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Li-Shen
Site Admin
Joined: 23 Dec 2005
Posts: 444
Location: New York, NY
Number of Logged Dives: 101-200
Certification Level: Divemaster
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 Breezes Curacao
All Inclusive Resort (Ocean Encounters is the on-site Dive Op)
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Property: The property is fairly nice although I wasn’t flat out impressed. The staff cleans up at night after the guests have left the beach area, but there isn’t too much picking up during the day which means that by the afternoon there are cups and plates flying everywhere (it’s very windy on the island). The beach is sandy, but it’s a man made beach so its not one of those really soft white sand beaches you find at some of the other islands. There are broken corals mixed into the sand throughout the beach. From what I was told there is only one resort on the island that has a sandy beach (Sunset Waters). I did enjoy the breakers that they had installed since the surf outside them is quite rough and would make it nearly impossibly for all but the most experienced swimmers to wade in.
Rooms: There is one main “Tower” of rooms which is five stories high and another 6-8 smaller buildings. I stayed in the oceanfront wing although I did see the rooms in the Tower as well. I had read reviews about some of the rooms being noisy so we requested to stay in the Pelican wing but unfortunately it was closed for renovations. Upon arrival, we were told our room was not available so we walked around and grabbed a bite to eat. When our room was ready, nobody was around to help us with our bags since nearly 3/4 of our plane was staying at Breezes, so we lugged our luggage up the stairs only to find out that we had been given a room with only one king bed instead of two double beds. After much waiting and looking at the other rooms in the Tower (I had read beforehand that these rooms were the loudest with noise coming from the bar and dance club), we opted to ask for a cot and stayed in our room until someone had checked out of the room we paid for. I enjoyed the ocean view room much more than the garden view room in the Tower (although it did have a view of the ocean but also a view of construction outside the resort). For those who must have their electronics, the Tower rooms only have one 110v plug with the rest being 220v. The oceanfront rooms are modest with a bed(s), tv, cd player/radio, table, couch and other standard amenities. Our first room was very close to the main area where the bar, nightly activities and Jimmy’s is. At night, the activities carried on until midnight and I could hear every beat and word spoken through the loudspeaker. We were eventually moved to the room we paid for which was further down in the same wing. This room was MUCH better as we could get to sleep whenever we wanted and didn’t have to wait for all the nights activities to be over.
Food: There is one main restaurant, Jimmy’s, where there is breakfast, lunch, dinner and after dinner snacks. Breakfast is standard with the usual scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, cereal, pancakes and omelet station. For lunch, you can choose to eat at Jimmy’s or at the beach bar where you can have a selection of grill foods including hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken or fish sandwiches, chicken nuggets and French fries. At Jimmy’s the lunch menu varies daily but always includes a pasta station where you can customize a marinara or alfredo sauce to your liking. Dinner is similar to lunch but heavier consisting of stews, roasts, grilled fish, etc… The other option for dinner is to make reservations ahead of time at one of the two restaurants (one Italian and one Japanese). The Japanese restaurant serves sushi (no actual raw fish), tempura, soup/salad plus a main course consisting of teppenyaki where they cook the food infront of you. I found the food to be salty and full of MSG, but tasty nonetheless. The teppanyaki consists of lo-mein like noodles with vegetables, chicken, steak, fish (mahi mahi) and shrimp. The Italian restaurant (Pastafari), was better. They had a nice antipasto salad buffet with a number of Italian dishes incorporating fresh seafood. I recommend the Linguine with seafood!
Other Guests:Normally other guests never bother me, but I found it important to write this section. The crowd during our stay was primarily families (large ones consisting of 8-10 members with a number of groups of 20+) typically with a number of young kids (8-15 yrs). Typically this doesn’t bother me when they kids are well behaved and the parents are watchful. What did bother me was a few groups with very noticeably drunk parents who were the loud and rambunctious, yelling across the beach so that everyone could hear. My number one complaint about the guests was that they were discourteous and poorly mannered. Additionally, Breezes decided that while this was their low season (July), they would try to fill the resort to capacity by allowing locals to come for the day. Not that I have anything against the locals, but Breezes allowed too many of them at once. There were easily 150+ locals with very loud kids. Monday was noticeably quieter and less crowded than the day prior.
Service: Overall I thought the service was average with a few people who obviously hated their jobs (most notably in the food service department) and a few that loved it and went out of their way to help. Everything was done on “island time” and would be fixed in “an hour” which in reality ranged from a few hours to a few days.
