About Curacao

Here’s some inside, honest information you might find useful to help plan your great dive vacation in Curacao. If you need anything further, check out the Curacao Tourist Board and Curacao Guide websites.

It's also a highly diverse island in all aspects – geography, language, food, culture, architecture, flora and fauna.

One of the great things about diving with The Dive Bus is that you'll get to see plenty of the island on your way to the dive sites and beaches.

Getting to Curacao

• Go here for the Curacao International Airport ('Hato') website for full flight/carriers info.

Geography

Curacao is 180 square miles, approximately. 37 miles long by about 9 miles wide at the widest part. Highest point is Mount Christofel which is 1,239 feet exactly apparently.

Beaches

Although Curacao is out of the hurricane belt, it's in the constant path of the trade winds, bringing a lovely, much-needed relief from the warm temperatures pretty much all year round.

These winds, plus the occasional tropical storm mean, that most of the beaches are rocky or coral rubble rather than sand - apart from at hotels and other private beaches where they ship the sand in. As you head farther west and out of the wind and currents, you'll find more natural sand.

There's a description of the beach at each of The Dive Bus shore dive sites or go here for photos of some of Curacao's beaches.

Languages

Multitudinous. Dutch is the official language but Papiamentu is spoken by almost all of the locals and English is almost always spoken in most tourist-facing businesses. Papiamentu is a mixture of Spanish, Dutch, French,  African, Portuguese, English… The locals are a talented bunch.

Population

Varies depending how many cruise ships are in port and how full the hotels are, but around 170,000-ish representing approximately 50 different nationalities.

Economy

Curacao is a relatively ‘rich’ island and oil is its primary economy. Second is Finance, with Tourism in 3rd place (which explains the service in a lot of restaurants…. Top tip: never go eat when you're hungry, always go BEFORE!)

Weather & Climate:

• Pretty damn hot and gorgeous all year round

• We’re out of the hurricane belt but during hurricane season – June to November – we may get stronger winds and the occasional tropical storm. The best place to be then is underwater :o)

• The diving is good all year round. In the last 2 years, we’ve only cancelled diving on 2 days in 2 years due to unfavourable conditions.

• The hottest months are September and October when the trade winds start to drop. Humidity is high and again, the best place to be is underwater :o)

• Rainy season starts around October and November and continues through until March or so. Typically this means an hour or so of heavy rain in the mornings (usually) and cooler temperatures (but definitely not cold!). If you’ve ever been in a tropical rain storm, you’ll know how wonderful it is, how great everything smells and how green and lush everything looks. So you don’t need to worry about avoiding Curacao during the rainy season. It’s lovely.

Water temps and conditions

• Even though the trade winds are fairly consistent for the first 7 months or so of the year, the ocean is usually relatively calm with small waves close to the coast. Boat divers will find much larger waves and swells further out, but of course Dive Bus shore divers don’t have to worry about that :o)

• Prevailing winds are N/NE and the prevailing current runs East to West although they are usually mild to none. The further West you go, the milder the currents usually. On the odd occasion when the wind switches to S/SW, hang on to your hats and head out East instead :o)

• Water temperatures are usually 27/82 degrees to 30/86 degrees, although it can feel cooler than 82 in the rainy season.

Money, money, money

Local currency is the Netherlands Antilles Florin, also called Guilder and abbreviated as NAFl or ANG. Don’t bother changing your currency into NAFl; it’s usually cheaper to buy US $ which are widely accepted, with a fixed exchange rate on the island of between 1.75 – 1.80 NAFl to $1.

• Major credit cards are widely accepted although many businesses will levy a charge for using them. AmEx and non-major cards are not widely accepted, so if you’re not sure, bring more than one with you.

• Non-Dutch or Antillean ATM cards can’t be used by most businesses for payment but can be used to withdraw cash from ATMs (cash is available in US$ or NAFl).

• Travelers cheques, whilst safe and convenient, can be a bit of pain for you to use. Many businesses won’t accept them as forms of payment (although The Dive Bus does) so you will probably have to convert them into cash. Some hotels will do this for you at a price; a bank is your best bet.

Security

• Curacao is wealthier than some other Caribbean islands but it’s still relatively poor and has its share of homeless and street-folk. Generally speaking, as a tourist you won’t see many of them and you won’t be harassed like you might in places such as Jamaica for example.

