Well, it's now "been there, done that" for Curacao and Habitat Curacao.

In the main it was a trip we enjoyed but I wouldn't rate this as "the
best of all time" trip.

First, we travelled with Air Jamaica, Philadelphia to Montego Bay to
Curacao (reversed on the way back, of course). Although I've heard some
horror stories about delays and lost luggage, the biggest problems were
slight delays, marginal enterainment systems, and seats that need some
serious refurbs. But the cabin crews were fine and the food was better
than I've had on some US Air flights.

Curacao as an island is a wide mix of settings from the urban
Willemstad, to the rural area where Habitat is located, to the more
touristy areas like the Sea Aquarium. After driving around a bit, the
Habitat area suited us just fine. However, if you're on Curacao on
business (and someone else's dime!), Kura Hulanda in the center of
Willemstad is the best place to be - it reminded us a bit of staying in
the historic area of Colonial Williamsburg. The weather was a mix of
clear skies to some serious frog choker rains (which made some roads a
challenge due to runoff). The people we dealt with were friendly and
generally made an effort to make us feel welcome. One minor point, the
local languages are Papiamento (a mix of Dutch, Spanish, and I don't
know what all else) and Dutch with English spoken but as a third
language. Mainly, expect signs to be slightly confusing but that's
about it most of the time.

Habitat as a resort was, frankly, a disappointment. The room needed a
serious cleaning (it was "broom clean" but the shelves were crusty and
the tile floors needed serious work). We'd asked for a second floor ocean
view room but got one on the ground floor. After asking about changing
rooms it finally became clear than many of these rooms weren't available
because the roofs leaked and some of the ceilings were slowly coming
apart. Not Good... Much of the information we got about the second
floor rooms came from people who either were in one or hand moved out of
one because of the problems. Things like lounge chairs were in
disrepair (missing seat slats, for example) and the grounds needed a
general pick-up (for example, a bunch of discarded drinking straws
stayed in the same place, along a walkway, all week) My wife tried the
"art gallery" and gave up on it, saying it stank of something like a
failed sewer drain. While the grounds are well designed and planted, the
place just plain looks "frayed around the edges".

The people at the Oceans restaurant were pleasant and the location is
hard to beat. The food was OK and reasonably priced, the menu not
particularly adventurous or exotic. We ate most of our dinners there
(lunch was usually a sandwhich grabbed between a shore and boat dive and
breakfast was juice and cereal watching the day start) except for one
dinner at "Landhuis Daniel" which was one of the better dinners we've
had on any trip (second only to St. Martin's stunning cuisine). It
should be noted that although meals at the restaurant appear to be
billed to your room, in fact, when checking out that bill must be paid
at the restaurant.

The dive operation at Habitat is called Easy Divers and is also a
seperate operation (that is, again your room number figures in recording
any transactions but you have to clear your bill at the dive shop). The
part about beaing able to dive 24/7 is certainly true. Other than a
mandatory briefing (both about the operation and "don't even think about
touching anything in the water!!!"), divers are free to come and go as
they please. I did a few buddied dives with a guy from New Mexico and a
lot of solo dives. I also did two separate boat trips.

The rain during the week was obviously reducing the viz somewhat but
that issue aside, the reefs were generally healthy (some plate corals
showed bleaching) and the quantity of fish was astounding. Also I saw
more larger versions of the fish present (notably filefish, trumpetfish,
and trunkfish). I was unsure how far diving the same reef would go for
a week but each dive on the house reef offered new "critters".

We never did shore dives from other sites (the access roads were
marginal for the rental car because of the rain) but the general advice
was mixed on whether or not to lock the car but there was no suggestion
of the capricious vandalism reported on Bonaire. Habitat is in a gated
development (Coral Estates) and security seemed to be given more than
just lip service. Several people let their gear dry on their balcony or
patio and didn't seem to have problems with gear developing legs. The
locker room area of the dive dock was ...ah... a bit ripe after a couple
of days. In the future, I'd take my gear back to the room, too.

Overall, the experience was more positive than not and we might well go
back but if we do, there's going to be bottles of Lysol and Mr. Clean in
the bags!


Sometimes I sits and thinks and sometimes I just sits.