This was our second year at Eden Beach. For those who know the island, this resort has one of two sand beaches on the island, the other is at Lac Bay.

The owners, Julio and his sons, do a great job of making sure that you are taken care of. Wannadive dive shop is located on the grounds and they are very professional, and the location is convenient.

I highly recommend Eden Beach as a good place to stay and enjoy the great diving in Bonaire - we will be booking 2 weeks at Eden Beach next spring.

Bonaire is a great place to visit. Eden Beach Resort, eh, was so so. We chose it primarily based on their website photos and positive reviews on the BonaireTalk website. The reality we found when we got there was a bit more, well, plain. Not bad, necessarily, and I suppose a decent deal for the price, but we had expected more.

The hotel rooms are two story condo-type units. Two bedrooms and two baths upstairs in ours and a kitchen/dining area/sitting area/sitting porch downstairs. The building is situated on a diagonal from the beach, and at least when we were there, didn't really get the prevailing winds that blow all the time. The first eight units or so face the beach and the water. After that they face the pool and the parking lot, which isn't such a bad view as it sounds, but beach side units are preferable.

We found our unit a bit narrow and cave-like, sparsely decorated, and musty smelling when we arrived. Opening all the doors and windows and airing it out pretty much solved the smell. The front bedroom had a great view over the beach and the ocean, and actually had screens on its windows, which not all the units did, however. The back bedroom had double french doors onto a porch with view of the back of the building next door and no screens. No screens on the sliding doors on the porch downstairs either. We tended to leave all doors and windows open during the day and close up everything and use the AC at night to defend against mosquitos, which were present but tolerable.

The downstairs air conditioner was noisy as some have complained, but the bedroom units were quite quiet on the lower fan setting. All were plenty powerful and cooled the place fine.

The bathrooms were small and a little rough around the edges. The toilets did not always inspire confidence that they would actually flush, but they always mananged to do the job.

Plenty of closet and counter space in the bedrooms. The beds seemed to have foam mattresses on them that were actually surprisingly comfortable. We slept quite well on them. One bedroom had a safe in it which we used for our valuables and we had no issues with theft. You could fit a couple small cameras, wallets, phones, passports in it with out any problem. The key for the safe cost extra and was $2/day; worth it we figured, but a little cheap of them to charge for it. We also rented a crib for our toddler, at $10 a day, which we thought was a little steep, but in the end we were not charged. They provided a portable type crib with a minimal but adequate mattress. If you do rent a crib bring your own sheet as we did; they provided an adult sheet folded up, which is not considered safe.

The unit was clean and the maid came daily and did a pretty good job and was wonderfully friendly and chatty.

The lock on our sliding door was broken when we arrived which we found out when going to dinner our first night. We were impressed that despite the late hour on a Sunday, the management had a maintanence man on duty who was able to rig up a temporary fix and who came back at 10am the next morning to make a permanent fix.

The pool area is a little spartan, mostly used by kids and scuba divers for classes. The baby pool is not flush with the deck, but actually set above ground and at 2.5 feet deep, was a little deep, we thought, for kids. The main pool was all one depth and a little too deep at 4.5-5 feet deep.

There's a dive shop on the premises, Wannadive, but I didn't use them since all their rental equipment was out while we were there.

The beach is rough sand with a lot of coral bits. Not the nicest beach, but ok for sitting on. The sand goes down to the water, but quickly turns into rock and coral and drops off quickly. Not the best for small kids to play in unsupervised. Slightly older ones are probably fine.

One annoyance was that on Wednesday afternoon the beach was overrun by people from a cruise ship. They apparently come on a regular basis, and we had no warning. It was impossible to enjoy the beach or snorkel.

There's a dock which juts out into the water and provides access for snorkling and divers. Very decent sea life right along the shore here. No much coral but TONS of fish of many types, as well as urchins, sea cucumbers, crabs, etc. Well worth sticking your head in to look around.

There is a beach bar/restuarant right on the beach here, Bongos. The food was good with a decent variety of fresh fish dishes, burgers, quesadillas, soups, etc. Not fancy, but good. Service was reasonably friendly, but unbelievably slow. Generally there was one bartender and one waitress who were sometimes serving 40-80 people. We ate early one night and the cook actually took our order and then went back to prepare it. The majority of the customers were Dutch and we occasionally felt that we weren't getting quite the same attention they were. Bongos doesn't take reservations (with some exceptions) so getting a table at prime time could be hit or miss. The one night it was raining they closed the outdoor deck and took reservations for the covered area around the bar, which we didn't find out until we showed up and couldn't get a table under cover. Fortunately the rain stopped then and it didn't matter. Bongos sometimes got crowded and noisy, but they always shut down by 10pm or so and were never an annoyance late at night.

We've heard that Bongos is run by different management than Eden Beach and that there is some tension between the two. Eden Beach seems to be building its own restuarant, but it was not completed yet when we were there.

Eden Beach is doing construction and adding on another set of units on top of the beach side units where we were staying. There was occasional banging and power tool noise from above us, but never very early and never for too long, and wasn't really an issue.

