Delfins Beach Resort Bonaire, Tapestry Collection by Hilton — Hotel in Bonaire

I'm so happy to write this review of Delfins. Went for my 50th birthday in June 2025 with my husband on the recommendation of a travel agent friend of mine. She knew we loved to snorkel and thought this would be a great place with easy entry for snorkeling. She was so right! We loved everything about our stay. It's really paradise and such a great start to my 50th year. Thank you Delfins! |Grounds: beautiful and well maintained. Several pools and a kids pool, there's a swim up bar too. Very relaxing environment. On-site dive shop. Many loungers to sit by the water/pool and relax. You can get a massage in the outdoor hut (we did not but saw people taking advantage of this amenity). Huge gym on property. I didn't take advantage of this because I was too busy snorkeling, eating, and relaxing for my birthday weekend! There is a small shop called Fresku where you can buy small pastries/sodas/coffee and some small sundries. Check the hours. There's also an ice cream parlor and take out pizzeria. |Room: Stayed in a fully renovated upstairs single room and were impressed with the full kitchen (fully stocked with utensils and cookware and small appliances!) and room overall. The view was interesting, we looked out at an abandoned hotel with graffiti on it but we didn't care, we're from NYC. We were able to watch the wild donkeys and flamingoes from the terrace. We didn't spend a lot of time on the terrace as you can smell people smoking from other rooms there. Bed was so comfortable. Air conditioning worked perfectly. Both of us slept great. Quiet super clean room.|Staff: amazing and friendly. From the moment we got our taxi at the airport till we took the same taxi back, everyone was great. The taxi was run by a husband (named Djurick) and wife, they were lovely and drove us several times off property. Front desk staff helpful and courteous. Restaurant staff patient and kind!|We attended the nighttime outdoor acoustic singalong which featured a fantastic singer. Definitely a highlight. Don't miss. Big crowd very popular event! |Location: walking distance (albeit on a rocky unpaved road with some wild drivers, not a complaint just a heads up, we love an adventure!) to a mini mart where you can buy the basics. |Beach: there is a wooden pier with a ladder to get to the water. Perfect. Also a wash station to wash off and wash your gear. Snorkeling was ok (not the resort's fault!!) we know that reefs in general are not doing well across the Caribbean sadly. But we saw plenty of beautiful fish and the water is calm and warm. A delight just to go swimming too. |Restaurants: fantastic. Plenty of vegetarian options. Fresh delicious food. Pricey but you're on vacation! Mangia! We attended Club Tropicana BBQ by the Beach for dinner one evening. Barely a seat to be found, it's popular! There is a dj and I loved the music; hubby thought it was too loud but I didn't! |We had lunch at the Club Tropicana, delicious and we got to watch the iguanas and beautiful birds. |Had lunch and breakfast at Kolo. The breakfast is a buffet with delicious options you can eat poolside. Lunch was amazing too. |I think I've covered it all. We want to come back to stay and bring family and stay in one of the villas....

We stayed here before it was a Hilton and going under the Hilton banner has only made it better in our opinion. It has been growing and is very nice and well-kept. It's only about 10 minutes from the airport, so very convenient to get to after landing. There is plenty of free parking which is great as most have rental vehicles to explore the island and go out to more remote dive spots etc. To this end, be cautious of Avis at the airport. They are conveniently located but have a reputation of nickel and diming tourists on their often already very worn vehicles. It happened to us finally. There are plenty of other rental companies on the island.

The resort has a number of excellent bars and restaurants, beachfront areas including plenty of shade setups, full service dive shop and self-dive / snorkeling (and rinse facilities) right off the pier at the resort. This is very convenient and excellent for newer divers and kids.

Restaurants are good but the main bar by the main desk is pretty pricey compared to town. The one by the workout facility and newer pool is more reasonable and still a good menu.

The new workout facility is nice and welcome! The equipment itself is of a bit lower quality…treadmills and such. There’s a lack of any fans on the cardio equipment and it's not overly air conditioned either. Hours are a bit odd and 24 hour access would be nice but it’s manageable.