Internet: Their website said that there was internet access in the rooms which was not true (and one of the deciding factors for choosing Breezes). They were in the midst of installing wireless Internet that was spotty at best. I suppose that we are their guinea pigs for the wireless Internet. We are told that everything will be fixed tomorrow and the access cards are on the way, so hopefully future guests will have better luck. If you don’t have your own computer, you can buy time cards from the front desk and use the computers at their internet café.
Activities: While I didn’t use many of the activities that they offered (since I was busy diving), they did have quite a number to offer for free including one shore dive per day, Hobie cats, kayaks, wind surfing, paddle boats, snorkel gear, rock climbing wall and a trapeze. The diving on their house reef was good considering its proximity to the hotel—equivalent to some diving I’ve done by boat on other islands in the Caribbean.
Overall Impressions:
•Breezes Curacao is not for those seeking a quiet vacation and expect to be pampered but it is definitely great for families with children.
•When checking in, try and get a room further away from the center of activities (avoid the tower rooms if possibly and the rooms close to Jimmy’s Buffet)
•While my review sounds overly negative, I did meet a number of people who really enjoyed staying at Breezes. You’ll be getting a 3 star hotel for 3 star hotel price, nothing more and if that’s what you’re looking for I would recommend Breezes Curacao
Other Hotels I Recommend:
•Le Sport, St. Lucia (All Inclusive)
•The Hyatt Regency, Grand Cayman
•Sun Village, Dominican Republic (All Inclusive)
•Allegro, Cozumel (All Inclusive)
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 Posted: Mon Jul 24, 2006 8:10 am
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ronbeau
Joined: 04 Nov 2006
Posts: 3
Number of Logged Dives: 16-50
Certification Level: Advanced Open Water
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Re: Breezes Curacao
All Inclusive Resort (Ocean Encounters is the on-site Dive Op)
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| Li-Shen wrote: | Property: The property is fairly nice although I wasn’t flat out impressed. The staff cleans up at night after the guests have left the beach area, but there isn’t too much picking up during the day which means that by the afternoon there are cups and plates flying everywhere (it’s very windy on the island). The beach is sandy, but it’s a man made beach so its not one of those really soft white sand beaches you find at some of the other islands. There are broken corals mixed into the sand throughout the beach. From what I was told there is only one resort on the island that has a sandy beach (Sunset Waters). I did enjoy the breakers that they had installed since the surf outside them is quite rough and would make it nearly impossibly for all but the most experienced swimmers to wade in.
Rooms: There is one main “Tower” of rooms which is five stories high and another 6-8 smaller buildings. I stayed in the oceanfront wing although I did see the rooms in the Tower as well. I had read reviews about some of the rooms being noisy so we requested to stay in the Pelican wing but unfortunately it was closed for renovations. Upon arrival, we were told our room was not available so we walked around and grabbed a bite to eat. When our room was ready, nobody was around to help us with our bags since nearly 3/4 of our plane was staying at Breezes, so we lugged our luggage up the stairs only to find out that we had been given a room with only one king bed instead of two double beds. After much waiting and looking at the other rooms in the Tower (I had read beforehand that these rooms were the loudest with noise coming from the bar and dance club), we opted to ask for a cot and stayed in our room until someone had checked out of the room we paid for. I enjoyed the ocean view room much more than the garden view room in the Tower (although it did have a view of the ocean but also a view of construction outside the resort). For those who must have their electronics, the Tower rooms only have one 110v plug with the rest being 220v. The oceanfront rooms are modest with a bed(s), tv, cd player/radio, table, couch and other standard amenities. Our first room was very close to the main area where the bar, nightly activities and Jimmy’s is. At night, the activities carried on until midnight and I could hear every beat and word spoken through the loudspeaker. We were eventually moved to the room we paid for which was further down in the same wing. This room was MUCH better as we could get to sleep whenever we wanted and didn’t have to wait for all the nights activities to be over.
