| Cheaper than hotels, but a fairly poor location and so-so maintenance and quality. |
| Hotel Villa Tropical |
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Maurice >
1 contribution(s) Canada |
| Apr, 2010 | Leisure | Family
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First off some facts:
1) This is a place you go to with a family or larger group.
2) One needs to rent a car for your stay, or this location is totally useless.
It is several blocks to the closest grocery store, and a few kilometers to any beaches.
Punta (Downtown Willemstad tourist area) is over 5km away.
There are few or no cabs, and bus transit is fairly minimal.
The closest beaches are at the Sea Aquarium and Jan Thiel, both of which are about 4km away.
3) This is not so good for larger group of adults, as 4 of the 5 bedrooms are very small. Only the master bedroom is an "adult" bedroom.
If you are traveling as 2 adults with 2 to 4 children or teens this could be a good choice.
I suppose if the group was all adults who are into partying it might be a pretty good place, as one basically never sees the neighbours.
4) The electrical power usage allowance and damage deposit ( as has been reported by others) WILL be a problem. Being aware in advance we watched this closely. There is no way one may stay within the allocation if you use ANY air conditioning. More detail on this follows.
5) For those who are trying to find this place on a map, it is the Salina district, on a corner lot, on the intersection of Anasaweg and Carawaraweg, 3 blocks south of Caracasbaaiweg.
The address is 14 Anasaweg.
6) Privacy is better than hotels or other more commercial accomodation.
Yard maintenance:
Almost non-existent. There are fallen branches and foliage everywhere, and it is very messy. As the island is quite dry, watering is needed to maintain a garden, and as that costs money, one may easily surmise that is not happening!
The garden here is dying. It's a pity, as it must have been very nice at one time.
Towards the end of our stay it rained for a couple of days, and one could then begin to see what it might look like if properly watered, as we finally saw some flowers on the plants. |
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| Activities on and off the Resort/Hotel |
There is one supermarket a few blocks away, and it is fairly good.
There are pharmacies, gasoline/petrol stations and other similar amenities stores within a few blocks.
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| Beach/Pools/Grounds |
Swimming Pool
This is one bright spot in the picture. Clean, well maintained and very kid-friendly.
Just out the gate from the converted car park.
There are several lounge chairs, a picnic table, and a Weber charcoal barbeque.
There is also a big comfy hammock, but as birds perch and nest in the tree over it, this is covered in bird droppings.. Pity.
The car parking area is accessed through powered double gates. There is a remote control provided for this. Unfortunately, while we were there one of the 2 gates broke down, so we had to manually get out and push it each time we came and went.
Privacy:
The neighbours are very unobtrusive. We did not see or hear them during our stay. The yard is fenced and quite private.
Noise:
The property is on a fairly busy street and there is quite a bit of traffic noise.
The neighbours have dogs, and these tend to bark frequently and loudly. They are big dogs.
Insects and pests:
When we first arrived we were greeted by many singing birds, and in the yard friendly geckos and lizards.
We also had many very large cockroaches in the house. Over a couple of days I was able to hunt them all down. However, within those couple of days the children were a bit scared to use a bathroom!
The one thing that was sorely missed is screens on the windows.
Curacao is blessed with some really nice steady breezes, and it should have been really a pleasure to open all the windows and let the wind cool the house.
Unfortunately you will see I said "should have".
In reality the mosquitos are quite aggressive, and if one is to pass a night without waking up covered in bites and welts, it pays to keep the windows and doors all closed and make sure the mosquitos do not enter. So much for the breezes.
You see, there are no screens anywhere on windows and doors.
And there are no mosquito nets in the bedrooms.
Bed bugs - One of the smaller bedrooms had the beds infested with bed bugs.
When our 9 year old woke one morning, she was covered in itchy, red, swollen bites.
I inspected her bedding and found bed bugs on the folds of the mattress seams.
I went to a local pet store, and purchased some pet insect spray, and stripped the beds and everything else in that room. After that, and freshly washed bedding, the bugs no longer bit our little girl.
