Buddy Dive Resort

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.

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.

The provided gear lockers and locks need a little love, but our gear was safe and secure every morning. There are two hangers provided at each room so I would suggest bringing a bit of cave line for a laundry line. I can’t say enough nice things about the excellent staff at the dive shop, front desk, and rinse tank area. Breakfast was included with our package and was very nice, well stocked, clean, and always enjoyable. With the exception of a single bad experience at Blennie’s, undercooked food and very slow service, it was an excellent stay and we look forward to spending another month with buddy dive. The inability to select a room when making a reservation feels like I’m living in 1980 again, but not a deal killer. As is mentioned in many reviews the WiFi is complete trash in the rooms, you have to sit at the front desk or the restaurants for a reliable connection. Were are here to dive but lack of decent WiFi is a bit lazy. Sadly for the diving and the atmosphere that we have always enjoyed on the island cruise boats appear to be the future of Bonaire. Almost every day we were here there was a boat in port and a fleet of golf carts on the island.

We come to this island for 3 months at a time and we go here frequently on a "day pass". It's inexpensive, and allows you access to the beach, the pool, the bar/restaurant, and the easy-access steps into the ocean (where you can snorkel). Although (regretfully) i can no longer dive, this place seems to run an awesome dive shop. We have seen them take out people who are in wheelchairs, people with missing limbs, very old folks, anyone with a C card who wants to dive. If you can be helped into the water, they will get you there. The staff for the beach and the bar/restaurant are great. (Shout out to Marco, the bartender who's been there for years). It is a very pleasant and welcoming experience.

This is a beautiful resort, with a lot of great services, so I'll break down my review point by point as some things worked wonderfully and some didn't. I know it can be hard to pick a dive resort from so far away, so I want to make sure people have good info. -Resort grounds - really beautiful and in really good shape! -Room - comfortable and well stocked. Everything worked. However, our room didn't have sufficient A/C (a/c unit only in bedroom so living room was very hot) but our friend's room was totally fine, so maybe don't get the west-facing rooms that get very hot. -airport shuttle - They showed up on time, but didn't have the right list of guests, so didn't have enough vans for everyone. They did sort this out and make several laps, so no one got left behind, it just took a little longer. -Front desk staff- great across the board, solved many problems, spoke many languages. -Reservation staff- two thumbs down. We made our reservation in April for a December trip, asked for a week dive's package plus two days....and they just only booked us for a week. The invoices were so confusingly written with lots of notes about "Additional days" at the bottom, that we couldn't really tell what we were booked for or not. So we showed up and had no room or truck reserved for the first 2 days! Be very careful and check your reservations multiple times! However, the front desk staff was able to find us a room so we did have a place to stay, thank goodness, and they gave us a discount for the inconvenience. -Truck rental - these trucks were in way better condition than I was expecting and we had no problems! Loved the drive through tank-pickup and gear washing station. Very handy. Be aware: you can't leave any valuables in truck while diving so prepare to navigate without your phone unless you have a diving proof case for it. -Restaurants - Ingridients was a bit underwhelming for the price. Good service but very slow, good food but tiny portions. Our friend has celiac disease/gluten free, and they were able to accommodate him without any contamination, which was a win! They really went out of their way to find stuff for him. Blennies was way better than expected--very good food there and wonderful staff, and a gorgeous location on the beach. Loved the swim up bar! -Dive shop - dive shop people were great! Knowledgable, lots of people to help, well organized for how busy the location was. Great English speakers. We did one day on the dive boat and the group was big (12 people, one dive guide, one divemaster) but the guide was safe and dive briefing was good. Overall, the resort was in beautiful shape (does match the pictures!), the service was well rounded and good, and despite a couple of glitches, I would stay there again!

Buddy Dive is the perfect, fairly spartan, resort for divers! For the price you get so much! Unlimited nitrox, that is plentiful and easy to get to. A nice dive shop, solid breakfast, a nice home reef, incredible dive staff, charming restaurant staff. We also got a truck and dives. The rooms are clean, and have very good AC and tile floors which is great. They lose a star only because these are not super classy accommodations, no WiFi in rooms, only one TV that got one channel (lol), and their two t restaurants on premise were just okay, with their fancy restaurant overcharging for water. So, five stars for diving, four stars for accommodations.