LindaSSF

Water temp will be around 81* - you just need a shorty!

The walls drop off fairly deep all around the island, but you will see the most between 30 and 80 ft.

Curacao is known for the great coral and small sea life. Eels, crabs, turtles, squid, shrimp, variety of colorful reef fish. Very few larges like sharks, rays, grouper.

Dive Bus is not where I would recommend for a newer diver. Consider CURious2Dive or Bas Hart. Curious2 Dive even takes out handicapped divers - fantastic service & will put you at ease while still giving your experienced hubby a dive to talk about!

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To the list for Curacao, I would add CURious2Dive - Hans Plej. We've been there for 2 weeks dive trips & he is the guy we go back to. Shore diving or Klein Curacao or custom dolphin dives. Valet diving. He is an island native who truly knows the dive sites. Relaxed trips. He will email you photos of your dive at no charge. $122 for 2 tank diving with all rental stuff. He will pick you up at the port.

If the current is right & you are good with air, ask about a drift dive from Director's Bay to Tugboat!

Dive Bus is taking you on rotation to dive sites by day of the week - no customization to your interests.

We stay at Atlantis Diving's apartments (wonderful!!!), but would never dive with them. We watched some of their OW training classes & were appalled.

We've only heard good things with Bas Harts, but never dived with him. He seems to be the Hans Plej of the west end.

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We dove Grand Turk as a ship excursion since we had 4 1/2 hours at the port. Short walk down the beach to the boat. Less than 10 min to the wall. All of our gear was already set up in the boat. We brought our own, so they helped us set it up as we traveled to the dive site - to help us "catch up" with everyone else

Nice dive, though it wasn't Bonaire or Curacao.

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It is a shop thing rather than a ship rule. There are more dive shops than you would ever want in Bonaire. Look around. I went with the ship dive & was ok with it, but we could have done better.

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They are using dive friends. We went a couple of weeks ago. Boat dive to Klein Bonaire. First dive is a "nothing" check out dive. Second was great on a wall. Definitely timed, not based on air use.

Gear was good quality for the folks who didn't bring their own. Nice dive boat with 15 divers. Second boat with 10. We had divers older than 65 from our ship...

Like most Carribean dives, it was heavy on service/valet diving. They picked you up & dropped you off by boat next to the ship's gangway. All gear was carried to boat & you set up the tanks yourself - help for those who needed it.

The DMs were young guys who travel the world to DM in different places. None were what I would call a knowledgable local guide.

After the dives, you could rent tanks & do a shore dive on their house reef and walk back to the ship (15-20 min walk) or catcha cab.

There are better and worse dive trips & vendors on Bonaire.

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We'll be on her! :-)

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We went last year. There are "heads" (aka bathrooms). There are nice stairs down into the water. You sail around the end of the island to a protected area with some coral and tropical fish. Our shorex included drinks and some beach time. It was a lot of fun!

We had one issue - a number of catamarans anchored while we were there & they look alike. My husband didn't see the others pull in & he was confused which was ours. In the meantime, everyone else was back aboard & a quick head count done. I had to argue that DH was NOT aboard and make them wait while we called for him. He didn't live it down for the rest of the cruise. Everyone on that tour remembered him!

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We have a favorite (scuba) dive shop on Curacao. We'll spend a couple of weeks diving with them on land based vacations. Curacao is a diver's paradise!

He explained that HAL has no scuba excursions on Curacao because the dive ops have just said no as a collective group. The pricing was insulting and the size of the group and # of divers to leaders was beyond what they felt was safe for people & the environment.

I can only imagine what they are paying the dive shops. The shorex dives are only about $25-30 more than what I book independently.

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If you bother to go to the link, you will see that soap and water is best for fighting C diff, norovirus, and Cryptosporidium

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Actually, hand sanitizer (alcohol- based hand rubs) are effective against both bacteria and virus. It is not effective against spore- forming organisms like C diff (Clostridium difficile).

For more information, go to

http://Www.cdc.gov/show-me-the-science-hand-sanitizer.html

FWIW, I am both a nurse with more than 30 years of experience and a hospital administrator. Appropriate hand hygiene is part of what I do for a living.

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You'll have to tell is about your dive with Bas. We're certain to go back to Curacao again...

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Bobbygirl, it looks like we have the same plans at this point. We are with the HAL dive on GT & Bonaire since HAL uses our preferred dive shop there. We are using Curious2Dive in Curacao and Dive Aruba (Dive with Clive). We had 30 dives in Curacao this Spring and can't wait for more!

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Was it snorkeling, or SCUBA? I see a catamaran trip for snorkeling. I'm really looking for something that day - preferably in the water.

We'll have our own SCUBA gear along except for tanks & weights.

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Hmmm. I don't remember seeing a SCUBA excursion for that port when I looked last. The dive shop near the dock has had some bad reviews for independent excursions.

Thanks for recent feedback!

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I appreciate the goods news that I won't starve if I stay on board. :-)

Superstitious - Nah! But then again... Having a broken foot really put a damper on the rest of our cruise that time.

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I loved seeing the sculpted melons, ice carvings, fantasy desserts. Wd took lots of pics to share with friends & a chef friend.

That said, I have to admit that DH & I never really ate anything from the evening. We were generally too full from dinner.

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On our last cruise, I broke my foot at Half Moon Key. While DH paraglided and had a beach day, I hobbled back to the tender and spent the day on our balcony with ice on my foot. :(

I am considering staying on board ship this time instead of tempting fate again on our first day of a cruise. I've never done that at HMC.

If I stay on board, will the Lido or MDR be open for lunch? Can I order room service and relax on our balcony? I wondered if so many staff were acting as butlers and running a BBQ on shore, would they be able to serve food on board the ship that day?

Following - good info. Thanks!

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On an Alaskan cruise a few years ago, our luggage didn't arrive until nearly 10:30 that night. We were quite concerned. We had arrived at the pier at 11AM.

We always pack a change of clothes (& bathing suits for tropics) with the assumption that we might have to live with just that if something happens to our luggage.

Yes - it is smart casual for the first night. If you have assigned seating, you will have your assigned time & table. If it is open dining, you can go when you please.

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My husband has done this tour on a Vista class ship (Noordam) a few years ago. He is an engineer and was fascinated.

He said be prepared for a good bit of walking & stairs.

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If you start a booking, you can see which rooms HAL is encouraging you to select. On HAL's site, you can also enter a specific state room during the booking to see if it is open.

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For our upcoming cruise, we had an SC guarantee. Our sailing is not especially full over Thanksgiving.

About 4 weeks before our sailing date, I saw an aft wrap around suite (SB) was open. Since we had booked directly, I called HAL and asked what would be the cost of an upsell to that specific cabin. I received a complimentary upgrade over the phone to that specific cabin .

No more waiting to know which cabin!

It can never hurt to try.

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I really can't picture ever drinking enough to make the Explore 4 worthwhile

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I would take a corner aft suite any day if the week! The views are unparalleled going thru the locks. 4185 will let you reach out and touch the sides of the locks as you go through!!

The suite comes with an umbrella, should you need it

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