When I brought it up with the property manager, he informed me he had never heard of bedbugs (and you could tell he thought I was making this up!).
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Water supply
There is very little water pressure. As a result things like washing dishes, for example, is a bit tricky.
Hot water only worked sporadically.
The water supply failed for most of a day. The maintenance trucks were to be seen fixing this.
When the water worked again it was rusty and dirty for a day. |
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| Other Comments |
In summary:
This is a reasonably comfortable house, in a decent, but not luxurious neighbourhood.
Noise is an issue, due to it being on a fairly busy street.
The management do a fairly good job, but tend to respond more to complaints than to pro-actively deal
with problems.
If one is travelling with 4 to 8 people, it may be a better or more economical solution that resort hotel rooms. |
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| Restaurants and Bars |
There are very few restaurants or bars close by.
Those that are around are mostly local Papiementu places, and not so "family friendly".
The closest thing to a family restaurant we found was a bar and grill called Larrys Place.
It is about 2 km from the house.
While it looks much like the typical American restaurant, we went there for lunch once, and the staff were totally clueless.
One meal was supposed to come with corn on the cob: No corn.
One diner asked for a side salad. When the meal was served there was no salad, and when we inquired we were told they had no salad.
One meal was a pasta and shrimp dish. It was ordered by our young teenage girl. She complained, and, at first, my wife and I thought she was just being fussy, which is not terribly unusual.
When my wife looked at it, she noticed a smell: The shrimp were completely bad, and smelled rotten!
We left rather immediately, and after my family was out of the door,
I brought this to the attention of the staff, who basically did not really care about it.
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| Rooms |
Amenities:
The kitchen and rooms are reasonably well equipped.
While there is a decent set of cookware, and items for eating, one must also be prepared to buy any and all consumables. That means toilet paper, food, cooking staples, cleaning substances, etc.
The kitchen has a fairly good gas top and a 2 element electric top.
There is a dishwasher that is broken down, a microwave and coffee maker that works, and the usual things such as a toaster, etc.
There is a clothes washer and dryer, and they are fairy decent quality.
However we did not use the dryer as that would certainly have driven our electricity bill out of sight.
Luckily there is a great clothesline tree in the back yard, so drying was no problem, except for when it rains, of course.
If one wants to lounge in the evenings, there is very limited furniture, nothing in the way of comfortable couches or recliners. However there are 3 separate dining tables! One that is in a converted car parking space, that seats 10!
But no couches or comfortable chairs..
Basically it looks like they furnished this place with the remnants of a couple of auctions.
Internet: There is a DSL connection and modem provided. No WIFI.
I brought my own WIFI router as I had heard this in advance.
The DSL modem died 4 times. They were quite good about replacing it, generally within a day.
The speed of the service is VERY slow.
Do not plan on watching your favorite TV shows from the internet!
Even Skype calls were noticeably choppy.
Speaking of TV, there is a satellite receiver and a 29" tube TV and a DVD player.
the channels available are mostly US and S.American networks for the central and S. american market. Many are in English, with Spanish subtitles.
Some of the more common channels are available, such as CNN, Fox, etc.
No BBC, US networks, European, or other stations.
Several specialty cable/satellite channels such as Cartoon Network are there.
It is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall not too bad.
Do not expect to keep up with your favorite series and you should likely be fine.
It is suitable for keeping some kids entertained in the evenings when there is little else to do. |
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| Your Arrival |
When we arrived it was quite clean, except for some cockraches , which were easy to catch and remove.
Cleaning and maintenance was Minimal.
We stayed for 2 weeks. They came and cleaned once, after were there for 4 days.
Over the next 10 days there was no cleaning and no change of sheets , towels, or bedding.
