Eden Beach Resort Bonaire — Hotel in Bonaire

Rooms: Standard room has a large, very good bed taking up most space in the room, a large cupboard for clothes etc and a table with desk chair. Shower and bathroom somewhat small but overall good. Not much in the way of a seating area, but you’re not that much in the room anyway. Flat screen TV and wall safe also available. Overall pretty decent, but one issue we had is that there is hardly room for drying swim gear (clothes, towels, snorkel/dive/surf gear). We were able to hang up swim gear and other items on the walkway to our room, but as we had the last room on the floor, it was a bit larger and had space. Hotel supplied beach towels a bit more difficult to dry, but you can hand those in for fresh ones at the reception every day. The hotel has also larger rooms with a small garden/seating area on the ground floor, where this is not an issue. The hotel has two rather small pools, the larger one is also used for dive instructions by the on-site school. Overall mostly meant for children and quick cool down, not for swimming lanes. Daily cleaning of the room is good, quality is helped by leaving a little tip for the ladies (as is rather common). Bit surprising sometimes which towels were replaced and which were not. The Wi-Fi is available throughout the hotel including on the beach, quality is pretty decent/good although you will have to re-login every so often.

Hotel breakfast and dining area: Resaurant is a la carte and pretty decent, although we only used the restaurant for dinner once. Cart is a bit limited if you stay longer. Dinner was a bit too formal in our opinion, so we moved to the beach bar. Breakfast buffet mostly good, although twice pancakes were very hard and not really edible. Overall rahter good.

Beach bar Overall pretty decent selection of drinks and a bit smaller for (finger) food, on Friday nights BBQ on the beach. Nice location with seaside view at the beach area.

Service Bit hit and miss here, depending on where you are at and who’s available. Ladies at reception and breakfast buffet very nice and helpful. Great service. Beach bar is great whenever main bartender, John (great guy!), is around. If he’s not, there seems to be a bit of lack of interest towards guests. Orders sometimes not recorded properly so you get something different as ordered and sometimes difficult to get some attention/service. Mostly very friendly though, but could definitely be helped by simply paying more attention to the guests.

Extra’s/additional info: There are a diving school/shop and a trip desk available on the premises. The school also uses the pool for instructions. Water taxi towards Klein Bonaire has a stop at the local pier at the beach side. The beach itself has plenty of beds, some with sun umbrella's and little huts to deliver some shade. Getting in and out of the water via the pier’s staircase is handy. Due to sharp drop-offs (first one couple meters out) and rather strong currents, swimming in the sea is probably not the best for little children though. Plenty to see while snorkeling at the hotel’s coast line, lots of fish to spot and if you’re lucky you get to see...

Good until there is a problem. ||Avoid this beach—strong rip currents are extremely dangerous!* Two people were in serious peril, requiring guests to intervene and assist. My wife ran to the bar shouting for help, but *no staff responded. A British tourist heroically jumped in and saved a woman’s life—no exaggeration.||Afterward, when questioned about the lack of assistance, **one bar staff member laughed it off. The beach bar blamed the resort, while the resort claimed the bar is independently run. Zero safety measures or warnings, despite staff awareness of the dangers at certain times of day.||Despite someone having to be rescued the seller allowed young children to come to the beach area without giving them any warning what so ever of what had just occurred so once they had been told they moved to the pool area. ||I had left this review also on Google and got the reply I only left such a review as I could not get refunded, I did not ask for any refund although the guest who had only just arrived 10 mins prior and saved her own child and a fellow guest from drowning did she was called Kirsty and imagine she will leave her own review backing up this true and accurate review. ||My wife was with Kirsty when she went to speak to the manage about the dangers and was told her attitude was bad (well her child almost drowned) so she requested to speak to the CEO who was coming in 10 mins but never materialised even after 30 mins. ||Disney have been informed of what happened here and will hopefully take appropriate action regarding informing guests as there is nothing what so ever in the way of safety equipment or warnings. ||Such a shame as the place itself was quite nice but the attitude of the staff during and after this event was disgraceful. ||As a seasoned traveler I do like to leave good reviews of places around the world where I have had positive experiences but unfortunately this place fell way short...

This year I wanted a more budget friendly place to stay and I wanted no "must do" things, just tranquilo as they say on Bonaire (Papiementu). I booked room 401, a groundfloor studio with equipped kitchen and basic bathroom, a double bed and 40m2/430 sqf A/C indoorspace. You also have an outdoor space to yourself (estimate 20m2/215 sqf). It is a corner studio, so there is an extra door (for service) on the left hand side when entering from the front.

I wrote a more extensive review on Trip advisor, but summarised, I loved it here (I posted a bit more pictures too). I cannot compare it to the stays (4) I had in a (huge) 4-star all-inclusive resort, because when I booked (July 2024), Eden Beach Resort Bonaire was (only the studio, no extras, no breakfast etc) was just 30% of the price the 4-star resort asked (US $199, 99 for an entry hotelroom without kitchen vs 675, 575 for the entry). Because I had my own kitchen, I could choose to roam around beautiful Bonaire, and not worry about missing out lunch (it is a waste of money to pay in advance and then have lunch elsewhere). I could preparie it after 14.00/2 PM myself for instance. For next year, it is a...