My fiancée and I will be visiting Curaçao for our honeymoon from January 16–23, and we’ll be staying at Baoase. We’re trying to plan a couple of excursions/activities and would love some input from people who know the island!

Beaches / Boat Excursion:

One of the things we originally wanted to do was book a private boat charter to Klein Curaçao. The beach and water look absolutely beautiful, but after looking into the distance and travel time, we’re wondering if it would be better to spend that time exploring some of the beaches around the main island instead.

Our main priority is finding those perfect Caribbean beaches with crystal clear water and great scenery. Would you recommend making the trip to Klein Curaçao, booking a private charter to beach hop along the coast, or just picking one really beautiful beach and spending the day there? We’re open to any suggestions, especially if there are beaches on the main island that offer a similar experience to Klein Curaçao.

Snorkeling:

We also want to do some snorkeling. Tugboat Beach is definitely on our list because we’d love to see the sunken tugboat, but we’re not sure if that’s enough snorkeling on its own.

We’d love the opportunity to snorkel with sea turtles if there’s a good spot for that. Otherwise, we’d love somewhere with plenty fish, coral, and marine life.

Are there any particular snorkeling spots you’d recommend? Would it make sense to combine Tugboat with a few other spots in one excursion, or would you recommend doing them separately?

Really just looking to make the most of our time in Curaçao without spending unnecessary time traveling between places when there might be equally beautiful options closer by.

Thanks in advance for any recommendations! We’re looking forward to visiting!

We are here through Friday morning and have seen gorgeous fish but no seas turtles. Are they only in the south?

hey! my fiance and i are planning our honeymoon and are strongly considering going here. after a lot of research on this subreddit, i’ve come to the conclusion that all inclusive isn’t the way to go if you want to truly experience the island.

wanting something semi romantic, chill, and with easy access to excursions and places to eat. we will be renting a car.

i have been doing my own research in places to stay but i have come across so many and i just need some help narrowing it down. we are flying form ATL so, flights will take away about $1,300 of our budget.

we are open to staying anywhere from 5-7 days 🩵

eta: beach access would be nice but it’s not our top priority to lay on the beach all day (i get super bored with that lol!)

Looking for a quiet beach that I can do some filming at with no other people around

Moon over Curaçao tonight.
Btw this is my pool in the foreground.

Hello everyone!

My company is taking me and my coworkers to your beautiful island for our end of year celebration! It’s gonna be 30 people. I had a few questions I was hoping you guys could help us with.

We’re staying in Mambo Beach sector. We are wondering what are the most affordable food options for tourists. We are not picky at all just want to make sure it is appropriate for tourists and for the volume of people we will be bringing all at once. Checking online we see that the average price of a dish in a restaurant is around 30 dollars.

Thank you for any information and tips, can’t wait to get there!

Can anyone recommend a decent electronics store on the island? I’m looking for a good quality soundbar in particular. I’m trying to avoid La Curacao. Thanks in advance!

We happen to be on your beautiful island during the match against Panama and I would love to get my hands on three tickets. Online I cannot find them for sale yet, neither on the Curacao Association website nor on the official CONCACAF website. Anyone has an insight on the ticketsales for this match in Willemstad on the 13th of November?

Just wondering if that’s a safe area to stay for a week for a solo traveler since it’s more of an isolated area.

I read about a string of burglaries in the summer and wasn’t sure if that was an anomaly or if they typically target that area given it’s less developed.

Any pools/ running tracks available for public use? Are they super busy

Anyone know what type of wall outlets the Marriott has? Also not as important but do they have Diet Coke in the grab and go shop 😂😂

Both of you are cool. I leave tomorrow at noon tomorrow I am hoping you guys are at Mambo - pls text me. I need some American energy here.

Looking for recs for places to get bitterballen and poffertjes!

Hola a todos!

Estoy planeando visitar Curacao por primera vez en mi vida en primera semana o segunda semana de diciembre.

Cómo será el clima ahí? Sé que es un periodo de lluvias, pero todo el día va a llover? No podremos aprovechar las lindas playas con sol?

Gracias!

Hi, I would like to find stores where they sell arts and craft supplies. I feel like google isn't helping me.

Going around December 15th for my bday. I’m SO TORN. Turning 30 and it’ll just be my fiancé and I. I’m torn because I love leisure and relaxing and swimming all day so Turks wins there. But I love experiences and excursions too.. not too many but having a variety of things to see and do is super cool imo so obviously Curacao wins there. My only hesitations about curacao are the rocky beaches.. concerned it’ll make my beach day experiences not enjoyable. And then I’ve heard curacao can be very European and racist even though the island is Caribbean. If we go to curacao we’d actually fly into Bonaire first and do 2-3 nights there and 3-4 nights in Curacao.

