posted November 13, 2002 05:33 PM    

My husband and I returned from Curacao last night (November 12, 2002). I would like to tell you how trip went so that if you decided to visit Curacao, you will be informed.

We let Baltimore on Air Jamaica. The flight going was fine. We left early in the morning. The flight was a little late leaving, but it was not too bad. The airline trip down was great. This airline served plenty of champagne, and this made the long journey pleasant. We were offered Breakfast. A choice of pancakes or fried eggs. I had the pancakes and my husband had the fried eggs.

We arrived in Montego Bay, Jamaica for a flight change. This was fine as well. I think it was really fine because we had plenty of champagne on the way there. As we were boarding the new flight to go to Curacao, we found our seats and got really comfortable. About five minutes into sitting in our seats, we were called to the front of the plane along with about 3 other couples to come outside the plane and claim our bags. Apparently, when you switch planes with Air Jamaica, you have to go outside and claim your bags. However with all the champagne we had, we did not mind.

We arrived in Curacao. The weather was great. It was hot, but not humid. Perfect weather. A gentleman from Breezes greeted us. The time frame from getting off the plane to getting on the bus to head to breezes was about 20 minutes. I was pleased with this aspect of service. The staff members that picked us up were extremely pleasant.

We left the airport, and approximately 15 minutes later, we were at Breezes Resort. When we got off the bus, all we had to do is go to the counter, fill out a piece of paper with about 10 questions on it. Once we did that and gave them a copy of our credit card (for room chargers), we went to our room. We did not have to worry bout our bags at all.

When we got to our room, our bags arrived about 5 minutes later. We changed clothes and headed to the beach. The first things we did was make our reservation to scuba dive (we are certified divers. E-mail me nabstam@aol.com and I will give you details on the dives we went on). My husband and I then went to the hut on the beach that makes different snacks. This was an excellent feature.

The next few days we spent lots of time scuba diving, sailing, boating, eating and little shopping.

There were a number of children at this resort while we were there. The wonderful aspect of this resort is they keep the children so busy, they are out of the way of adults like my husband and I who left our kids at home and did not want to be bothered with children.

We stayed in the Plover Building. I loved this building. It was near everything, right in front of the beach. If you are looking for something more private away from EVERYTHING, you want the Flamingo Building. This building is WAY far away from everything. This is a very private building. You do not have to worry about hearing anything here. The Tower seems to be a building where several people looking for an Ocean view room stay. I found a number of younger people in this building.

THINGS YOU WILL NEED TO BRING:
Large mug (glasses at this resort are too small, and sometimes you want more than a “taste”). Fly swatter. Honestly, I would leave my door open for fresh air and I would always get a brother AND sister fly in the room. Ant spray. The have these small; I mean tiny ants all over the place. Water shoes.

I would like to list for you some of the Pros, Cons and what they can do to improve the resort:

PROS:
Food, plenty of beach chairs, activities, privacy, staff, landscape, access to downtown and sequarium, rooms are EXCELLENT SIZE, piano bar was fun, the resort went all out for our anniversary night, below the hurricane belt; never have to worry about that, plenty of day trip for you to go on if you want, seaquarium right down the street you have to do the dive where you can feed the sharks. The circus area, it rained every morning for about 5 minutes and that was it for the day.

CONS:
Need for better-trained bartenders, the house keeping crew was left to be desired. They seemed to only come in a make the bed. Beach sand (or should I say beach pebbles). Curacao does not have the best shopping district in the world there were not too many places to get some good shopping in. 1 shore dive per day. The whole time I was there, no one went to the nightclub. Hot tub needs to be a little warmer

WHAT THEY IMPROVE ON:
Breezes can think about doing more than one shore dive a day. The Lion’s resort next door offers one 2-tank boat dive per day and unlimited shore dives. Breezes REALLY need to work on the bartender thing. I am still waiting for an Apple Martini and/or the strawberries to arrive for a daiquiri. I would like to see the area that makes grilled snacks to stay open late in the evening. One night I woke up at around 1:30 am. I was hungry and could not find anything to eat. I could find things to drink, but nothing to eat. They could change the menu at the Japanese and Italian restaurant. The whole time I was there, it was the same menu. Although the majority of the staff was fun and helpful, there were some staff member I felt I was bothering. I would like to see them improve on the reservations for the Spa. I am still waiting to hear back from them.

OVERALL
I was please with the ability I had to just relax here. If you are looking for a place to relax and get away, this is the place for you. If I were to rate this place I would give it 3.5 to 4 stars out of 5. We would return.

RETURN FLIGHT HOME:
Let me say I did not have any champagne coming home. We arrived at the airport at approximately 1:15 pm for a 3:30 flight. Needless to say we did not leave Curacao until 5:00 pm. Mind you we had a connecting flight in Montego Bay at 5:45 pm. It is about a one hour and 45 minute flight from Curacao to Montego Bay. When I asked the stewardess if we would miss our connecting flight she said “no, our airline does not leave until all the planes and passengers are in” When I asked why the plane was late, she said, we came from New Jersey. I asked if there was bad weather, she said no, they were just late. When we arrived in Montego Bay and finally boarded our next flight, we sat on the plane for about one hour before we took off. I WILL NEVER USE THIS AIRLINE AGAIN. When I return to the island, I will fly American Airlines.