Musings on Bonaire reopening to tourists

[ChrisL]

Good luck, be sure to report back how it goes.

My Bonarian taxi driver confirmed what DiviDive told me and DiviDivi arrives at Flamingo from Curacao every day including weekends.

My new problem is the local Covid test lab that promised to have our PCR results from yesterday's test by 6PM today failed us and I do not believe the rapid test results we have in hand will be acceptable - hopefully we will pickup the test results tomorrow. We cancelled the Curacao flight scheduled for tomorrow morning and booked a flight to Aruba for Sunday.

Tomorrow I will figure out how we are getting from Aruba to Bonaire - DiviDivi shows flights on their schedule, but not available on their online booking platform - and they were not answering the phone at 8:10PM.

If we get stuck on Aruba a couple of days we will have to re-test to travel to Bonaire - I hope not.

Crazy times.

[petri hausmann]

yes -Divi flies daily to Bonaire but with passengers only on m-t-w-thu. Otherwise it is the link for newspapers-cargo etc. Entry to bonaire is via curacao- only -so you would have to fly Aruba- Curacao for Bonaire.

[Avalpert]

My Bonarian taxi driver confirmed what DiviDive told me and DiviDivi arrives at Flamingo from Curacao every day including weekends.

My new problem is the local Covid test lab that promised to have our PCR results from yesterday's test by 6PM today failed us and I do not believe the rapid test results we have in hand will be acceptable - hopefully we will pickup the test results tomorrow. We cancelled the Curacao flight scheduled for tomorrow morning and booked a flight to Aruba for Sunday.

Tomorrow I will figure out how we are getting from Aruba to Bonaire - DiviDivi shows flights on their schedule, but not available on their online booking platform - and they were not answering the phone at 8:10PM.

If we get stuck on Aruba a couple of days we will have to re-test to travel to Bonaire - I hope not.

Crazy times.

Oh my, good luck on Sunday. Keep us informed.

[bonairemerrill]

Hi Chris, did you make it to Aruba? And hopefully to Bonaire today?

[smits]

The number of corona infections on Bonaire has been zero since yesterday. This means that the measures on the island will be relaxed. Bars, restaurants, and casinos on the island can stay open longer now. Until this weekend they had to close at 10 p.m. Now they can stay open until midnight. Casinos may remain open longer. However, no alcohol is allowed in casinos after midnight. The government has determined that.Residents of Sint Eustatius and Saba are allowed to fly to Bonaire without a mandatory PCR test, they do not need to be quarantined. On the other hand, Bonairians are not yet allowed to fly to St Eustatius without PCR residue and mandatory quarantine. Bonaire is now open to Dutch tourists. They must be able to provide a negative PCR test on arrival.

[thom]

How does disallowing alcohol in casinos after midnight inhibit the transmission of covid?

[smits]

How does disallowing alcohol in casinos after midnight inhibit the transmission of covid?

The longer you are allowed to drink alcohol, the bigger the chance that you get drunk or intoxicated.

as a result, your judgment becomes less and you will do less social distancing

[Canuck52]

A frustrating problem we are encountering on trying to get back to Bonaire is the ability of getting our negative Covid-19 tests within 72 hours of arriving. We still fully understand and agree with the requirement. We are at our Summer home in BC Canada, and trust me it is not Summer here anymore, today we woke up to snow. The flights are very limited as compared to past norms, and who knows when/if they will return to that level. We cannot use the KLM/TUI Amsterdam routes as Europe closed its doors to Canadians a while back. We can get tested, but being asymptomatic we have to request ‘special permission’ for international travel. There is no guarantee that request will be accepted in a timely manner, it depends on how busy the accredited labs are. So we are in a holding pattern for the time being. The case numbers in Canada are indeed going up. But that is mainly in the big population centres. In our part of the remote mountains of BC we have seen very-very few cases during the entire pandemic, but that does not count in the big picture. All we can do is keep our eyes and ears open and see when we can once again come back down.

Hope to see you all soon!

[sidemount]

Don't know it this will help....www.testfortravel.com

[ChrisL]

It’s not surprising that the PCR testing and the 72hr requirement have become an obstacle. It was a miscommunication with a testing facility that derailed our Saturday attempt to get to Bonaire via Curaçao. When we got to the medical group an hour before their posted closing time last Friday, they decided to close even earlier that day and I had no access to the PCR results I needed to travel with early Saturday morning. Rapid tests are not accepted. Anyway I picked up the results Saturday and rebooked to fly to a Aruba Sunday but was unable to find a Sunday flight to Bonaire - Divi said they were fully booked and the soonest they could get us to Bonaire the same day from Aruba was Wednesday so here we are, flew from Newark on United this morning - about to board a Divi flight via Curaçao to Bonaire. We had to get the PCR test done again on Monday - most places say 3-5 days for a test but can get them done in 24hrs if you ask - no promises. We lucked out - went in before lunch Monday and picked up the results Tuesday afternoon.

We had to complete the Aruba arrival health form but as a same day transfer they did not require an upload of the PCR test or even look at it in Aruba - we could have entered Arub without it - no enforcement. We filled out paperwork in advance for Curaçao but it apparently was not necessary as we are not getting off the plane on our way to Bonaire. We are sitting on the 4:00 PM flight waiting to take off. I’ll let you know how arrival on Bonaire goes.