I’ve been to Saint Martin twice this year and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it there. I’d honestly just go back if it wasn’t for my fiancé insisting we spend money seeing new things which makes sense. What do you guys think?! Please help!! I need to buy flights like… today!!!

For those of you playing along. View from the flight in yesterday

I’m really having a hard time with this app and we also have children in our group. Do we need to do this? We have our immigration cards but were hoping to expedite our arrival because we have toddlers.

I recently spent 10 nights in the luxury suites (seaview suite) at the kontiki. this is an honest review of the resort.

pros:
-the room (seaview suite) was very nice inside. very clean and sleek. nice shower and double sink vanity. the private pool and balcony were also very nice. I appreciated the level of storage available as well as having a safe in the room.

-free parking onsite

-housekeeping came twice a day most days. once in the afternoon for cleaning/linens. then again in the evenings for turndown service when they’d leave bottles of still water.

-they provide towels for the pool.

-luxury suites guests have a VIP section at cabana beach that comes with towels, water, and fruit everyday. they reserve the first two rows of chairs for guests until 11am. I always got a front row chair even when showing up later in the day. their lunch menu here is pretty good for the price as well.

-it is easy to set up a credit card to charge things to your room versus carrying your wallet around (if they allow it for your room type) except you can’t 100% trust that it works properly.

-the resort has an app with pretty much any kind of information you’d want to know (will expand on this in the cons) and you can also keep track of expenses if you’re charging to the room.

disclaimer before cons - I am not a “luxury” traveler. this was my first international trip and it was for my honeymoon. I will fully admit that I fell victim to the aesthetics of the resort online and in hindsight should have done much more research. this was an incredibly expensive trip for me personally, so I expected that level of experience (resort alone was about $8,500 USD).

cons:
-the communication from the resort is awful. all I received upon check-in was my room key and a map of the property. the front desk does not explain anything up front and this led to finding certain things out by chance or accident multiple times. I mention they have an app with great information, but it doesn’t explain the important stuff. we did not know until day 2 or 3 that we should have been going to the VIP section of cabana beach, therefore we had been paying for things that should’ve been included. the staff at the resort are not very friendly at all, but maybe that is a cultural difference on my part. also, our room was not ready upon arrival despite getting to the resort past check-in time. they awarded us $150 compensation to go eat lunch, which was great, except the restaurant stopped serving lunch about 8min after this. it was a crazy rush to try and eat with the extremely slow service while also receiving zero instructions on where to go or what to do. lastly, we tried one single time to order room service, and it was a disaster. the tv in the room displays this elaborate breakfast menu that if you order by a certain time the day before, they’ll deliver it to your room. we contacted the resort via whatsapp as instructed and they said everything was good to go. then they replied hours later and needed us to resubmit. no problem, everything checked out. scheduled it for 8am the next morning. 8:30am rolls around and no breakfast. I contact them via whatsapp only to be told that menu is not available and we need to reorder. we place another order, and what arrived over an hour after originally planned was about 2/3 of what we asked for, and the rest was a random assortment of things we did not order. no silverware. no napkins. plus it’s an extra $20 for room service. needless to say we did not attempt that again.

-the restaurants were not good. I am not a picky eater and don’t often dine “luxury” but for the prices, the food was mediocre at best. I have come to learn the island time is a lot slower pace than what americans are used to, but service times were terrible. it’d often be 15-20min of sitting before anyone would take a drink order. then that much time again before ordering. even longer to get the food, and it was almost always lukewarm or cool by the time you got it. don’t even mention the check, you basically have to flag someone down to take care of it. you can’t assume that by them asking your room number that you’re covered. made that mistake one day and left after eating. was met with hostility later that afternoon at VIP cabanas for “leaving without paying” even though we had treated that meal no different than others when we were asked for our room number. I was told to contact the front desk and that’s when I learned my account had been closed without notice (we had been charging to the room for days and had a balance accrued. they closed the account without informing us beforehand we needed to put a card on file for charging to the room.) all in all, we dined on the resort as little as possible.

-if you are looking for a quiet resort, this is NOT it. this is where better research should’ve been done on my part. on wednesdays, fridays, and sundays, there is live music (club style) on the beach. if you are staying in the seaview suites, this is right outside your balcony and it is concert-level noise until 12-1am at least. walls and floor vibrating, absolutely debilitating and makes sense why they provide you with earplugs in your vanity kit. aside from this, there is always some kind of music playing on the beach. you won’t have the ability to sit and enjoy the scenery at all.