Food: There is one main restaurant, Jimmy’s, where there is breakfast, lunch, dinner and after dinner snacks. Breakfast is standard with the usual scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, cereal, pancakes and omelet station. For lunch, you can choose to eat at Jimmy’s or at the beach bar where you can have a selection of grill foods including hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled chicken or fish sandwiches, chicken nuggets and French fries. At Jimmy’s the lunch menu varies daily but always includes a pasta station where you can customize a marinara or Alfredo sauce to your liking. Dinner is similar to lunch but heavier consisting of stews, roasts, grilled fish, etc… The other option for dinner is to make reservations ahead of time at one of the two restaurants (one Italian and one Japanese). The Japanese restaurant serves sushi (no actual raw fish), tempura, soup/salad plus a main course consisting of teppenyaki where they cook the food in front of you. I found the food to be salty and full of MSG, but tasty nonetheless. The teppanyaki consists of lo-mein like noodles with vegetables, chicken, steak, fish (mahi mahi) and shrimp. The Italian restaurant (Pastafari), was better. They had a nice antipasto salad buffet with a number of Italian dishes incorporating fresh seafood. I recommend the Linguine with seafood!
Other Guests:Normally other guests never bother me, but I found it important to write this section. The crowd during our stay was primarily families (large ones consisting of 8-10 members with a number of groups of 20+) typically with a number of young kids (8-15 yrs). Typically this doesn’t bother me when they kids are well behaved and the parents are watchful. What did bother me was a few groups with very noticeably drunk parents who were the loud and rambunctious, yelling across the beach so that everyone could hear. My number one complaint about the guests was that they were discourteous and poorly mannered. Additionally, Breezes decided that while this was their low season (July), they would try to fill the resort to capacity by allowing locals to come for the day. Not that I have anything against the locals, but Breezes allowed too many of them at once. There were easily 150+ locals with very loud kids. Monday was noticeably quieter and less crowded than the day prior.
Service: Overall I thought the service was average with a few people who obviously hated their jobs (most notably in the food service department) and a few that loved it and went out of their way to help. Everything was done on “island time” and would be fixed in “an hour” which in reality ranged from a few hours to a few days.
Internet: Their website said that there was Internet access in the rooms which was not true (and one of the deciding factors for choosing Breezes). They were in the midst of installing wireless Internet that was spotty at best. I suppose that we are their guinea pigs for the wireless Internet. We are told that everything will be fixed tomorrow and the access cards are on the way, so hopefully future guests will have better luck. If you don’t have your own computer, you can buy time cards from the front desk and use the computers at their Internet café.
Activities: While I didn’t use many of the activities that they offered (since I was busy diving), they did have quite a number to offer for free including one shore dive per day, Hobie cats, kayaks, wind surfing, paddle boats, snorkel gear, rock climbing wall and a trapeze. The diving on their house reef was good considering its proximity to the hotel—equivalent to some diving I’ve done by boat on other islands in the Caribbean.
Overall Impressions:
•Breezes Curacao is not for those seeking a quiet vacation and expect to be pampered but it is definitely great for families with children.
•When checking in, try and get a room further away from the center of activities (avoid the tower rooms if possibly and the rooms close to Jimmy’s Buffet)
•While my review sounds overly negative, I did meet a number of people who really enjoyed staying at Breezes. You’ll be getting a 3 star hotel for 3 star hotel price, nothing more and if that’s what you’re looking for I would recommend Breezes Curacao
Other Hotels I Recommend:
•Le Sport, St. Lucia (All Inclusive)
•The Hyatt Regency, Grand Cayman
•Sun Village, Dominican Republic (All Inclusive)
•Allegro, Cozumel (All Inclusive) |
My wife, daughter and I stayed at Breezes for two weeks during the last week of June and the first week of July 2006.
Breezes has a booth in the arrival hall (baggage claim) at the airport in Curacao. Some of the up front check-in process is handled at the airport. The wrist bracelets that you wear during your stay are issued at the airport facility. They also have a bus waiting outside to take you to the resort which is about 30 minutes from the airport.
The check-in process at the resort was very efficient despite the fact that a bus load of guests arrived at the same time.
The resort is truly all-inclusive and includes the bell-hop service.
For the balance of this review I will try not to duplicate what Li-Shen has already stated.
We booked our reservation with their flexible room assignment plan (my term not Breezes term). This means that they can assign you to any room no lower in grade that the level you booked. Since we were willing to accept a garden view this allowed us to keep the cost down.
We were given an ocean view room in one of the 3-floor buildings. The room provided plenty of room and a large closet area that was perfect for hanging wet suits to dry. We used beach towels to absorb the water that dripped from the drying wet suits. The room had an in-room safe at no extra cost (unless you lose the key). The room also had a balcony with a table and a few chairs.
