Hi. Hope someone can help me. As you know, flight times aren't the best getting to/from Bonaire. I'm thinking of taking the ferry from Bonaire to Curacao to catch a flight later than AAs 6AM flight back to the states on 9/9/02 as it looks like the Dutch Caribbean flights are booked at the times I want to travel. Is this difficult to do? How much time should I allow to travel from Bonaire to Curacao ferry dock to the Curacao airport? How far is the Curacao airport from the ferry terminal?
Thanks so much for any help you can give me.

Cathy,

Check with maribel@chogogo.an - I heard yesterday that the Ferry is out of order and in dry dock in Curacao because of a hull breach the size of a water melon. Suspect is pelagic (open ocean) timber having been struck by the Ferry. Not sure when it will be fixed... It's about a 12-15 dollar cab ride to the airport from the ferry stop in Curacao, BTW. Also, it leaves pretty early in the morning from Bonaire too (assuming it will be operational when you need it).

Also go to http://www.baibini.com for a quicker alternative - Divi Divi Air.

Jake

Thanks, Jake. Interestingly, prior to seeing your post, I went to DCA's website and was able to book flights at convenient times. This after my travel agent told the the flights were full. Is this airline known for overbooking flights and then bumping people? (just want to be prepared!)
-Cathy

Cathy,
Remember that DCA is the old ALM airline. They were notorious for not "releasing" seats so that other airlines and travel agents could not book. In the computers, it would appear that the flights were sold out. I guess they thought they could save the commission fees and hope people would book direct with ALM...unfortunately for ALM, it didn't quite work this way. Also, ALM would cut deals with wholesalers for bulk seats. The wholesalers would hold on to their seats until a month or so before the flights hoping they would sell a land/air package. If they didn't sell the seats, they would cancel the reservations. If you deal direct with DCA (ALM) they always found the seats. I don't think I ever flew on a flight that was more than half full even though they were shown "sold out" 3 months prior

You might want to give Dutch Carribean Airlines(DCA) a try. Eventhough they are a spin-off of ALM, they seem to have made some improvements. They offer several trips each day to and from CUR/BON. Best of all, the roundtrip price of $86.30, including taxes is excellent. I would be very interested to hear from others who have used the DCA service, especially the hop to and from CUR.

Thanks so much for all your answers. I will post next week when I return to let you know how it worked out!

A leopard cannot change its spots. See Jakes comments re divi divi.

Though a leopard can not chnge its spots, the spots will fade with age and appear to change. And, ofcourse, if the lepord is dissatisfied with the appearance of his spots he can go to the beauty shop and have a make over.

Still does not solve DCA's problems...no customer service

Customer service and reliability have always been a problem for ALM/DCA, whatever. Does anyone have any recent info or experiences with DCA, especially the CUR/BON commuter. Are they fairly reliable? Do they come close to sticking with their schedules,etc. Also, I am flying American from the states to CUR and back, and going down will have to claim baggage and re-check with DCA at their ticket counter. Comming back, I will have to claim baggage and re-check with American. I anticipate this will be a hassle, but remain eternally optmistic. The biggest problem, flying two carriers to BON, is that a delay in the scheduled departure on the first leg of the trip could create huge problems with the next leg of the trip. With options in and out of Bonaire so limited the classic conundrum is1) take the DCA commuter to and from CUR/BON and hope for the best,but prepare for the usual, (2) take the ferry, which is replete with its own problems,and is, atleast for the time being, out of service, or (3) Take the American flight from BON at 6:00am (which means leaving your accomodations around 3:00am) to San Juan. Wow, No clearly optimum choice among this lot. The best would seem to be the DCA option, if and only if they operate close to their schedule.

Our route in December will be Dulles/MIA, MIA/CUR then CUR/BON with DCA or Divi Divi. We've booked seats on both flights to BON. Though our concern is with Divi Divi, we flew from BON to CUR with them about a year ago and had a few problems with our luggage (we always have 4 big bags). Anyway, we ended up paying for extra seats. But the service was excellent. I'm dreading this part of the trip, but at least we're flying home direct with KLM.... I'll give feedback upon our return in January.

Recent DCA stories:

Friends who live on Bonaire had a 27 hour trip home recently from Miami to Bonaire, most of which was spent in Curacao, at the Holiday Beach Hotel (which DCA paid for), but they had no electricity or running water there.

