Buddy Dive Bonaire Resort

Great resort! We came for our Open Water certification, and the dive instructor was wonderful. Extremely well laid out resort, which makes shore diving, boat dives, courses, or relaxing and staring at the ocean with a glass of wine under the stars all so easy. Not fancy, but very low key and great staff.Diving and sea life were outstanding !We will be back!

We had a great trip. You guys are awesome and Buddy Dive was good. We’ve been before so we knew what to expect. I think it is a good dive resort for the value. People just need to know that it isn’t a luxury resort and that all of the diving is self serve even on the boats. So if you are expecting assistance with your equipment, this isn’t the place for you. The staff were all super friendly and the diving on the house reef was better than the average house reef. The accommodation was comfortable and clean but basic. The food in the restaurants was good. We’d go again.

Buddy's was the first place we ever stayed on Bonaire and we've simply never found a reason to change, over ten years and numerous trips later. The diving is as easy as you could ever want, between the roll-out-of-bed-and-fall-in at Buddy's Reef to the drive through tank service for exploring the island to the boat dives schedule. The staff is always helpful and friendly, no matter what. The conditions in Bonaire are suitable for all skill levels, and a great place to get your bottom time in to help your experience.

An awesome scuba diving experience. I went in October and the water was clear and warm. Saw big eels, sea horses, nudibranchs, sea snakes, and an octopus. The Hilma Hooker dive site was one of my favorites because it was a nice wreck dive with lots of corals growing on the sides. We saw 2 large lobsters there. The salt pier was also a nice site with corals growing along the wooden beams holding up the pier and large schools of fish. Even just diving off the pier at the dive resort was a good dive with lots of coral and fish to see. The dive staff were very nice and helpful. The dive shop offered a variety of dives such as boat dives, night and fluorescent dives, and shore dives. I rented all my gear from the resort and it worked well and was in good condition.The accommodations were clean and had decent amenities. There was a kitchen so we got some groceries and made lunches in the room. There was also internet access that was strong enough for me to do school work. However, the focus was more on diving than the rooms or on land activities. The food from the resort was alright and I only really ate breakfast there. I would definitely recommend going out to eat downtown as there were more options and better food. We rented a truck so on the last day, we toured the island and saw flamingos at the salt fields south of the island. We also saw a small lighthouse and historical slave huts.Overall this trip was very enjoyable for me. I was an intermediate diver at the time of the trip and got my advanced open water and nitrox diving certifications while on the trip.

I really enjoyed my time at Buddy Dive Resort.But the first room we got at the resort were horrible! It was like a concrete bunker with no sunlight at all. We then asked if we could change room, which we could, we just had to wait a few hours so they had a chance to make it ready for us.The second room we got which we stayed a week in was just perfect. View over the pool area and the ocean, afternoon sun on the balcony, great bed, great kitchen and a nice clean bathroom.We made our own breakfast every morning, we also made dinner there every other evening to save some money. Perfect for us.The resorts barbecue evening was great and well worth the money, lots of grilled meat and fish to choose from. Fresh and clean.The shore diving was fun and easy, even for beginners like us. We had only done about 40 dives so far.We bought a book at the dive shop at Buddy Dive. I can highly recommend that book, it included all the shore diving spots with explanations for example on how and where to get in the water, what could be expected to see and if there were any known difficulties on a certain dive spot, for example currents, sharp rocks and so on.Buy the book and make the diving easier to enjoy is my suggestion, it cost somewhere around $20.We saw alot of marine life that was new for us. Several large green Morays and my best memory from Bonaire was a curious gigant manta that came up very close to us several times. Wish I had a camera for that.We also lots of large parrots fish, they where seen on almost every dive. Puffers, really large ones and several trunkfish.What I didn't like was our first room, we didn't spend any time there but just the thought of living there for a week is not fun. But the staff is very helpful and seems to do everything they can to make the guests satisfied.One negative thing was that our beach shorts got stolen from our pick up truck at the Karpata dive site. So don't leave any stuff of value in the car! We brought all our stuff with us down to the shore and what we couldn't bring with us in the water we hide near the exit point from the dive.Bonaire is a small island and Buddy Dives location near the main road makes it easy to go back to the resort to pick up full tanks of air or just to have lunch before you go out diving again.

Diving in Bonaire is so easy and comfortable. The water is around 80 degrees F all year round. There are dive sites all around the island, marked with a yellow rock near the road, and a yellow buoy at the site. Buddy Dive Resort provides a truck that will seat four people along with the accommodations. The shore diving is unsurpassed, but if you want more, they also have a fleet of boats that will take you to sites not easily accessible from shore. Buddy dive provides breakfast daily, and has a restaurant on site for other meals. The rooms have kitchens in them as well, if you want to cook your own meals. Buddy Dive resort also has a great house reef, with a coral restoration site, a small wreck, and several "hoops" you can swim through to test your buoyancy.. You can see beautiful seascapes, the wreck nicknamed the "Hilma Hooker" and all kinds of marine life, such as Trumpet fish, Barracuda, Morey eels, garden eels, lobster and slipper lobster, and small critters such as hermit crabs and the lettuce leaf sea slug. It's the kind of resort you will want to return to again and again.

Our accommodations were in a 3 bedroom with 5 people. The space was tight, but comfortable. There was a room on the first floor shared by 2 people with twin beds. The bathroom was a main floor bathroom where the kitchen and dining/living/tv area were located. There was a balcony off from the living area with a dining table for 6. Upstairs there were 2 bedrooms with attached bathrooms. Each room had small balconies. Internet service was strong.A simple buffet breakfast was included every morning. The beach bar had a nice selection of food like coconut shrimp, tuna, tacos, sandwiches and salads.We also got a truck from the dive resort to drive around the island. Driving and shopping downtown was fun. On the last day, we enjoyed some sightseeing. Went to the slave huts, the flamingo sanctuary, and the rum distillery. Wish I had bought more rum! The resort also has a little shop off from the dive center. We rented our dive equipment from the dive shop. Be sure to bring you own batteries as theirs are expensive. Otherwise, prices are reasonable.The main draw is the scuba diving! The location is centrally located to a lot of the dive sites and diving from the resort itself is enjoyable. We had about 14 dives in 6 days. Others in our group had many more, but that was good for us. We got to see lots of different fish. Really enjoyed seeing the seahorses. The phosphorescent night dive was a fun experience. Highly recommend this as most places don't offer and the colors there are great.

Buddy dive was great !Our room was actually a suite and had a seperate bedroom , living room and kitchenette .The breakfast was sufficent to fill the belly with the typical resort buffet style set-up.The coffee was good and strong, just like I needed in the early A.M.Having the drive and dive package was fantastic, and the drive-up tank staion was nice.They didn't fiil them and you waited, just had enough tanks available to swap out.The rules were 2 tanks each time, but I aske for 3 and they were cool with that.The bar was a nice outdoor gazebo style and they served a decent (although expensive) dinner.The diving was good and I really enjoyed the freedom to go where I pleased and dive as I wanted.The photography oppurtunitys were typical Carribean fish stuff with fairly healthy reefs,plentiful reef fish , Wide angle,not much macro or large fish thoughEXCEPT.. the house reef at night has a group of Tarpon that live to hang out feeding on critters shining in your lights.. Great for Photo ops !!We did a couple night dives and the resort made sure that we had tanks available as we asked .They were reasonable priced, had pony bottles for rent ($7 a day ) and went out of thier way to accomidate us.If I go back to Bonaire, I would definetly go to Buddy dive resort again.