Sand Dollar Resort (February 9 – 23)

This was the first trip to Bonaire, and our family consists of Dave, our two boys (ages 13 and 12) and myself. This trip began last year when we decided to concentrate on the underwater aspects of a vacation. After searching the Internet, we decided on Bonaire and furthered narrowed our search to the Sand Dollar Resort due to this resorts proximity to the Barri Reef. During my research, I happened across this site and found it to be a very good and practical resource for finding out about our destination and was decided that I too would post our vacation highlights and disappointments.

Well folks, here goes.

After a 3-day travel trip, we arrived on Bonaire. We were traveling from northern Alberta, hence the travel time. (After talking to the seasoned travelers, we should able to cut this down by at least a day) The only advise that I would give on traveling to Bonaire would be to try to not hop different airlines as we found out. As Jamaica Air does not have an agreement with America Airlines, we had to grab our luggage as it came off the plane, go through customs, then deposit our luggage with Jamaica Air and then proceed through customs again. With only an hour to spare, this put us on a very tight schedule. However, the customs officials were outstanding when it came to bypassing the hundreds of people entering Jamaica to get us on our connecting flight. (A big thank you to them)

We booked the Sand Dollar Resort through their agency in Florida. We found them to be a very professional company in dealing with every aspect of our booking and subsequent questions. (A very big Thank you goes to Saba, our travel agent from Sand Dollars Reservations) We had booked a two-bedroom condo, with the truck and breakfast package. The suite was large with generous amounts of amenities to cook, etc.) Our housekeeper was a lovely women by the name of Glenda, who not only did a great job of attending to our suite, but looked out for us as well. We had heard about the mosquitoes this year in Bonaire, but were not prepared for what we actually encountered. Dave did not get bitten once. The first three or four days were absolutely terrible for the two boys and myself. We had mosquito spray, but it just didn’t seem to work. I finally went to the local drugstore, to try to find something to the itching and Benadryll (sp?) cream seemed to work the best. After that, things settled down to normal. Our 13 year old must have been allergic to those types of mosquitoes, because he looked like he had the measles and of course, he wouldn’t stop scratching. (Hint, hint, take two or three different types of spray and medicine for the itching before you go) Also if you have forgotten your spray, every restaurant has bug dope for your use. But would highly recommend the Sand Dollar, we are already making plans for our return trip.

The boys and myself became certified through the local dive shop adjacent to the resort called Bonaire Dive and Adventure. My husband also took his nitrox and his advanced open water. Our instructors were Elsa and Scott, both excellent instructors and considering Scott had a middle aged female (me, who was afraid to go down to the bottom) and two boys (both who could become distracted by a pretty fish swimming by) I have to have Scott stand up and take a bow for the excellent job he did. And after some tentative first dives, we were off and diving. Unbelievable is the only word I can use to describe the underwater world in Bonaire. Participated in the boat diving as well, but mainly shore dove. Dave on the other hand, did at least one boat dive a day. (PS – our vehicle was not broken into at all, nor did I hear of anybody else having trouble)

To sum things up – We have been to different parts of the Caribbean over the past years, and this is the first time that we are making plans to return to the same place. The island is beautiful, the people, both locals and imports were terrific and we just felt so very welcome and had so much fun that we are going to fast become an annual fixture on the island.

Thank you Bonaire. And of course the family photo, hope you enjoy.

Lets try that photo again!

third time lucky?

Sandra if you can send the photo to me and I will make sure it is the right size and post it for you if you want.. My email is
scubahb@optonline.net

In the mean time,, the photo must be no larger than around 45 kb certainly no larger than 50{the system won't allow it}

You are almost there when the black boxes appear so you are doing it right it is just that the picture is too big... Try again or send it to me for resizing.. I can also send it back to you if you would like..

Hi, Sandra....what a wonderful trip you must have had with your family. You certainly traveled a long distance to go to an "unknown" destination only to find you have fallen in love with Bonaire....this is terrific!

You are now a Bonaire Addict like the rest of us. I'm so glad things worked out well for you and your family. Ayo. Carole

Sounds like a wonderful trip you had!! Looking forward to the photo!