The staff was very attentive. There is apparently a supervisory staff that checks up on the housekeeping staff. My wife was in the room a few times when this person came by. She knocked on the door and indicated that she just wanted to make sure our room was adequately serviced.
Restaurants
We ate at all three of the restaurants mentioned in Li-Shen's review. Most of the wait staff at Jimmy's buffet were quite good while a few were just passable. The food selection from the breakfast buffet was very good.
We never ate lunch from the beach grill so I can't comment on it. The lunch selection at Jimmy's buffet was generally very good.
We ate dinner at the Japanese restaurant and Italian restaurants on 3 times each during our two week stay. We were very happy with both the Italian restaurant (Pastafaris) and the Japanese restaurant (forgot the name). The Italian restaurant is air conditioned while the Japanese restaurant is an outdoor restaurant. IN the Japanese restaurant you have the choice of eating right at the grill while your chef prepares your meal or eating a table away from the grill settings. We ate at the grill seating every time. We found the food to be very good. All three chefs asked about any food allergies that the guests might have before preparing their food.
We were very happy with the food at both the Japanese restaurant an the Italian restaurant.
The dive shop at Breezes is run by Ocean Encounters. The three dive masters that I dealt with were excellent. They went out of their way to be helpful.
The dive shop and pier are only a short walk from the Towers and a slightly longer walk from the three story buildings. Dive lockers are provided for your use at the dive shop. You have access to the lockers on a 24 x 7 basis since they are located outside. The dive shop provides you with a lock and holds your "C" card to make sure you return the key and lock.
The departure point for both boat dives and for shore diving on the house reef. The dock has both a large 2-bay dunk tank and a hose with running fresh water. The hose with fresh water was very helpful when suiting up and after the dive. It was cool and refreshing just after suiting up and very goos for rinsing off the diver and the equipment after the dive. My daughter and I used the fresh water hose to rinse out the inside of our BCs after every dive (Atomic SS-1 safe second makes this easy to do).
The dock is a two level dock. The lower level has a rail that is just below the upper level of the dock. The rail makes donning your gear much easier since it is at the perfect high to support the cylinder when you are donning your BC.
We brought all of our own equipment except for weights and cylinders. Breezes include a free shore dive every day including all equipment. The equipment they provide includes a dive flag.
The shore dive begins with a giant stride of the dock. You then following a large rope on the bottom until you reach the cement block that anchors a buoy. From this point you simply look at the soft coral to determine the direct of the current flow.
I agree with Li-Shen's assessment of the house reef.
I would tend to disagree with Li-Shen regarding the cleanliness of the beach. I found it very clean regardless of the time of day or night that I walked along the beach.
A gentleman named Jeff manages the food and beverage operation for Breezes Curacao. He was extremely helpful whether it was related to the food and beverage operation or anything else. He is also a diver and provided good tips on diving in Curacao.
We did run into one issue during our stay. Breezes has a electrical failure in the 3-story building where out room was located. This resulted in have no hot-water for a few days. I pursued the issue with the guest services manager and the resort manager . We came to an amicable settlement and were moved to another room in the towers.
The guest services manager insisted that we check out the room to make sure we were happy with it before moving since it did not have an ocean view. It was located on the first floor of the towers in the middle of the building. I did not run into any problems relative to it being too noisy. From the towers it is an even shorter walk to the dive pier.
The entertainment at night was about average.
My daughter (12.5 years old) thoroughly enjoyed the trapeze clinic. She went to that most of the days we stayed at breezes.
There is also a fitness room that is fully air conditioned and contains several pieces of equipment, padded floors and a water cooler.
My family was very happy with Breezes Curacao. They do not pamper you as much as much as some resorts like Sandals (based on other comments) but they also do not charge the high prices that they charge at Sandals either. I aslo did not run nto any problems with the noise that Li-Shen mentioned from wither of the two rooms used during our stay at Breezes.
In the summer of 2007 we plan to spend a week in Bonaire followed by a week in Curacao. We plan to stay at Breezes for the week in Curacao.
If you think you will need to do laundry while at Breezes I would suggest that you do it on a day on which you plan to rent a car. That way you can take it to a local laundromat since the laundry service mentioned on the we site is really valet laundry. Breezes even send their laundry out to an outside operation. Like every other hotel valet laundry is very expensive.
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Posted: Sat Nov 04, 2006 2:31 pm
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