Buddy Dive Resort

Delightful staff and for a diver, it doesn't get easier or more convenient of an experience. The reef is nice, different than what I expected putting it up against the Red Sea. Different things to see essentially. Red Sea would be more colorful in hard corals and clams while Bonaire has large gorgonians and massive pipe corals where you simply don['t see in Egypt. A very nice 12 day stay. Red Sea would be more of a highly restrictive dive environment. Buddy dive is the polar opposite. Regulation and restriction is at a absolute minimum. Not unsafe, just wonderfully open and free for an AOW diver to simply just come and do his thing. The only negative which almost every hotel falls short on is for longer stays, the beds simply are never comfortable enough. I will return to Buddy Dive when traveling to dive on Bonaire in the future, there is no reason to stay anywhere else. Brock Seals

This was our third visit to Buddy Dive and sadly our last. The location to dive sites both north and south is great and the tank drive through is convenient to shore dive. The room was great with a good view and was cleaned well daily. The bigger issue is with the majority of the staff here. The front desk and 2 of the restaurant servers were the only staff that were friendly and helpful. The bar staff was basically non existent and it was a chore to get any type of service. We didn’t do any boat dives but our limited experience with several dive shop staff was not friendly and even rude at times. It seemed since we were not with a big group or boat diving that we were an inconvenience to deal with. We don’t expect over the top service but basic friendliness and not avoiding eye contact to serve you should be a minimum.

There’s no Internet access unless you go to the restaurant and sit down, which was deplorable. And a warning to divers if that’s your reason for going there, the reef has suffered a lot in recent years, probably due to lionfish and there’s very little to see when you’re diving except for a turtle here and there and a lot of little fish Nothing big to see I’m not planning on going back.

Ruime kamer direct aan het riff met goede duik en snorkel opties. Tevens 2 restaurants met 1 bar. Meerdere plekken om te chillen in of uit de zon met vriendelijke personeel. Enige minpuntje is dat de kamers wel wat aandacht verdienen alles werkt en is schoon maar is duidelijk vaker gebruikt

Our group of three couples recently stayed in a three-bedroom apartment at the Buddy Dive Resort. While the resort itself is located on a beautiful expanse of ocean-front property, the customer service needs an entire overhaul. I think they have so many hospitality “interns” coming every six months, there’s absolutely no consistency in service. The resort prides itself on being “cashless” but the room charges/billing process is a complete disaster. Our group was on a meal plan with coupons for dinners, lunches and drinks. Not ONE server applied any of these meal/drink coupons properly over seven days. There were so many rules of what you could/couldn’t use them for – none of them communicated to us before hand or consistent from meal to meal. The managers don’t seem to communicate with the restaurant at all. The food is average at best. The pizza in particular left a lot to be desired. Little cheese. Burnt crust. Very few toppings of choice. Perhaps the biggest Buyer Beware: the Fish and Chips. Five people ordered it and all five dishes were undercooked, making all our lunches inedible. The guided dives were extremely overcrowded with guides doing just the minimal work required of them. The apartment was generally good but the living area, kitchen and downstairs bathroom were hot and humid throughout our stay because the AC units are only in the bedrooms. And speaking of the downstairs bathroom, the shower leaked extensively because the doors weren’t installed properly. The pools were filthy every day as were the chairs around the pool. Surprisingly, the rental trucks were actually in pretty good shape and proved to be life-savers in terms of getting around the island easily. There are numerous other dive resorts around Bonaire that offer better accommodations, food and beverage, and customer service. Don’t spend your money (or try to use your meal coupons) here.

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