Buddy Dive Resort

I booked this place as an RCI exchange thinking I would be able to dive and stay in the resort. But there was a kids diving camp that week and the dive center was fully booked, so we had to find another dive shop instead. The resort is old, but the staff is really nice. Ingredients restaurant had good food. Blennie's restaurant and bar had so so food, but the drinks were decent. Wish there was screens in on my door and window to keep the mosquitoes out. But the thing that completely ruined the stay for me was the cockroaches in the kitchen we saw twice. We washed our dishes, didn't leave them dirty, cleaned the counters and didn't leave open food out.

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.

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.