Bonaire at Night

Two couples are sailing on the Zuiderdam in November. We will be in port at Bonaire from 2 p.m. - 11 p.m. on a Monday (if that is relevant). We have a snorkeling tour planned with Woodwind after arrival. We can't figure out why we are there until 11P. What do we do? There are no excursions listed. We do not gamble, we do not do night clubs/bars. One couple dances. I can't find anything to do except snorkeling/diving.:confused:

Welcome to Cruise Critic. You may also wish to post this on the Ports Of Call Board for Bonaire.

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=-1&f=69

Keith

Hmmmm, Bonaire and night-life don't seem to go together.

Departure time could be due anything from the tide to a typing error ;)

Follow Keith's suggestion. Folk there may be just as mystified and you might find answers disappointing, but who knows - mebbe there's a big annual carnival or somesuch.

JB :)

Just because you're IN port for a certain number of hours, doesn't mean you have to DO something the whole time!

A guidebook will help you immensely with things OTHER than water stuff!!!

Thanks for this suggestion.

Carnival sounds like fun, I haven't run across any. Thanks, I'll keep looking.

cb at sea, gosh I thought the idea of being in port was to see as much of the culture and the island as possible. I've not been on a cruise where we weren't offered something to entertain, or educate, or exercise us, or at least there was a point of being in the port during those hours. We can set on the ship when it's at sea, not when it's in port at a far off tropical island. Golly.

We have done that itinerary on the Zuiderdam a couple of times and were never in Bonaire at those times.

There is no much in that port.

I just checked your itinerary -- HAL has changed the time you are in Bonaire compared to what we did a couple of years ago.

By the way -- your cruise leaves on Nov 7 compared to what you have in your signature.

I must have been thinking of our day in Bonaire, that was bugging me. Thanks for the heads up, changed clock. I have an idea or two and if all else fails we'll just walk and explore. We just want to enjoy the island and the sights to the fullest.

Glad you got your signature corrected.

and several good restaurants in Kralenik

On the Carnival Pride in January 2016 and we will be in port from. 8 am until 11 pm. We are wondering about nighttime activities, too.

We made our cruise in November '14. The locals at Bonaire were not used to cruises staying that late (11:00 P.M.) There has been a change that is for the convenience of the cruise lines not the passengers that someone explained to us but made little sense. The local shops were used to closing around 5:00 because ships were gone by then. We strolled into town and found all the shops closed--except the one lone purveyor of sea salt products who saw people out on the streets and had the presence of mind to remain open. We spent a bunch of money in his stop to reward him. I'm hoping that as time goes on the locals will get the idea they can make money by entertaining cruisers in those later hours.

I want to say that I arranged an extraordinary snorkeling excursion in the afternoon. It was with a small family owned operation that was far more professional, knowledgable, had better equipment--better in every way than the excursion people ships often employ and they served us supper which they called a snack on the return back to the dock. Bonaire is working hard and doing a good job at re-establishing the reefs that were destroyed in a recent hurricane. Sorry, I got carried away, they areWoodwind Sailing & Guided Snorkel. Look them up on Trip Advisor and google them. We had never experienced a ship arriving more than an hour late to port so didn't expect the privately booked excursion to wait on us. The town tourism office was in contact with the ship and the vendors so they were patiently waiting for us when we arrived.

Three restaurants we like in Kralendijk are Wils, La Guernica and It Rains Fishes.