This was our first time to Bonaire in all of our cruises. I am so glad we were able to book the ABC islands. When I booked this cruise, I knew we wanted a golf cart to explore the island, and I knew that they sold out pretty quick. I booked 2 golf carts through Bonaire Cruisers back in December 2021. I am glad that I did. The cost was $95 with a $100 deposit per golf cart. Bonaire Cruisers is a very short walk from the cruise terminal. As soon as you exit the cruise terminal, you turn left and walk down to the blue building. You turn right at the blue building and walk until you see a red store with a Coca-Cola sign on the side of it. Turn right at this store, and you’ll see Bonaire Cruisers on your left.
We went to Bonaire Cruisers and picked up our 2 golf carts. Their golf carts are in EXCELLENT shape. They are very clean, very well maintained and are gas powered. A tank of gas will last you the entire day and then some. We decided to do the south route from the start. We left Bonaire Cruisers and headed toward the airport. If the sea is on your right, you’re doing the south right. We stopped at some beautiful beaches along the way, and eventually came to the Solar Salt Works of Bonaire. This was super cool! I have never seen salt mines before, and this was a great first experience for me. They mine the salt from the ocean and carry it over and it’s in huge piles. The water all around the salt mines was pink, and had salt around the salinas. We kept going after stopping to see the salt, until we got to the old slave huts. The old slave huts were constructed in 1850 and served as camping facilities for the slaves working in the salt ponds. It was very somber but interesting to see. I could not imagine living in one of these little huts.
Once we finished checking out the old slave huts, we kept going along the tiny road and ended up at Lighthouse Point. We stopped here for pictures, then kept going until we came to the flamingo sanctuary. Flamingos love salt! Flamingos come from other islands to Bonaire because of their salt concentration. You can see hundreds of flamingos around Bonaire as it’s known as the flamingo capitol. We kept going and ended up going through the mangroves and tiny villages before ending up back in Kralendijk. We were thirsty at this point so I stopped at a grocery store in Kralendijk and got some sodas. Mom was happy because they had Dr. Pepper! I got me a Coke, and the boys got water. This was a good spot to stop and rest, and rehydrate.
Once we finished resting at the grocery store with our drinks, we continued our journey toward the north route. We drove up the tiny road going up the mountain, looking at the beautiful scenery. We made it up to 1,000 steps where we would stop. We went down to the water (I believe it was 67 steps) where we would spend a little time. We then went back to the top. Now from this point, it’s a 1 way road and it’s a 2 hour drive. We decided to skip that, so we turned around to come back into Kralendijk. I went ahead and took the golf carts back since we were there. From that point, we walked around Kralendijk and into all of the shops to do quite a bit of shopping.
We would end up spending quite a bit of time in Kralendijk shopping. We were finally ready for dinner, so we went to Karels to eat. The food here was good but the service was pretty poor. I assume they were short staffed, I don’t know. It was $55.00 for the 4 of us to eat here. They had a very extensive menu though so anyone could find something that they liked here.
Sorry the images are sideways. :\
After we left Karels, we started heading back to the port area to do some final shopping. We did stop in a pharmacy to buy some more sunscreen. We bought a can of Banana Boat for $28.30. The same bottle we pay $9 for on Amazon. At least we had some though.
We then continued our journey back to the cruise port. We were pretty tired. We got back to the ship, took showers and went to a few shows.
That was the end of our day in Bonaire. Be sure to go back to the main posting for this trip to continue reading!
If you plan on renting a golf cart in Bonaire, be sure to download an offline map on your Google Maps to use. That way you don’t get lost. maps.me works as well, but Google Maps works the best. Bonaire Cruisers will also give you a paper map as well as step by step instructions on how to traverse the entire island. You can do the entire island in a day if you would like, we just was taking it easy.
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