I am writing this from Den Laman, our last night in Bonaire. We have been here two weeks. The rooms are comfortable (except for the furniture in the LR; truly awful), the views from the ocean front rooms are gorgeous. The ocean view rooms have a better view of the parking lot, but if you lean waaay out you can see the water. Sort of. Another reviewer mentioned the office staff and the way the maids made the beds/ both comments are true. Sheets were not tucked in on top (too short) and we woke up on the mattress pad. Also the woman in the front office seemed very nice but rather demeaning, answering questions with sort of a "you should know this already" attitude. It got to the point where I would not interact with her, let my dive buddy (a man) work with her. Internet was intermittent; from the ocean front rooms extremely bad, from the rooms in the back of the hotel the connection was better, assuming they had it turned on.
We dove with Bonaire Dive and Adventure for the second year. I totally enjoyed the dive staff; they went out of their way to help me, to the point of carrying tanks and lifting my tank and BC out of the water so I could climb the ladder. Both years we got to the point of wanting to adopt them and take them home. On busy days the boat was very crowded, handled well but boat is too small for a group of 15 divers. We did mostly boat diving, also doing the Bari Reef in front of the dive shop a few times. Getting out of the water in a surge was hard; banged up my camera on the stairs; that could be made a lot easier with a little work.
The entire area, condos, and dive shop could use a lot of updating. The road into it was barely passable after a rainstorm left about 3 inches of water on the already broken up road. The women in the office of the dive shop were borderline surly; giving me a vacant stare if I asked for something, a huge contrast to the friendly and capable divemasters.
I rate this hotel and dive operation as far better than Buddy Dive.
One additional comment; we hired VIP divers to take us on a dive under Salt Pier. I highly recommend them.
