First off some facts: 1) This is a place you go to with a family or larger group. 2) One needs to rent a car for your stay, or this location is totally useless. It is several blocks to the closest grocery store, and a few kilometers to any beaches. Punta (Downtown Willemstad tourist area) is over 5km away. There are few or no cabs, and bus transit is fairly minimal. The closest beaches are at the Sea Aquarium and Jan Thiel, both of which are about 4km away. 3) This is not so good for larger group of adults, as 4 of the 5 bedrooms are very small. Only the master bedroom is an "adult" bedroom. If you are traveling as 2 adults with 2 to 4 children or teens this could be a good choice. I suppose if the group was all adults who are into partying it might be a pretty good place, as one basically never sees the neighbours. 4) The electrical power usage allowance and damage deposit ( as has been reported by others) WILL be a problem. Being aware in advance we watched this closely. There is no way one may stay within the allocation if you use ANY air conditioning. More detail on this follows. 5) For those who are trying to find this place on a map, it is the Salina district, on a corner lot, on the intersection of Anasaweg and Carawaraweg, 3 blocks south of Caracasbaaiweg. The address is 14 Anasaweg. 6) Privacy is better than hotels or other more commercial accomodation. Yard maintenance: Almost non-existent. There are fallen branches and foliage everywhere, and it is very messy. As the island is quite dry, watering is needed to maintain a garden, and as that costs money, one may easily surmise that is not happening! The garden here is dying. It’s a pity, as it must have been very nice at one time.
Towards the end of our stay it rained for a couple of days, and one could then begin to see what it might look like if properly watered, as we finally saw some flowers on the plants.
Your Arrival: When we arrived it was quite clean, except for some cockraches , which were easy to catch and remove. Cleaning and maintenance was Minimal. We stayed for 2 weeks. They came and cleaned once, after were there for 4 days. Over the next 10 days there was no cleaning and no change of sheets , towels, or bedding.
We asked them to pick us up a few groceries for our arrival, which they did.
Rooms: Amenities: The kitchen and rooms are reasonably well equipped. While there is a decent set of cookware, and items for eating, one must also be prepared to buy any and all consumables. That means toilet paper, food, cooking staples, cleaning substances, etc. The kitchen has a fairly good gas top and a 2 element electric top. There is a dishwasher that is broken down, a microwave and coffee maker that works, and the usual things such as a toaster, etc. There is a clothes washer and dryer, and they are fairy decent quality. However we did not use the dryer as that would certainly have driven our electricity bill out of sight. Luckily there is a great clothesline tree in the back yard, so drying was no problem, except for when it rains, of course. If one wants to lounge in the evenings, there is very limited furniture, nothing in the way of comfortable couches or recliners. However there are 3 separate dining tables! One that is in a converted car parking space, that seats 10! But no couches or comfortable chairs.. Basically it looks like they furnished this place with the remnants of a couple of auctions. Internet: There is a DSL connection and modem provided. No WIFI. I brought my own WIFI router as I had heard this in advance. The DSL modem died 4 times. They were quite good about replacing it, generally within a day. The speed of the service is VERY slow. Do not plan on watching your favorite TV shows from the internet! Even Skype calls were noticeably choppy. Speaking of TV, there is a satellite receiver and a 29" tube TV and a DVD player. the channels available are mostly US and S.American networks for the central and S. american market. Many are in English, with Spanish subtitles. Some of the more common channels are available, such as CNN, Fox, etc. No BBC, US networks, European, or other stations. Several specialty cable/satellite channels such as Cartoon Network are there. It is a bit of a mixed bag, but overall not too bad. Do not expect to keep up with your favorite series and you should likely be fine.
It is suitable for keeping some kids entertained in the evenings when there is little else to do.
Restaurants and Bars: There are very few restaurants or bars close by. Those that are around are mostly local Papiementu places, and not so "family friendly". The closest thing to a family restaurant we found was a bar and grill called Larrys Place. It is about 2 km from the house. While it looks much like the typical American restaurant, we went there for lunch once, and the staff were totally clueless. One meal was supposed to come with corn on the cob: No corn. One diner asked for a side salad. When the meal was served there was no salad, and when we inquired we were told they had no salad. One meal was a pasta and shrimp dish. It was ordered by our young teenage girl. She complained, and, at first, my wife and I thought she was just being fussy, which is not terribly unusual. When my wife looked at it, she noticed a smell: The shrimp were completely bad, and smelled rotten! We left rather immediately, and after my family was out of the door, I brought this to the attention of the staff, who basically did not really care about it.
Beach/Pools/Grounds: Swimming Pool This is one bright spot in the picture. Clean, well maintained and very kid-friendly. Just out the gate from the converted car park. There are several lounge chairs, a picnic table, and a Weber charcoal barbeque. There is also a big comfy hammock, but as birds perch and nest in the tree over it, this is covered in bird droppings.. Pity. The car parking area is accessed through powered double gates. There is a remote control provided for this. Unfortunately, while we were there one of the 2 gates broke down, so we had to manually get out and push it each time we came and went. Privacy: The neighbours are very unobtrusive. We did not see or hear them during our stay. The yard is fenced and quite private. Noise: The property is on a fairly busy street and there is quite a bit of traffic noise. The neighbours have dogs, and these tend to bark frequently and loudly. They are big dogs. Insects and pests: When we first arrived we were greeted by many singing birds, and in the yard friendly geckos and lizards. We also had many very large cockroaches in the house. Over a couple of days I was able to hunt them all down. However, within those couple of days the children were a bit scared to use a bathroom! The one thing that was sorely missed is screens on the windows. Curacao is blessed with some really nice steady breezes, and it should have been really a pleasure to open all the windows and let the wind cool the house. Unfortunately you will see I said "should have". In reality the mosquitos are quite aggressive, and if one is to pass a night without waking up covered in bites and welts, it pays to keep the windows and doors all closed and make sure the mosquitos do not enter. So much for the breezes. You see, there are no screens anywhere on windows and doors. And there are no mosquito nets in the bedrooms. Bed bugs – One of the smaller bedrooms had the beds infested with bed bugs. When our 9 year old woke one morning, she was covered in itchy, red, swollen bites. I inspected her bedding and found bed bugs on the folds of the mattress seams. I went to a local pet store, and purchased some pet insect spray, and stripped the beds and everything else in that room. After that, and freshly washed bedding, the bugs no longer bit our little girl. When I brought it up with the property manager, he informed me he had never heard of bedbugs (and you could tell he thought I was making this up!). ♠ Water supply There is very little water pressure. As a result things like washing dishes, for example, is a bit tricky. Hot water only worked sporadically. The water supply failed for most of a day. The maintenance trucks were to be seen fixing this.
When the water worked again it was rusty and dirty for a day.
Activities on and off the Resort/Hotel: There is one supermarket a few blocks away, and it is fairly good. There are pharmacies, gasoline/petrol stations and other similar amenities stores within a few blocks.
Other Comments: In summary: This is a reasonably comfortable house, in a decent, but not luxurious neighbourhood. Noise is an issue, due to it being on a fairly busy street. The management do a fairly good job, but tend to respond more to complaints than to pro-actively deal with problems.
If one is travelling with 4 to 8 people, it may be a better or more economical solution that resort hotel rooms.