• Curacao sometimes gets a bad rep for safety and security but it’s about being sensible and is no better or worse than many other places we’'ve traveled to -  – including the UK and the US!

• Crimes against the person are rare, but you wouldn'’t want to push your luck and go walking around certain areas after midnight, flashing your Rolex or your fancy camera. Common sense.

• Crimes against property are, however, less rare unfortunately. Leave your belongings unattended on the beach or your car and you’ll find they belong to someone else by the time you return. The solution to this is not to take more money out with you than you think you’ll need and keep it on you at all times. Ditto with valuables.

• If you do rent a car, it’s recommended that you leave the windows open a bit so would-be thieves don’t have to smash them to enter – then find there’s nothing to take as you took all your valuables with you.
• Some of the beaches out West are renowned for security issues. This is being addressed but even so, The Dive Bus will take a dry member of staff on certain trips for additional security. And we recommend that you don’t take anything valuable with on trips that you won’t be needing to use on the trip.

Driving

• Make sure you have good insurance and nerves of steel. The locals either drive on island time (ie. Dead slow) or like rally drivers and don’t waste time bothering too much about priorities at junctions, stopping for red lights, overtaking with on-coming traffic or on corners or hills etc etc.

• As long as you expect the unexpected and nobody to stop for you, you should be fine.

• Horns are used as a way of greeting on the island, so if you’re constantly being tooted at, it’s probably because someone thinks you’re their aunt/friend/neighbour etc as they fly by you at speed.

Prices/cost of living

• The cost of living on Curacao is pretty reasonable, especially compared to other Caribbean islands.

• A decent meal in a decent restaurant with wine or beer will be about $30-35 per person; there are quite a few restaurants where you can pay a lot less AND a lot more.

• Just about everything on the island is subject to local sales tax (called OB) of 5%. Most prices you see will exclude tax so don’t forget to add it for the purposes of calculating your budget.

• Many restaurants and some hotels also add service tax. This can be anything up to 12%. Again, double check when you book your accommodation – or before you leave a tip in a restaurant! You may end up double-tipping.

• A lot of places – including The Dive Bus – will levy a charge for using credit cards, due to the high costs incurred by the businesses for accepting them. (This is due to a very heightened sense of security to avoid fraudulent use).

Clothing

Unless you’re planning on treating yourselves to a very special meal at a fancy restaurant, you can leave your shirts, ties and cocktail dresses at home. Evening dress is smart casual and many places allow jeans and t-shirts. Many restaurants are outdoors and occasionally it gets chilly in the evenings so bring one warm/long sleeved top with you.

Island time

This is not a time zone but a mind-set. Don’t come here expecting speed and efficiency. You’re coming to this lovely Caribbean island to relax – and you’ll have to, whether you like it or not. That’s just the way it is and after a couple of days you’ll find that it’s no bad thing at all…

Activities

There’s HEAPS to do on Curacao – once you’ve finished your diving for the day of course – in fact way too much to put on this webpage. Instead, check out the local what’s on guide (K-PASA) or simply do a Google search on whatever it is you’re looking to do.

Restaurants and Bars

Again, WAY too many to list here, from cheap as chips to terribly-nice-indeed-darlings with many in between.  Check out the Big Red Restaurant Guide and look out for the hard copy of the Guide when you get out here. Any of the Dive Bus Crew will be happy to recommend places to go (or avoid) once you're here.

Electricity

Yup, we have electricity on the island. Usually 110v, US-style plugs. Some larger hotels will also have European sockets and/or adapters but don't bank on it. Bring your own just in case. Power outages are pretty rare but can last for hours when they do happen. Larger hotels and restaurants have their own back-up generators but smaller places certainly don't.

Hot water

We may have electricity on Curacao but hot water is usually only available in hotels – and not all of them, all of the time. Yup, for most of us it’s a cold water wake-up call each morning or if you hang on until later, the sun warms the water in the pipes for you :o) It’s not as bad as it sounds; most people are used to it after just a couple of days as the weather here is usually so warm.

A useless fact

Curacao is one of the few places that the Queen Mary II can dock, because of her enormous size. She often turns up here unexpectedly during the hurricane season, causing all sorts of problems for people who want to dive the Superior Producer. No-one can dive the Superior Producer when there is a cruise ship in port. Even when there isn’'t, operators must get prior permission from the Curacao Ports Authority Ship Handler to dive there.