We asked them to pick us up a few groceries for our arrival, which they did. |
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| This is a divers resort but even non divers will love it |
| Hotel Captain Don's Habitat |
| User Rating:
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Carter >
1 contribution(s) SWEDEN |
| Jul, 2009 | Leisure | Family
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| Don's Habitat was started by the legendary Captain Don Steward. The captain not only started the hotel but is responsible for making Bonaire a diver's island and convincing the authorities to declare all the waters a national park. The Captain still frequents the hotel on Mondays. You'll find him at the outdoor bar. The outdoor bar is also where you can listen to Moogies island music and watch the slide show. You will probably end up as part of the slide show since the DMs and others seem to love taking pictures. The motto of the hotel is "diving freedom". Diving is indeed available 24hrs. The dive pier is large with two staircases and a rope leading to depth to make night diving a breeze. Truck rental(car) is on the property making shore diving easily accessible. If you tire of shore diving and house reef diving, Don's has three dive boats going out daily. The DMs are among the best. Likewise, dive education including photo courses, are of very high quality and are located in new buildings, as is the dive shop and spa. Even if you are not a diver it is still a great resort. This is not a luxurious hotel but it has everything you need and it is clean and well managed. There is no real luxury resort on Bonaire although Harbour Village tries to fit into this category. Don's Habitat IMHO is a little less luxurious than HV but still I prefer Don’s for other reasons. There are many great dive resorts on Bonaire. Some of these resorts are too large for my taste, like the Plaza and likewise some are too small for my taste. Carib Inn is one of the smaller resorts and it is an excellent dive hotel but it lacks some of the activities and facilities that Don’s has. Don's has everything I want in a resort but is still small enough to allow me to become friends with everyone. |
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| Activities on and off the Resort/Hotel |
| I think I mentioned most but not all |
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| Beach/Pools/Grounds |
beach; what beach?
Pool; Clean, very well maintained and a good enough size in my opinion. Grounds- Very good. Many of the plantings were the result of the Cap't landscaping skills |
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| Restaurants and Bars |
| Rum Runners IMHO can easily compete with the best restaurants on the island. That said the food quality does vary. This is however, even true of some of the well known restaurants. We have for example eaten at Will's and thought the food was worth a Michelin star but than the last time we were there we were very disappointed. OK I'll admit I never thought Rum Runners was worthy of a Michelin star but still the food is usually of high quality. It is delicious. You won’t go wrong ordering the daily special or whatever fish is fresh. The breakfasts are great too! The restaurant by the way is at the water's edge so you will be able to look down and see the fish, but do watch out for the iguanas who are waiting to hop up and steal your food if you let them (same thing for the gulls). |
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| Rooms |
| There is a wide variety of rooms with new rooms being build 2010. We always stay at the Oasis Cottages. They have two bedooms/bathrooms and are very spacious. A/C throughout. Unfortunately they do not have any ocean views. The cottages vary since they are owned by different people. One of the Oasis cottages is quite luxurious, most are not. The staff does a great job keeping this area clean and well maintained. |
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| Your Arrival |
| Try to do your paperwork at home. Dive liability release forms etc can all be downloaded beforehand |
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| Snorkeling was awesome |
| Hotel Breezes Resort Spa & Casino Curacao |
| User Rating:
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Brenda >
8 contribution(s) Canada |
| May, 2009
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I had been to Curacao once before and stayed at Sunset Waters. We enjoyed Sunset Waters at the time, but in recent years the price had gone up there out of range and we'd heard it wasn't as good as when we were there. The Sunquest package for Breezes was affordable so we decided to go there this trip.
To sum up before I start giving details, the resort was much better than I'd anticipated. Better food, nicer rooms, nicer beach and better snorkeling than I'd expected. Now for the details.
Rooms - we had a room in Flamingo wing. It's the building furthest from the main pool. It was very quiet, not crowded (tons of empty loungers on the beach even when it was busy), nicest pool. Drawbacks to Flamingo wing were longer walk to restaurants and lobby and no pool bar for refreshments. However, closest bar was in Pelican wing, right next door. The rooms themselves were reasonably spacious, much better than other rooms I've been in. The room had just been updated with new paint. Bathroom, while not spacious, was beautiful, marble countertops with bowl basin on top of counter. Glass walk-in shower. Our room had a large flat screen tv on the wall, but can't say channel selection was great. Not a biggie after all, you have the Caribbean and beach right out your doorstep!
