Woodwind not honoring our reservation- what to do now?

I booked a sail/snorkel excursion through Woodwind a couple months ago for our cruise in April. Woodwind recently e-mailed me stating that they are changing the times for their tours that day (to accommodate other ships itineraries) and now the tours do not fit with the times we will be on the island. This is very disappointing and I am not exactly thrilled with them doing this. So back to square one....any other suggestions for a good snorkel/sail company out of Bonaire?

You could always book something through the ship! ;)

It's great that Ulf was so proactive in notifying you, leaving you with plenty of time to make alternate plans.

If you only have a short port visit, you can take the water taxi to Klein Bonaire and snorkle on your own. Plenty of posts here on how to do it, and it is very easy.

Or as Lulu says, take a ship excursion.

A bummer and you have our sympathy. I recently (in the past few days) commented on another blog that we would not recommend any HAL Caribbean Cruise (and we are 5 Star Mariners) because HAL has some issues in those waters including often scheduling awful port times, If you are on a cruise arriving at an island at 1 pm.... it is going to often limit your options. And then there are all the ports that HAL loves to leave at 4pm (meaning folks need to be aboard by 3:30) which add to the problems on some cruises. Given the late hour of your arrival (we assume you are arriving at 1) you might consider booking a cruise line excursion. We generally view HAL excursions as a last resort kind of thing...but you are in a desperate situation which such a late arrival. Most of the local afternoon tours would leave before 1:30....unless some local operator is going to try and attract enough folks from your ship.

Truly hope you find what you are looking for on this island.

Hank

Would Seacow be available? They were excellent but if ships in port they may give priority to their bookings-we booked through HAL for ours in December. Might send them an email and ask-the staff on Seacow was excellent.

Try this company as well if you haven't found anything yet:

http://www.compassbonaire.com/

I second Compass Bonaire. Next month will be my 6th trip out with them. Very private as they only take 14 people at a time. Lovely crew.

We booked the Mushi Mushi through the ship. Beautiful catamaran, friendly crew, easy to get in the water from the boat, and they took us to a calm beautiful snorekeling spot. We saw so many different species of fish and coral, and the water was so clear. About an hour in the water. Free rum punch on the way back to the water taxi which takes you back to the ship (when you see the port at Bonaire you will see why). No wait at all for the water taxi it was waiting for us when we returned. Back in time for a leasurely visit to the craft market.

I have done a Princess excursion with Sea Cow and had a lot of fun (definitely drift snorkeling, saw many turtles). I have also booked privately with Renee and that was excellent for all of the different types of sea life that we saw.