Most of the stories aren't quite as bad though - just the typical 1, 2, or 3 hour delays, and lack of current information when such delays occur.

I've also spoken to a number of folks who have had no problems with DCE/DCA/ALM/Whatever in recent months.

Luck of the draw...

Jake

"Luck of the draw" or "Same ole crap shoot", any cliche you use to describe DCA, its still a gamble. It's curious, that inaccessibility is a prime ingredient in the mixture that makes
Bonaire a great destination.

Good point, Lonnie. If it were really easy to get there, it would be like many other island destinations ... too crowded!!

Coming from the western U.S., it's always a long trip with multiple flights; an exhausting travel day but always worth it! We have free tickets booked on AA/American Eagle for next February, and as usual will keep our fingers crossed for smooth "sailing."

Hi everyone,

There seems to be an interest in recent DCA exerperience with Bon and Cur. So here goes.
We flew on US Air using FF miles from Washigton DC
to Aruba. Then made the switch to DCA. Had a
reservation, but had to pick up the ticket there.
Smooth, easy, left on time from Aruba to Cur.
Had to deplan in Cur, even though it was the same
plane to Bon. We carried our dive gear with us.
But one of the three checked pieces got off loaded in Cur - although all had Bon stickers.
That piece made it on the next flight, same day.

The return Sept 6th was a bit different. 50 min
late leaving Bon to Cur. They took out red tagged
dive gear and did not give it back at the bottom
of the stairs and we had to hunt it down, but a DCA guy was very helpful, ahtough he did say the
plane from Cur to Aruba was leaving and we did not
have time to look for it, I got insistent that it
was just take a minute and could they hold things
for five minutes, which at first he did not seem
willing to do, until we explained that we had a connection to the states. It all worked out,
and our regular checked luggage made it fine.

Lessions learned - avoid Cur if possible. Get off
the plane as soon as possible and start hunting for luggage or get through 'transit' if that is
what is required. Have patience and a smile.

I am looking forward to RAA or Avia or Divi flying
non stop from Aruba to Bon at reasonable hours that mean avoiding a layover in Aruba. We actually got to dive early the day before leaving.
What a pleasure not taking the AA 6 am flight.

But any way you can get to Bon is worth it.

Lydia

Well, we're back, and as promised, here's my post of our "adventures" on DCA. Didn't check any luggage due to concerns over reclaiming it and still making our flights on time (since we aren't divers it wasn't too difficult). Flew from JFK to MIA to CUR on AA, then to BON on DCA. Our 4PM flight was delayed about 45 minutes to BON. Flight was totally full, plane was sitting on the tarmac with no air conditioning turned on. Really uncomfortable for 30 minutes waiting to take off. But we got there.

On the day of our return, the hotel reconfirmed our reservations for the 12:25 flight to CUR. At the airport, we were told we were flying standby. We don't know why, or what happened to our confirmed seats - DCA had no record of them being confirmed. We were the last passengers on the plane - much mass confusion, the DCA staff were rushing us altho' it was only 11:50. My husband had to go back thru security to pay the departure tax - which they neglected to mention. They made me get on the plane without him and I had visions of leaving him behind - not that he would have minded! The plane left at 12Noon (25 minutes early) and we flew to....Aruba! Surprise! Plane boarded more passengers (again, no air conditioning while on the tarmac) and we took off 20 minutes later to CUR. While it all worked out ok, we were nervous about our 2:48 connection to MIA. In CUR, we went through Customs but made our flight just fine.

We met another couple who had flown DCA the day before and due to the flight being late, missed their connection and were put up in CUR at DCA's expense.

I don't think I'm telling anyone anything they didn't already know with regard to DCA, but just thought I'd add one more story to the collection!

Cathy

What's the story of the air Jamacia flights lately? I know Carol likes those flights, any recent returnee's via ny area?

Lorraine,
When we went in June on Air Jamaica, via Newark -Montego Bay - BON, we had no trouble either direction.
However, my dive shop led a trip in April using AJ, and they had lots of trouble in their return with a cancelled AJ flight (supposedly the plane was empty so they cancelled it).
We were very happy and would take AJ again in a minute.