Apartment Yellow Tail Snapper in Den Laman Condominiums

Wonderful Stay at Den Laman Yellow Tail

We stayed at Den Laman in the Yellow Tail unit for 8 nights in early December. This is a one-bedroom ocean front unit on the second floor. This was our first trip to Bonaire and after several weeks of debating on where to stay we chose Den Laman based on the good reviews, the location, the fact that it had (at that time) an on-site management company/front desk which we thought would be helpful being our first visit, and that the pictures and website stated and showed a very small beach area.

Shortly after our booking, we received notice that there was no longer onsite management and the units were being managed by different offsite agencies. The Yellow Tail is now managed by Sunwise Bonaire. I contacted them a couple weeks prior to our departure to make sure everything from our reservation had transferred over to them correctly and to ask a few questions. They were always very prompt with their replies. They also picked us up from the airport the evening of our arrival (we didn’t want to get a vehicle until the next morning; being our first visit, we didn’t want to figure out where we were going in the dark…). While it would have been nice to have the front desk available to exchange beach towels daily, ask questions about restaurants, places to visits, etc., we managed just fine without it.

The Yellow Tail unit was very spacious and clean. We arrived on a Saturday evening and departed early on a Sunday morning (8 nights total). Housekeeping came and cleaned and replaced towels on Monday/Wednesday/Friday which was plenty for us. We thought they would just be replacing towels, but they mopped, wiped counters, etc. The terrace is very large with two loungers and a table with 6 chairs. The air-conditioning worked very well and there is a unit in the bedroom and the living room. There was a drying rack on the balcony which came in handy for our beach towels, swimsuits, and snorkel gear. The kitchen was modern and pretty well equipped. We did purchase some small aluminum baking trays and foil as there was no oven safe bakeware. We also did not find any hot pads to remove items from the oven so used the dish towel. Other than that, there was everything you could possibly need, including a small cooler. We had a light breakfast and occasional lunch at the condo and made dinner three of the eight nights. The bathroom is large, but there was no bathmat, and the way the shower was positioned with no door or curtain, we had to use a towel as a bathmat as the water did not stay within the shower floor. The bathroom floor was very slippery so some type of bathmat would be helpful.

The small beach area was nonexistent. The pictures on the websites must have been taken at a different time of year or when the tide was out. There is no way any beach chairs could have been placed anywhere or they would have washed away. While disappointing, we still loved the location. Being able to snorkel right from the dock was wonderful. We enjoyed the location as there were a few places we could walk to for dinner/lunch if we didn’t want to drive, the dive operation onsite was very good, and the snorkeling/diving right at the condo was wonderful. The restaurant onsite was also good for our arrival night and night prior to our early departure.

The first evening, a Saturday, there was very loud music coming from somewhere, but I couldn’t determine where. It didn’t seem to be from the Coco Beach side, almost seemed like it was from the Sand Dollar side (but sound may travel strange…). It was so loud that we could hear the thumping in the bedroom, with door closed and air-conditioning on. This went on until 1:30 AM. I began searching for somewhere else to stay, in the event it happened again the following evening. It did not; all other nights were very peaceful. There was a concert being held at the Coco Beach side on Thursday evening. We heard them testing the sound system in the afternoon, but the music did not bother us at all that evening.

There is some construction going on next door (between Den Laman and Coco Beach). The drilling and jackhammering, etc. was a bit annoying on a couple of days and dust was blowing, but there is quite a lot of construction on the island so it may be hard to avoid it anywhere. Not sure if the construction caused the dirt on the terrace or what, but it was very filthy. Pretty much didn’t want to walk out on the balcony barefoot as our feet would turn black. Didn’t use the lounge chairs as they were very dirty, and being cloth, hard to wipe clean. We did wipe the table and chairs and used those all week.

While there were a few minor inconveniences mentioned above, we still really enjoyed this condo and would not hesitate to stay there again. I’d give it a 4-1/2 out of 5 stars…. The corner units on the 2nd floor appeared to have even larger terraces, and that’s what we may look into next time. While I may have mentioned negatives above, the positives greatly outweighed anything that wasn’t 100% to our liking.

16th Dec 2019 by KelflyOh - United States via