Beach and pools - Pools were immaculate. Main pool is more like a river - very narrow and broken up by various "things" - islands, pool table, fountains, tables, stools etc. Pool at Pelican wing also broken up into smaller sections. Pool at Flamingo wing is the most open and quiet. Beach had reportedly just gotten new sand and it was very nice. Beach was clean - never saw any litter at the Flamingo end. Beach was a bit crowded near the main pool and the snack bar.
Buffet - well, let me just say anyone who complains about the food at the buffet restaurant is out of their cotton picking mind!! The food was great. My only complaint - and its minor - is not a lot of vegetables. Lots of meat dishes - almost every meal had selections of chicken, beef, fish and pork. Sometimes lamb, sometimes goat stew (which is the national dish by the way). Often prawns and calamari. Always rice, pasta and potatoes of some sort. Desserts were plentiful - cheesecake, layer cakes, cookies, and ice cream (best I've ever had to be truthful!). Cappuccino machine was always on at breakfast and dinner and I used it a lot. Service was almost always fantastic. There were a few nights where there were glitches in the service - one night when a large group of women came in for a conference, and then just a couple of nights when the wait staff couldn't get their act together. However, that being said, the service was much, much better than most other buffets I'd been to and it was always pleasant with genuine smiles and greetings. |
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Ala carte - we did the Munasan Japanese restaurant. The food was good, however the night we went the service was very slow. No desserts there and we were still a bit hungry when we were finished, so we went to the buffet afterwards for coffee and dessert. Pastafari - food was very good, service a bit slow, but nothing to complain about. Only problem there was huge line-up at the salad bar - too many people trying to go through it all at once. We didn't bother with the BBQ ala carte because by then we were just pleased with the buffet food.
Entertainment - for the most part was good, albeit spotty, time-wise. The three sax players (on different nights) were all good. The second sax player was the best musician, but all were good entertainers. The steel pan player was barely audible over the congo drums, but was also good. Nothing ever seemed to happen with guest/staff talent night. There was one night, I think Wednesdays, that all the ala cartes are open and the pool deck is loaded with people. The entertainment on that night was great and it was like a big party atmosphere.
Snorkeling - was awesome. There is no reef as some people had said - unless you go outside the breakwaters. The days that we were there were a little too rough for our comfort to go outside the lagoon. If you do want to venture out, it's advised to check with the dive shop as to currents for that day as there can be rip currents in the area. The breakwater has an abundance of sea life to view. We saw thousands of tangs, grunts, goatfish, yellow-tailed snappers and tetras. We also saw at least 3 puffer fish, 4 morays, an octopus, a barracuda, schools of halfbeaks (some people call them needlefish) and zillions of red-lipped blennies.
Children and activities - the resort is definitely family friendly. There were tons of kids there. The climbing wall never seemed to be used and the skating rink wasn't really useable (and who wants to go skating anyway?). There were lots of pool activities, a giant chess board, shuttle boards, bikes, a game room (with the arcade type games), ping pong tables, water bikes, kayaks, hobie rides and more. Lots for kids to do. There is a spa and a gym as well. Also a small library to leave/take books in the TV room in the lobby. The gift shop is okay. More expensive than town, which is usual and didn't seem to be restocked very often, but did have a few choices and necessities.
Minor glitches
- our toilet plugged the first night but maintenance people were there within a few minutes to unplug.
- security guards at the flamingo end were often not attentive enough and we frequently had local invaders in the pool that would sneak around the wall
- minor workmanship issues with the room, but nothing that was a problem
- check-in was not very efficient, but not time consuming
Impressive extras
- twice had supervisor types knock on our door and check that everything was okay
- a personal letter from the hotel manager asking if our room was satisfactory
- iced tea on request in the buffet restaurant
- servers around the main pool deck after dinner to get drinks
- cappuccino machine was an unexpected bonus
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