This was a return trip to this resort. The previous one was in September 2007. On this trip we made 15 dives, 12 from a boat and 3 from shore. Our shallowest dive was 60 ft and our deepest was 69.
American Airlines, Sunset Waters Beach Resort, Park'n Fly.
We booked this trip in late October. I was being lazy and booking through Expedia until I got to an offer of ground transportation for something like $60 a head. I remembered this being free the last time so I contacted the resort. As it turns out, it's free if you book directly with the resort, so we did. We also booked our travel directly with American Airlines. While I was on the Expedia site, I checked out their offer for airport parking in Toronto. It was at the same lot I use when it's nice, and was about $25 more than what I normally pay. Looks like they have a markup in addition to the fee they charge for booking through their site.
Our travel was smooth and uneventful. We got to Curacao a bit early which was fortunate because we were just ahead of another aircraft. Had we been just behind it, we would have spent an extra half hour in the Immigration lineup. And, since were arriving in the evening, that would have made us late for supper. On the way back we were lucky dodging snowstorms. There was heavy snow in Toronto the day before we left that caused all sorts of cancellations. I am writing this the day after we arrived, and it's been snowing all day. No snow on our travel day though, and the extra money we spent for valet parking was worth it.
The resort was comfortable and functional. That's all I ever need. The food was also very good. Sometimes it was a buffet, sometimes you ordered from a menu. I didn't have a single bad meal. Lot's of good ones, but no bad ones. They added a nice touch that we didn't get last time. The flight to Miami is early in the morning, so the shuttle to the airport left at 0530 hrs. At about 0505 breakfast was delivered to our room.
The dive shop had not changed since our last trip. We could dive with the divemaster or do our own thing. We could pick our own depth. All they asked was that we limit our boat dives to 60 minutes. Considering that there was also unlimited shore diving, that was hardly a hardship.
Also unchanged was the valet diving they provided to a certain extent. They would bring your BC and regulator to the boat for you and set it up on a tank. If you wanted, they would swap tanks for you between dives. They would also bring your BC and reg back to the gear locker for you. The rest of your gear, including weights was your responsiblity. They had laundry baskets we could use for carrying this gear around. They worked quite well.
The shop has two boats - a big one and a small one. The big one was broken for the first couple of days so we dove from the small one. It's ok, but the big one is much nicer.
We had a nice touch from the dive shop as well. Most of the sites are very close to the resort, but there is one called Watamula that is about a 40 minute boat ride away. One day, we decided to go there and to another distant site and agreed to pay a $20 fuel surcharge. Once we got there, the divemaster misjudged the current and we dove on sand with a bit of soft coral instead of the nice reef. The shop waived the $20.
Our trip was a couple of months after Hurricane Omar, but the only indication of that storm was that some sponges were covered with sand. Most of the dive sites near the resort are just offshore, and the shore is a small cliff going into the water. One of the divemasters mentioned that the part of these cliffs underwater used to be covered with coral and that the hurricane had stripped them clean. That didn't bother me at all because we never went right up to shore anyhow, even on our previous trip.
The dive sites were very nice. Most of them started anywhere from 10 to 30 ft and then sloped off to deeper than I wanted to dive. The slope was steep enough to use for navigation but shallow enough to spread out the group. If someone was deeper than you, you would not be in their bubbles, something that often happens on wall dives. Also since the top of the reef was so shallow, blue water safety stops were rare.
The water was clear and 81 F. There were lots of small fish but very few big ones. There were quite a few soapfish and adult spotted drums. These fish are not as common in other places I have been. Also, like last trip, there were more Peterson shrimp and red banded shrimp. We also saw a frogfish, some squid, eagle rays, and turtles. And, at the end of the last dive of the trip, we saw a juvenile filefish, about 2 inches long, hiding in some soft coral.
I brought the wrong fins. I brought the full foot ones instead of the open heel ones with booties. This meant that I had small rocks to contend with while wading out for the shore dives. I coped with this by wearing my sandals and strapping them to my bc for the dive.
It's worth your while to phone the toll free number on the resort web site. That is the only way to book a hotel/dive package.
| Trip Dates2008-12-13 to 2008-12-20 | Trip Report Index |