-expanding on the noise - the resort is currently under major construction. every morning at exactly 8am, the construction would start with saws, hammers, you name it. right outside the luxury suites and with the tall ceilings and full tile walls/floors, you’re hearing 100% of that noise. this is also true for guests around you. we never heard noise from people above/below/beside us, but noise outside the room is very loud. kids screaming early in the morning, drunk people out at 3-4am, you will hear it all.

-it was extremely rare to get hot water in the rainfall shower. you’d get lukewarm at best and by the time your shower was over it was pretty cold. there is a handheld sprayer that would get much hotter for some reason, and occasionally the rainfall one would be enjoyable. for the most part we took lukewarm showers the whole trip.

-minor picky con, but still - only a tiny mini bar in the room with a skinny wine cooler that we used for water bottles when we could find some. I get this is to encourage dining on the resort but you cannot take any leftovers etc back to your room because aside from no place to keep them, there is also no sort of kitchen appliance on resort to reheat them.

curacao is a beautiful place, and I would consider returning to the island, but will never consider staying at this resort again. we saw some extremely beautiful places off the resort that would’ve suited us much more. the people on the island are extremely kind and hospitable. it was very safe to travel even at night, and overall it was a wonderful country to visit. the kontiki is only worth the money for a very niche crowd of people.

My friend and I had to book two separate flights on two separate airlines (NYC-Curacao on JetBlue, Curacao -Bonaire on Windward Island Airways), and have a 1h30min transfer. I'm having a hard time finding out if we'll need to leave the departures area and go through security once we get there, or do anything for immigration/passport control. If so, we're wondering how long these typically take and whether or not they are easy to get to.

Kind of a lot in one question, but would really appreciate any insight! Thanks.

Bon dia, tur hende!
Mi ta buska un persona na Kòrsou ku sa prepará kuminda tradishonal Surinamés, Havanés òf Indo-Chines pa un reunion di famia hopi speshal.
Nos ta spera mas di 50 miembro di famia, pero mi ke tin kuminda sufisiente pa te 100 persona.
Pa mi, kuminda ta muchu mas ku algu pa yena stoma. Kuminda ta trese hende huntu. E ta hasi nos kòrda tempu bunita, konta storia, hari, papia i disfrutá di kompania di otro. Tin sabor ku ta kòrda nos di nos infansia, nos mayornan i nos tradishonnan.
Mi ke ku e reunion aki ta un dia yen di alegria, kariño i bon rekuerdonan pa tur generashon di nos famia.
P’esei mi ta buska un persona ku tin amor di berdat pa kushina. Un hende ku ta pone su kurason den loke e ta prepará, ku ta sinti orguyo ora hende ta disfrutá di su kuminda, i ku sa ku un bon plato por trese hopi sonrisa na mesa.
Mi ta pensa riba platunan manera nasi, bami, roti, pom, saté, moksi meti, galiña i otro kumindanan tradishonal ku tin e sabor auténtiko di kushina Surinamés, Havanés i Indo-Chines.
Mi no ta buska un restorant ni un kompania di catering. Mi ta buska un kushinero òf kushinera ku tin eksperensia, bon man pa kushina i, mas importante ainda, pashon pa loke e ta hasi.
Mi mes por kumpra tur ingrediente ku ta nesesario. Nos por papia trankilamente tokante e menú, preparashon, pago i tur otro areglo.
Si bo konosé un persona asina, òf si abo mes ta e persona ei, por fabor manda mi un mensahe privá. Mi lo apresiá bo rekomendashon di kurason.
Un palabranan chikí tokante idioma:
Na nos mundu tin hopi idioma i hopi kultura bunita. Kada idioma tin su propio historia, balor i manera di ekspresá sentimento. Nos no tur ta papia mesun idioma, pero nos por trata otro ku rèspèt. Mi ta pidi amablemente pa respetá e idioma ku e outor skohe pa skirbi su mensahe. Si bo no ta komprondé un idioma, semper tin oportunidat pa siña algu nobo. Loke ta konta aki ta e intenshon di e mensahe i e deseo pa trese hende huntu.
Mi ta gradisí tur hende ku por yuda mi haña e persona adekuá pa hasi e reunion di famia aki un eksperensia bunita i inolvidabel.
Masha danki pa boso tempu, boso amabilidat i boso yudansa.
Ku hopi kariño i rèspèt,
Saludos kordial!