Habitat Curacao, 2002
by Susan Hudak 

Just returned from Habitat, Curacao (10/31 to 11/07) and felt compelled to write a few thoughts.

My boyfriend and I had been to Habitat, Bonaire a few years back and had a great time, with good staff and service; however, this was not the case at Habitat Curacao. We did 6 days of 2 tank boat dives, plus 4 night dives at the house reef. The house reef was in good shape, very good for night critters, but the boat dives were disappointing, mainly because we repeatedly went to the same dive spots over and over again (dispite the fact that we signed up for boats that were supposed to go to other dive spots, but for some inexplicable reason, never did!)

The dive crew on the boats had nice personalities, but I got the impression that they could care less that we divers were paying their salaries. We never got any safety briefings (ie, what's their procedures if a diver has to come up early and get back to shore), we were never briefed as to what dive sites the boat was going to (resulting surprises for us when we did repeat trips to the same sites) nor asked if we wanted to go elsewhere, never helped anyone who was struggling to put on/take off equipment, and overall didn't seem that knowledgeable about some of the dive spots- In fact, when I asked one of the dive crew about the proposed Curacao Marine Park (to which we donated $20), he had absolutely no clue about the Park and couldn't tell us anything about it.

Oh, and never count on the dive shop to be open when it's supposed to- it's up to you to hunt someone down to open it during business hours. In summary, this is our fourth dive trip (Cayman, Little Cayman, and Bonaire before this place) and apparently Habitat Curacao's "diving freedom" means "feel free to come here and dive but don't expect anything from us"- fine, thanks, we'll go elsewhere next time.

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