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Hello. DH & I jumped on a great last minute cruise deal to the Caribbean. We are visiting the ABCs. We looked at Princess' excursions in Curacao and nothing looks appealing.

What do you recommend that we can do & get to within walking distance or public transportation?

We don't Scuba dive or Snorkel.

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On our most recent visit in January we bought a day pass thru Resort For a Day at the Santa Barbara resort (they have a couple of hotels to choose from). The pass was $114 US each but you just put down $20 per person and then pay the balance at the resort. It gave us all inclusive access to the resort for the day (so, all the food & drink you want, plus water sports, towels, and access to the pool and beach/beach chairs were included) and included round trip transfers. The resort was lovely and we enjoyed a relaxing day.

 

You can also just wander around downtown just on the other side of the floating bridge; it's such a quaint little area! We have also previously visited the Dolphin Academy and gone swimming with the dolphins. You can book through their website - what an experience that was!

 

Edited to add - since you will be visiting Bonaire as well, if you are undecided on what to do there, HIGHLY recommend renting a golf cart from Bonaire Cruisers and touring the island yourself. We did this on our New Year's cruise and it was awesome; such a fun way to see the entire island on your own time. Look them up on Facebook or http://www.bonairecruisers.com

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Ginny -- thank you for your tips. How far is the floating bridge from the cruise pier? Which side of the road do they drive on in Bonaire?

 

The floating bridge is not far from the pier - maybe a 10 minute walk. In Bonaire they drive on the same side of the road as us North Americans. When you rent the cart they provide you with a map with landmarks indicated so you don't get lost (not that you really can, lol, it's a small island!) and I also had downloaded an island map so I was able to use GPS along with the map to make sure we were headed in the right direction. It was a lot of fun!

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We were there 2 weeks ago and went to Mambo beach. Ended up sharing a cab and I think the fare was around $6 each. Mambo beach is a beautiful man made beach. Water was pristine, and the sand was spotless. There are numerous vendors renting chairs, and tons of spotless restaurants to grab a bite. We walked towards Aloha beach bar on the left and rented a chair for $10 each, which by the way, came with a free bottle of ice cold water. We spent a few hours on the beach got hungry so we tried the Aloha restaurant and grabbed a few really delicious Dutch treats. We had never tried Dutch food, but just about everything was deep fried, and delicious. After the beach, we walked about 10 minutes down the (safe) street and went to the aquarium, which is essentially right next door. Great exhibits, more great people and all in all one of the best stops on our cruise.

 

Curacao is one of the most beautiful islands we've ever been to, the people are wonderful, the island is spotless and completely civilized.

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On our most recent visit in January we bought a day pass thru Resort For a Day at the Santa Barbara resort (they have a couple of hotels to choose from). The pass was $114 US each but you just put down $20 per person and then pay the balance at the resort. It gave us all inclusive access to the resort for the day (so, all the food & drink you want, plus water sports, towels, and access to the pool and beach/beach chairs were included) and included round trip transfers. The resort was lovely and we enjoyed a relaxing day.

 

You can also just wander around downtown just on the other side of the floating bridge; it's such a quaint little area! We have also previously visited the Dolphin Academy and gone swimming with the dolphins. You can book through their website - what an experience that was!

 

Edited to add - since you will be visiting Bonaire as well, if you are undecided on what to do there, HIGHLY recommend renting a golf cart from Bonaire Cruisers and touring the island yourself. We did this on our New Year's cruise and it was awesome; such a fun way to see the entire island on your own time. Look them up on Facebook or http://www.bonairecruisers.com

 

 

 

Glad to hear the great review on Bonaire carts. We have booked this for our March cruise. We have never been to the ABC Islands either so looking forward to it.

 

 

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Glad to hear the great review on Bonaire carts. We have booked this for our March cruise. We have never been to the ABC Islands either so looking forward to it.

 

 

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It was so much fun! Seriously the highlight of our cruise. Download the maps.me app and then you can download the Bonaire map so you'll be able to follow along on GPS (you don't have to have your phone's data turned on to access it) - it helped us in a couple of spots where we were a little iffy on where we were (Bonaire Cruisers will give you a map with marked landmarks but we still managed to get a little confused, lol). We only did the southern portion of the island which took us about 2.5 hours if I recall correctly. Make sure you bring your driver's license! And pay the $100 deposit in cash if you can - if you put it on a credit card there could be a couple of days hold until it is released back to you. Have fun!

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It was so much fun! Seriously the highlight of our cruise. Download the maps.me app and then you can download the Bonaire map so you'll be able to follow along on GPS (you don't have to have your phone's data turned on to access it) - it helped us in a couple of spots where we were a little iffy on where we were (Bonaire Cruisers will give you a map with marked landmarks but we still managed to get a little confused, lol). We only did the southern portion of the island which took us about 2.5 hours if I recall correctly. Make sure you bring your driver's license! And pay the $100 deposit in cash if you can - if you put it on a credit card there could be a couple of days hold until it is released back to you. Have fun!

 

 

 

Thank you for all the great tips! I’m getting excited [emoji38]

 

 

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