Hola!
First of all: great discussion board!!

My girlfriend and myself are going on a diving trip in Bonaire in a couple of weeks. We will do the introduction course in NY and need to do the remaining open water dives (referral) once we are in Bonaire.

Two questions:
1. Can anyone recommend a good diving school? Any experiences, good or bad?
2. What are the expected cost?

Thanks in advance!!

Ralph

Ralph, Don't know any thing about cost but all of the resorts have dive shops on site that have instructors that give classes and the instructors are all very good. The dive shops do everything from beginning to end and they all do referrals. We have dealt with Toucan Divers at the Plaza 3 times and have really liked them. We will be diving with Wannadive thru Golden Reef Inn this time. So just about anywhere you stay will have good instructors.

Andy

Ralph, welcome to Bonaire Talk!

Where are you staying? There are dives shops at the major resorts, and some of the smaller ones have a dive shop they work with. Then, email the dive shop associated with the place you are staying and set up the referral dives with the shop. You need to do this ahead of time so that they are prepared to have an instructor available for you.

Ralph.... do your check out dives with Toucan Diving at Plaza Resort. The divemasters are top notch, the dive shop is excellent and the atmosphere is great! I just spent a week diving in Bonaire and used Toucan as my dive shop. (We stayed at The Plaza) Everything we needed was there for the asking.

The visibility is still not the greatest.... 60ft at best during our stay....but the dives were great non the less.

Beware the Bonairean Banded Boxed Jelly Fish however. They started appearing as we were on out last couple of days on the island. One of the guests at the resort got hit with one and was rendered useless for the remainder of his stay.....too bad too, he was a 60 year old gentleman who had just taken up snorkeling. Not the greatest intro to water sport!

I don't think I've ever heard bad things about a dive shop in Bonaire. If you're staying at one of the resorts (Plaza, Divi, Habitat, SandDollar, Buddies, Eden Beach, there are probably more but I'm spacing out) or even at some of the smaller Inn-style places (Carib Inn for example) they all have top notch staff and instruction available, no reason to go off-site for a referral.

I don't know what the prices are at other places, but Captain Don's Habitat, where we always go, has their prices for PADI, NAUI, SDI and SSI Referred Open-water certification (including the taks for certification dives) posted on their website:
http://www.habitatdiveresorts.com/bonaire/dive-scuba-education-course.html#certcourses

2 Days-4 Dives

$243.00