Curacao Notes

What is this?

As I am always asked for tips on doing stuff in Curaçao, I thought I would write them down here.

Beware that all this is just my own, biased, weird, opinions. There are perfectly good restaurants, even popular ones, that I don't like because of the atmosphere or the price or the location. There are restaurants considered boring, that I like, for the same reasons. So buyer beware.

Geography and Weather

Curacao is a very small island. It's about 40 miles long and about 5 miles wide. It's as if you cut off Cape Cod at the Canal and straightened it out. However the roads are not as good. Still, the longest drive you can make without doubling back is around 45 minutes.

It's basically tropical. Or desert. It's always around 80 degrees and with a good breeze. In the "summer" there's almost never rain, sunny, blue skies every day. In the "winter" it might rain a little more.

If you wear shorts, bring multiple sets. I wear only shorts almost all the time. No need for a sweater of any kind.

Bring sunglasses, a hat, and suntan lotion!

Driving is pretty easy. Google maps will work, better still if you download the maps so you don't need to use your data plan. Driving is on the right, just like the USA. However the signs will not all be familiar, but common sense. Yes people drive a little crazy but really not more than Boston.

Outside

Must Do Site Seeing

Things to do and see

Beaches

The word in Papiamento for beach is playa. This list is certainluy not a list of all the beaches. There are many more. These are the ones that I like and have been to. I would recommend any of them.

Food

Restaurants here are "expensive, but... slow!". Those are generalizations but it's good to set expectations. That way you won't be surprised.

Everything you eat here, almost, has to be imported, by plane or containership. Also it's a tourist destination which also add to the costs.

Overall the food will be familiar to you. You will have no trouble with the menus. Many of them are in Dutch, but almost all of them will have an English menu if you ask.

You will see standard "American" food, or "French" food. You will also see Indonesian (because Indonesia, like Curaçao used to be a colony of the Netherlands.) Also a lot of "Dutch" food.

Restaurants

Not as good as they sound

You might hear or read about these places but in my opinion they are not
worth the trip. Although I was surprised to hear recently of someone who loved
the Ostrich Farm, so, who knows!

Diving

The last time I went scuba diving was around 2020, so everything has changed and my info could be out of date. Basically all dive sites are really good and pretty similar. There are dive operations all over the place. Some are more professional than others.

For an operator that is on a beach (there are many) most will offer just shore dives. Some have a boat. The ones that operate from a hotel or developed area will often not have shore dives but will have one or two pretty big boats and they usually offer two dive packages, with a 1 hour or so stop at sea between them. They will give you water or juice or granola bars during the break. Getting in the water is easiest with a beach even if it is rocky. Next is off of one of the bigger boats although if the water is choppy you have to time your self to grab onto the ladder to get back on board which can be a little gnarly but very doable. THe crew on board is super helpful and qualified.I

You can find any dive depth you want. The bottom falls off gradually and then fast. THere is a lot to see, corals and lots of fish etc. Sometimes there are man made objects like boats or cars etc to swim around. You can go by the name of the dive site realizing that they usually exaggerate what there is to see. Mushroom Forest is not really a forest for example.

Money

Things are priced in the Curaçao guilder and/or US Dollars. The exchange rate is pretty consistently $1.00 = NAf 1.75. Anything different is a little suspicious. Often you can ask to pay in one or the other.

Credit cards are accepted almost everywhere. Again there you can say what currency you want to pay in. Occasionally for bigger ticket items (like a car rental) they will tack on a 3-5% service fee to cover the credit card fees.

Tipping is not as mandatory as in the USA. I tried to tip 10% for decent service in restaurants which I think is typical. Note that often the credit card machine does not offer a "tip" option. You need to remind the server that you want to put a tip on your card so they bring the "right" credit card macbhine to your table. You can always leave a cash tip.

Web Sites and Resources

These are some excellent resources for knowing what's going on.

Where to stay

Always a very personal decision. There are tons of hotels and inns on the
island. I've stayed in a few of them. So here's a very idiosyncratic listing: