We loved Curacao. You should have a great trip!

If you get a chance spend the day at Porto Marie beach club. We loved it and the snorkeling was decent. If you get a chance go to west punt and snorkel around those beaches. It's really great! Lunch at the Kura Hulanda Lodge is a plus!

Peace, Greenie

The beach hopping tour we are looking at goes to Porto Marie, Santa Cruz, Groot Knip, Playa Forti and Shete Boca. Lunh is at Jaanchie's. I think that covers the West Side.

Sad part is we are only there 7 days and that's apparently not enough time to see/do everything.

Definitely do a boat/snorkeling excursion as much of the beauty of the island is the water and I did not see that on your list. If it was me I would do more on water and less on land, the best part of Curacao is the beaches/water and the town of Willemstad which you really can do yourself without a tour. We went on a traditional type of schooner for a snorkeling trip which we enjoyed, goes right out of Willemstad, sorry, can't recall the name. It seems like you don't want to rent a car but if you can reconsider, the driving is easy, on the right like the US and the roads are in good condition and having a car makes it so easy to get around to all the beaches and restaurants. Definitely visit the Kura Hulanda complex in town, it's a very interesting restored group of buildings including a musuem, hotel, restaurants. We loved the Astrolab Observatory for dinner -- the outside patio is really nice.

My wife and I have been there twice and are going back late April. This island is awesome!!! You will love it. We've done the organized tours and we've rented a car and have ventured out on our own. As long as you get a good map (check that - very good map in english) and limit your driving to daylight hours, you'll enjoy renting a car and driving yourself. Stick with day-light because the streets are not marked very well at all. Take a day trip on the Insulinde sailing ship for a snorkeling trip, which you can arrange yourself downtown, and do the beach tour yourself too. During the day, there are buses (mini-vans for about $1-2) on the main roads to get to downtown. When there are no cruise ships in town, downtown gets real quiet by about 9PM.

Also, we recommend the ostrich farm and aloe plantation.

Really an interesting eclectic island.

Mike

The best snorkeling is on the WEST END by far but you need a rental car. Shuttles from hotels are not a means of transport for dining, snorkeling or anything else other than a very few do airport pick-up. If you go to the Curacao thread you will see a number of restaurant suggestions including mine based upon 3 visits though last trip was Dec. 2006. But others have gone since and most are still quite good. I would avoid eating at Ft. Nassau, Portofino at the Marriott (dinner) and Rutt's Hut (?) we had a lousy lunch there. But there are 6-8 very good dinner places but the prices are a bit high ranging from $80-$130 for 2 persons with tax/tip.

We don't rent cars on Islands we are not familar with. Maybe next trip. I've already booked the beach tour and an East/West Island tour with Actief. Actually, I've had the hardest time booking tours. Most of the internet sites I found for Curacao many never responded to my e-mail inquiries or the e-mail address is no longer valid.

It took us 2 years to book this trip. We are excited to get there.

You say it is difficult to find tour info about Curacao online. Did you check out www.curacao-vacation.com? They seem to have quite some stuff and you can book online right away too. Also www.actief-curacao.com is quite informative but there you can not book online (as far as I saw).

Thanks, but we went on our trip back in May. Yes, we did go with Actief for 2 tours since it was difficult to find any other companies to book with on-line.

Ok, well I don't think www.curacao-vacation.com has been online that long, but maybe it will fill a void. Did you enjoy your tours?