Bonaire trip, Parch 2004 (or why I’ll never fly DCA again)



Bonaire trip, March 2004 (or why I’ll never fly DCA again)

This was our fifth or sixth trip to Bonaire. As in the past, we’ve flown American Airlines to Curacao and then hopped over to Bonaire. Previously we flew ALM Curacao to Bonaire, but they have now been replaced by DCA (Dutch Caribbean Airlines). We had booked a 4:00 pm DCA flight to Bonaire which would have given us a very relaxed connection in Curacao and time to do grocery shopping once we got to Bonaire. But when we got to Curacao, we were told that the DCA flight was “delayed until 6:00.” That was a lie. The flight wasn’t delayed; it simply didn’t exist. So we had to sit at the Curacao airport from about 2:30 until nearly 6:00. Our flight actually took off close to 6:30.

The return flight from Bonaire to Curacao was even more annoying. We had booked the 12:15pm DCA flight. That would give us a couple of hours on the beach that morning and a very good connection in Curacao back to American Airlines. But as we sat on the beach at the Plaza on our first few days there (the Plaza beach has a great view of approaching aircraft) we saw no DCA planes arriving the entire day, so I checked the schedule. It turned out that DCA had reduced the number of flights between Bonaire and Curacao from about 6 to 2; one at around 8:00 in the morning and the other around 6:00 in the evening. Fortunately, on Fridays, the morning flight was at 10:30, but we lost our morning at the beach. Also, those of us who were transferring to American Airlines were left with all our luggage and nothing to do in Curacao since AA doesn’t open for check-in until 1:00pm; there was no place to leave our luggage, and you can’t get into the departure hall without having checked in. (I plan to ask AA if they can open earlier).

What I believe happened is that DCA changed from small prop planes to DC-9’s and consolidated all their flights into just two. What I find particularly annoying is that while DCA knew my name, address, phone number, and email, they made no attempt to contact me about the schedule change. They are in competition with Bonaire Excel airlines which has many more flights (on small turbo-props) and which (I hope) will take over the Curacao/Bonaire route completely. Next time, we’ll get to Bonaire via some different route – possibly through San Juan or Mo Bay.

The Plaza was great, but for one main reason, we are unlikely to stay there again. The hotel is right at the Bonaire airport. In the past, this was no problem. We got the see the planes arrive and there was no traffic at night to bother our sleep. But now, KLM is using Bonaire as their refueling stop on the way from South America back to Amsterdam. Their MD-11 arrives at the Bonaire airport every morning arriving around 2:00 and does a military take-off (full power before releasing the brakes) around 3:30. It was our wake-up call every day. Some days there was a second KLM plane around 5:00am. Next time we’ll stay further from the airport, which is too bad because I really like the Plaza.

The Plaza has Sunday night movies. You lie on lounge chairs under the stars watching the movie while Plaza staff passes out free snacks. It doesn’t get much better than that.

The weather was great. It rained only twice, and both times at night. Days were mostly clear with some clouds; temperature in the 80s. Water was about 80º, just a bit cooler than on previous trips. Water was very clear and there were lots of fish. We mostly snorkeled at the Plaza which has excellent snorkeling: good beach, lots of coral, lots of fish, and everything very close to shore. In addition to the normal variety of fish, we also saw several octopi, spotted eels on the hunt, and four hawksbill sea turtles. In an entire week of snorkeling, we didn’t see a single barracuda. Normally, we see many of them every time out. I was just as happy not to see them, but their total absence was strange.

We also snorkeled 1000 Steps once. The coral there was great, but there were fewer fish and the waves were much stronger than further south.

We were disappointed to see people feeding the fish. We stopped going to Grand Cayman partly because the fish had grown accustomed to being fed and had gotten aggressive. Both my wife and I were bitten by Bermuda chubs that were looking for a handout.

At the Plaza we stay in a room with full cooking facilities, so we have most of our breakfasts and lunches in the room. Grocery stores had most of what we needed, but they have less of the diet products (non-fat salad dressing, diet drinks, skim milk, etc.) than in the US. The grocery store in town (Culturama?) accepts credit cards but the Warehouse Supermarket (just south of town) accepts cash only. American money is accepted everywhere.

We had an excellent meal at the Divi and good meals at the Banana Tree and a barbecue on the beach (both at the Plaza). We also had a good meal at the Blue Moon, but the pork was seriously undercooked and had to be sent back.

All in all, an excellent vacation and a nice way to celebrate my birthday. But next time we (gladly) won’t fly DCA and (sadly) we won’t stay at the Plaza.

Steve

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download