There are now two pools here, both are excellent and the new one is huge and excellent for lap swimming, especially early or late.

We had the penthouse with three bedrooms in one of the new buildings. It was excellent in most ways, my only suggestions would be to have a bit more light, a larger refrigerator, laundry in the unit, and the ability for guests to take their own trash or recyclables out. Of all of these the lack of an in-unit laundry is the biggest issue. I realize the cost of laundry in each unit could be a lot given island utility prices so perhaps one laundry per villa or something? You can have laundry done at the front desk (and it’s quite reasonable but takes a day) but we would very much prefer doing our own. Laundry in town is very expensive and cost us about $30 for two small loads and took us almost three hours. Oh, and finally, on the weekend nights mostly, the bar plays very loud music until about midnight. This was very annoying as we had early events and simply could not fall asleep until after midnight due to the pounding. This would honestly be the biggest reason for us not returning. I don't think I'm being overly sensitive to this...the bass is that loud and even with earplugs it permeates through the windows and walls of the villas (we were not even that close to it.) It was mostly only the weekend nights but was that disruptive to our trip unfortunately. This is really the only reason for the one star off.

But, I hate to end on a bad note because overall it’s a very nice resort with just a few things / inconveniences. Service (including the daily room service) all around was excellent as are the grounds and cleanliness of the buildings, pools, etc. I can’t imagine most anyone not enjoying their time here and as of 2025 the...

Highly recommended!!!

If you’re looking for a great holiday in Bonaire, Delfins is a top notch place to stay! This resort is extremely trendy with a touch of luxury! Staff are very helpful and pleasant. We found that 95% of the guests were Dutch, very few Canadians / Americans / other... so the first language tends to be Dutch, but most staff speak English fairly well!

ROOMS: great, we were in a 1-bedroom ocean view (C-13, 2nd floor) we had a huge terrace outside where we would spend our mornings having coffee and breakfast. The bedroom is a good size. The only thing that threw us off a little is that the queen size bed was made up of two singles pushed together - maybe it’s a European thing but we are definitely not used to it. We also each had our own covers we was a little odd, felt like a sleep over! The units are equipped with a kitchen, so we did a lot of our own cooking. If you’re coming here, get an ocean view/oceanfront room - it is 100% worth it. Don’t get garden view. If we come again we will get a room in pavilion A or B - it’s closer to the beach and has great views! (See resort map attached)

BEACH: breathtaking. Don’t expect a white sandy beach.. it’s quite rocky and it’s best to pack some water shoes for getting in the water. The water gets deep quite quickly and there is a lot to see so pack your snorkeling gear! If you’re not a great swimmer, this may not be a good beach for you. There are plenty of loungers available and shade from umbrellas and trees. You’ll never run out of space

POOL: we are not pool people... but esthetically it is gorgeous, we heard they play music underwater, which is a cool touch I suppose and it is a salt water pool

FOOD & DRINKS: the hotel houses one of the highest end restaurants on the island, so the food is good - veryyytty fusion. Drinks are fantastic If you don’t plan to buy any of your own food (you can take a taxi into town - they’ve got some great super markets there) then expect to spend about $100-150USD per person daily. More if you are drinking. This is not a cheap place to eat. The breakfast is really great though - $23 USD pp, it’s a buffet of lovely treats - very European with great offerings! We went off the resort to an awesome restaurant called FOODIES - highly recommended!

DIVING: the resort houses a dive shop and a house reef. You can get everything you need at the rental shop - the staff are great!

CAR/SCOOTER: the resort offers rentals of scooters (through 3rd party) and their own branded electric cars. We rented a car for the day for $90usd. The car is VERY basic but good enough to get around. The island is so small that you’ll have enough charge to go around it twice.

Other things to note:

Noise - the resort is still under construction so expect noise! The cleaning staff are quite noisy as they start their daily routine as well...

Children - we were surprised to find that there was a large number of small children at the resort... while they’re all very well behaved Dutch children, there are quite a lot of them for a high end hotel..

That’s about it! Enjoy your...