The vast majority of the guests were Dutch when we were there. This didn't bother us and actually made it feel more exotic than perhaps it was.

To sum up, I guess I would say that rule of caveat emptor applies here. The rates are on the budget side for Bonaire and you get what you pay for. The rooms were clean, if a bit spartan, and the management reasonably responsive to requests if not overly solicitous. If you're looking for a budget option, you could do far worse. Just be aware that you get what you pay for and in this price range, they cut some corners.

Room
I stayed in a hotelroom on the first floor. The balcony is fine with great views. The room was basic, but fine and clean. The curtains were too small. I do find it quite expensive for what you get, but that is Bonaire (is also more expensive than e.g. Curacao).

Beach
The hotel is one of the few on the island that has an (artificial) beach.

Diving
You can dive in front of the hotel, but that is only nice for a checkdive. Not very interesting. Saw that someone wrote that it is a wreckdiver's dream. I don't agree. It does have some little wrecks, but not really interesting. If you want to do a real nice wreckdive, go to the Hilma Hooker. Now that is what I call a wreck dive!
The dive shop was ok. Unfortunately, they didn't provide lockers for your gear and not even a box or something you could put everything in. We did one boatdive on Klein Bonaire with a guide, but the guide was doing his own thing and didn't really show us things. He just swam in front of us. But the divesites on Klein Bonaire are great!
Diving on Bonaire is REALLY GREAT!

Location
Not within walking distance of the centre, but that is not a problem as you should really rent a car. By car it is only 5 minutes.

Overall
The stay was fine, but I would not be my first choice for the next time.

The first time we stayed at Eden Beach was 4 years ago. We had been camping out on a boat moored in front of Karels for a couple of weeks, and even though we were surrounded by water, we were craving water without salt in it. I was swimming by Eden Beach and stopped there to catch my breath. Met some really friendly people there from Pennsylvania. Went and jumped in the pool for a few minutes. Swam back to the boat and got the guys. Brought them to Eden Beach. They jumped in the pool with me, got some drinks at the bar, and then went back to the boat with two days left in our trip, got our bags and checked into Eden Beach.
We have stayed everywhere on Bonaire for many years..houses, boats, hotels...nothing comes close to Eden Beach Resort.
Now that the web cams are at Eden Beach, its really like a dream come true. We used to have to swim up to Jake Richter's house to let our friends see us, now all we do is eat breakfast at the bar and park a chair in front of the camera while we digest and work on our tans.
We crank up the AC in the rooms as soon as we get there and leave it running so we sleep and hang out in the living room at night feeling like we've never left Virginia. Just right!
My 12 year old and I play chess in front of the north beach web cam so folks back home can see us.
I like to play guitar on the beach. The south beach web cam is about 20 steps away from our room. If you put a chair even with the first palm tree, everybody can see you just right.
Right now, I think Eden Beach is the nicest sand beach on the island. The staff takes really good care of it. I see it raked every morning. There's a big blue heron that loves it, too. He was there every morning of our two week stay this year.
Wanna Dive is a great dive operation. Their downtown store has all the gear you could ever need and the divemasters are first rate. Paul is the guy I would trust to get me out of any trouble I could ever get into underwater. He took my 12 year old out diving twice this year to Klein Bonaire. My son was fearless by Paul's side. A really great time.
For those that don't know it, Eden Beach is a wreck diver's dream. You see the boat laying on it's side in the web cam view. That's at 65'. What you don't see is "The Cavalier" about 200 yards down to the right (north) and "Our Confident " about 200 yards down to the left (south). We do all three wrecks in the same dive typically. The Cavalier is in 90' of water. It's a major cleaning station for big groupers. (see photo) We do that first. Then we come up to the web cam boat and play with the sargent majors. Then we continue on over to the Our Confident wreck and look for tarpon. By that time you are at 35'. It's an easy swim up the the Wannadive shop and then the bar for lunch after that.

For the more adventurous diver, you might try doing the underwater web cam at night. Last time we did it, this 5' tarpon came out to hunt by our lights. We brought him up to the Eden Beach dock with us and we snorkeled for the next two hours while he swam right underneath us chomping down on fish we spotlighted for him. Totally amazing.

If you do New Years in Bonaire, Eden Beach is always filled up with little blond haired Dutch kids playing in the sand while their parents hang out at the bar. The staff lights tiki torches on the beach and the kids run around shooting off fireworks all night and playing hide and seek behind palm trees and under tables.
Great family atmosphere.

Do New Years Eve from a boat if you can. You can see all the fireworks on the island at once that way. Plaza shoots from the south, Captain Don's from the north, and Karels from the center of town. Drink some champaigne with Captain Mike.

Life doesn't get better than Eden Beach Resort. If you're money conscious, the room prices are a real bargain. The money's not important. They could charge a lot more and we'd still stay there. We love the people there and they take great care of us. Best place on the island, hands down. You'll make friends that will last forever.

Dave (Guitar Man to you Webcammers)