Isn't Ilse great?? She makes learning quite pleasurable and you get a lot more than your C card with her. I also hope you had enjoyed the breakfasts with Sonia and Eddie. Thx for the report. Coach Izzy

Okay Everybody, thanks to Freddie resizing this photo for me I am going to try to post. Here goes.

Sandra,

Love the photo and trip report - thanks for hanging in there till you got it posted!

Belinda (27 days and counting!)

I love your photo!!!

Glad to hear that Bonaire will be bringing you
back. My wife and a few friends will be going on
our first trip to Bonaire in June for our 20th
wedding anniversity. We have traveled to distant
dive locals for our anniversity to include many
trips to the Sea of Cortez, Maui,Saba,Coco Islands,Fiji and Roatan. Can you please elaborate
on Sand$?. I am using Sabah as my agent as well and have found her to be a great help.
Great pix.

We must have over lapped. We just returned EARLY this morning from our trip to our condo at Sand Dollar Feb. 19-26. Thanks for posting the family photo. It was great. We'll have our trip report and photos up in a few days. Glad you had a great time in Bonaire

What can I say about the Sand$. We had an excellent time. The resort probably tends to cater to the older group, and by this I mean my age group. We seemed to have the only children until spring break and then I noticed a few more families. Not that this was a bad thing. There were no loud parties going on till all hours of the night. Now don’t get me wrong, there were always groups of people having a few beer, etc. down along the sea wall, and indeed my husband and I joined in. It seemed that everybody was welcome to join in any group’s usually lively discussions, and none felt like an outsider. Both the locals and the imports were extremely helpful with all of our questions about diving, eating, snorkeling, eating, shopping, eating. Our condo was on the ground floor with the bedrooms off to the side of the living/dining/kitchen area. Very large condo with a double balcony for sun tanning, drying suits, bar-b-cueing, etc. We tended to be in the thick of things by the waterfront. We chose to purchase the breakfast plan/truck rental and scuba lessons before we got to the island and found this to be the way to go. So doing that, we ate every morning at the seaside restaurant, usually ate our lunch in the condo and probably ate out for dinner approx. ¾ of the time. We had maid/towel service every day, and bedding changes every three. The amenities of the Sand$ are like what you would see at the Atlantis Resort, but everything was clean and well kept. To sum of our experiences at the Sand$, we felt we were welcomed, catered to and safe and would not hesitate to return. We are already planning for next year. I am going to try to attach a photo and as the old saying goes “ Don’t mind the mess, we were on vacation”

Great trip report Sandra...and what a wonderful family pic! Thanks for posting!

Oops! My kids were reading my report and saw a glaring mistake. "The amenities of the Sand$ ....... " should read "The amenities of the Sand$ are **NOT** like what you would see at the Atlantis Resort, but everything was clean and well kept.

Sandra

We must have bumped into eachother some time down there...we stayed in D9 at the Sand Dollar

Cam (also from Alberta)

Cameron, We were the couple with the two boys aged 12 & 13. I looked up your photo and I sure I would have noticed those bikini speedos that you boys are wearing on the outside of your suits. How did you get to Bonaire? I really feel that we seemed to have gone the round about route. Were you at any of the rum parties?? We made two of them, excellent.

We showed up on Feb 4th via American Eagle from San Juan Via Dallas....we never went to any of the rum parties, as we were checking out as many restaurants as we could (we were at Gibi's twice). We always had breakfast around 7:30 each day

Sandra, glad you had such a good time!

Alan, looking forward to your report, hope you had a RELAXING time! Sandra, we rented the Zale's 2 bedroom condo on the second floor a few years ago, it was fantastic, I agree.

Cam, just checked out your new profile pic, and now there is wogga all over my monitor (merlot really stains you know)...man, you guys are a hoot...right up there with the tiara divers...I love a guy who's not afraid to wear a thong, or tiara...LOL!

Wogga wogga wogga

Shouldn't that be
Thonga Thonga Thonga

...just curious

Mare

Thonga Wonga Gunga...Gungalunga....wogga wogga

Beluga Beluga Beluga!!!! Me want go Bonaire back NOW!!!

Me too,
count me in.

Mare