my Sunday Air Jamaica flight out of Baltimore has been replace with the AA San Juan, Puerto Rico flight. I will refer to the thread on what to do San Juan during a 6 hour layover.

CORRECTION - The Sunday flight from Bonaire to MoBay has been replaced with the AA flight!

Sorry about that.

Find a telephone number in:
Bonaire: http://www.bonaire.ws to the left of the page you will see Yellow pages - Scroll down to the end of yellow pages where it starts with the Alphabet listing e.g. aaa - click on the letters of the name you are looking for and the names and numbers will appear automatically for that alphabet letter.

Curacao: http://www.whitepages.an to the left of the page enter a keyword to find a listing - at name use the surname (last name)

These two are a replica of both phone books there may be a deviation here and there because as we advance the systems change - and the books are released once a year.

Hope this makes you feel a bit closer to home

Please see my post 6/4 final follow up, it will explain my airline screw up. Mary at sanddollar made things right for us getting a refund for our trip. I would stand by them and stay there just because of Mary.

I'm feeling very fortunate. Just got home a few hours ago. Left from BWI on 5/28 (Sat) and returned today (Wed 6/8). Our flights on AJ were never better. We arrived 30 minutes early for BOTH legs of our journey. The flight out of Bonaire today was almost a joke--more than 80% of the seats were empty.

It was kind of sad for me, drinking my last free sips of champagne on this evening's flight. I'll miss all those friendly Jamaicans I get to meet on the flight from MBJ to BWI...and what will I do without Island Stylie for entertainment??

We had our last dive with Larry on the East Side yesterday and he confirmed what's been discussed in this thread regarding charters, etc. I'm hoping to go back in November and my fingers are crossed.

Well, 3 weeks before our LDS trip with a group of 26, AJ has yanked the rug out from under us. AJ has cancelled our Sun.-Sun. flights for July 3rd-10th. Our travel provider has tried other options, without success. The best they can do is Tues.-Tues. which of course will interfere with many of our vacation schedules. I know its not anyone on Bonaire's fault, but I am ready to write off Bonaire for good and make my travel plans somewhere else.(Roatan, anyone?)If they are going to make Bonaire so difficult to get to, forget it. First the Windjammer and now this.

Tom,

This is terrible. It is so strange JM is rebooking people yet leaving some such as yourself high and dry. 3 weeks was ample time to rebook you. Man..what gives??

Air Jamaica:

Pirates of the Caribbean

(sorry...couldn't resist)

Ken, Amen brother! Ann, We were told all the flights were full or cancelled on the dates we could travel.

My friend Lutty, a divemaster from the Divi just came up to visit us. He also owns the gift shop at the Divi. He needed to come to Samson St. in Philadelphia, one of the great jewelry centers on the east coast. Hence, he stayed with us. AJ did him an incredible number as well. He was booked to go to Montego than on to Philadelphia. About 4:00 PM EST, I decided to check on the arrival on AJ's website. To my dismay, his flight from Montego to Phila was cancelled. I knew that he took off from Bonaire, but now where the hell was he? I called AJ and tried to track him down. Were they holding him in Montego overnight for another flight or what? I was supposed to pick him up at 9:30 PM. When I finally got a human being on the phone, after a half an hour on hold, they were about as much help as a fence post. After another half hour on hold, I finally got a supervisor who had some semblance of intelligence. She told me it was possible that he was put on the flight to Newark. I asked if she could check. Because of security and confidentiality, she said no. I said, "Would it be a good idea for me to drive to Newark and check to see if he comes in?" She said it might be a good idea. Anyway, he did come in. We made it back here at 1:30 AM. On his return flight, they cancelled both his AJ to Montego and Montego to Bonaire. He had to fly USeless Air to Aruba, and then Excel to Bonaire. He called me the next day. US Air that was supposed to leave at 10:00 AM did not leave Phila until 1:30 PM. This totally messed up his connector to Bonaire. I asked him when he was coming back up here. We both had a good laugh. It's really a shame what has happened to Air Jamaica. I have been flying them for years, and they were always on time and convenient. Last Christmas, we got cancelled from MBJ to Bonaire. However, in respect to AJ, they put us up in a 5 star hotel with wristbands for the all inclusive. It was much nicer than the Dive Inn where we usually stay on Bonaire. LOL This year we were scheduled to fly on Dec. 24th to Bonaire. David Franks, a author on this board, emailed me and gave me the big AJ heads up. AJ never called us or anything to let us know. I just wonder when they were going to get around to it. They are flying us to Curacao and then on to Bonaire with Excel. Grrrrr!