On Curacao the reef starts at the beach. Everything else is a short drive.
Which Klein Curacao boat gets you a seat in the shade. What the turtles at Playa Piskado cost. Whether the far west beaches are worth the hour out of Willemstad. Reviews of every tour you can book on the island.
Klein Curacao, the Piskado turtles, an underwater scooter, and the old town on foot.
The four bookings a first week on the island tends to hang off. What each costs, and what the people who went back say about it.
01The long boat dayKlein Curacao Day Trip with Premium Open Bar and BBQ-LunchTwo hours across open water to an uninhabited island with one lighthouse, a barbecue lunch and an open bar for the run home.
02The morning with turtlesSwimming with Sea Turtles meets Sea turtle beachGreen turtles come in to the fishermen at Playa Piskado. Take the early departure, before the day boats stir the sand.
03Underwater, no lessonAquafari Tour in CuraçaoA scooter with its own air bubble over your head. You stay dry from the neck up and nobody has to certify you first.
04The town on footThe best walking tour WillemstadPunda, the swinging pontoon bridge and the Otrobanda murals in a couple of hours, for less than lunch costs.
On Curacao the drop-off is a swim from the sand, not a boat ride.
The reef wall runs a few strokes off most of the leeward beaches, which is why this island teaches so many first dives and why a mask is worth packing even if you never book a boat. Four ways in, and what each one costs to start.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Aquafari Tour in Curaçao
Snorkel tripsFins, a short crossing, and water you can see the bottom of.
Dive daysWrecks, walls and the shore entries the island is known for.
Turtle swimsGreen turtles at the fishermen’s pier on the west coast.
Get certifiedConsecutive mornings in the shallows, then a licence for life.
All 25 dive days on Curacao →
The days out more visitors to Curacao take than any other.
Every Curacao review →The island’s most popular tours, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Klein Curacao Day Trip with Premium Open Bar and BBQ-Lunch
Sail from Jan Thiel to uninhabited Klein Curaçao aboard BlueFinn’s catamaran. Plan on roughly two hours each way, about four to five hours on the island, a BBQ lunch, premium open bar, snorkeling gear, and music on the return. The beach is superb, while the ride can be rough.
From · $131
Read our review →
2
Aquafari Tour in Curaçao
from $159
3
Swimming with Sea Turtles meets Sea turtle beach
from $99
4
Klein Curacao Adventure Day Trip
from $120
5
Discover Diving in Curacao
from $125
6
Curacao Helmet Diving-Walk the Ocean Floor, No Swimming Required
from $150
7
All West Beach Hopping Tour
from $85
8
Guided Tour at the Curaçao Liqueur Distillery
from $20
Two hours of open sea, and an island with nothing on it but a lighthouse.
Klein Curacao is uninhabited, offers no shade you did not bring, and is still the best morning on the calendar. Closer in there are sunset sails out of Willemstad, catamarans down the leeward coast and the mangrove channels behind Spanish Water.
Willemstad: pastel gables on one bank, the bridge that swings open on the other.
Everything in Willemstad →
Punda holds the Handelskade waterfront and the floating market; Otrobanda holds the murals and the stairs. The Queen Emma pontoon bridge between them opens for every passing ship, which is how half the island’s visitors end up on the wrong bank at the wrong moment.
The city with a driver and a stop list
Punda, Otrobanda, the Queen Emma bridge and usually the distillery, without working out the bus routes first. The version to take when the ship berths at nine and sails at five.
Both banks in a couple of hours
Across the pontoon bridge, through the market and up into the Otrobanda lanes, with someone who can tell you which of the murals are new and what the Dutch gables are doing in the tropics.
Chobolobo, where the blue one is actually made
A working courtyard distillery in a townhouse east of the centre. The tour is short, the tasting is not, and you leave knowing the colour has nothing to do with the flavour.
Past the salt pans, Curacao turns into scrub, cliffs and the best beaches on it.
Grote Knip, Cas Abao, Porto Marie and Playa Piskado all sit out at the far west end, with the Shete Boka blowholes and the Christoffel hills behind them. Buggies, open jeeps and the beach-hopping minibuses run the same road; what differs is how many stops you get and how long you stay at each.
- 1Curacao Half Day ATV East Adventure Tour
- 2Best Highlight Island Tour – Perfect Day Tour. Small group Tourfrom $109
- 3Snorkel with Turtles & Kenepa Grandi Beach: Nr.1 Island Day Tripfrom $75
What a day out on Curacao actually costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. A fair number of the island’s best mornings come in under the price of dinner in Pietermaai.
Walking tours of both banks, the distillery tasting, tuk-tuk loops and the short snorkel hops off the leeward beaches.
- 1Guided Tour at the Curaçao Liqueur Distilleryfrom $20
- 2The best walking tour Willemstadfrom $28
- 3Willemstad Shore Excursion:from $35
The full days: Klein Curacao, beach hopping with lunch, the turtle swims, buggy runs and a first dive.
Private guides, chartered boats, dive courses and the once-a-trip splurges that earn it.
Three things you can only really do on Curacao.
Reef and beach bars run the length of the Caribbean. A liqueur distilled in a townhouse courtyard, a sea cave that lights up from below, and a pier where wild turtles come to you do not.
The blue liqueur, at the source
Curacao liqueur is made from the dried peel of the laraha, a bitter orange the Spanish planted here that never turned sweet in this soil. The Senior family have distilled it in the courtyard of Landhuis Chobolobo since 1947. The blue is added at the end and changes nothing about the taste, which is the first thing the guide tells you and the last thing anybody believes.
- 1Guided Tour at the Curaçao Liqueur Distillery★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 589 reviews
- 2Colors & Flavors: City, Culture & Authentic Blue Curaçao Tasting★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 81 reviews
- 3A Taste of Curaçao: City tour, Chobolobo & Mambo Beach Escape★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 51 reviews
Hato Caves and the Blue Room
The Hato limestone sits up a staircase behind the airport, full of stalactites, old petroglyphs and a colony of long-nosed bats. The Blue Room is the other sort of cave: a chamber near Westpunt you swim into under a low ledge, where light entering below the waterline throws the whole room electric blue. One needs shoes, the other needs a boat and a decent breath.
- 1Curacao Beach and Hato Caves Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 440 reviews
- 2Hato Caves, Turtles & Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 372 reviews
- 3Island Treasures: Caves, Turtles and Turquoise Beach Break★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 244 reviews
Green turtles at the fishermen’s pier
Fishermen clean their catch at the small pier at Playa Piskado on the west coast, and green turtles worked out generations ago that it pays to wait underneath. You swim out from a scrap of beach and they pass at arm’s length, entirely uninterested. Early is clearer: by mid-morning the day boats have arrived and the sand is up.
- 1Swimming with Sea Turtles meets Sea turtle beach★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,058 reviews
- 2Snorkel with Turtles & Kenepa Grandi Beach: Nr.1 Island Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 419 reviews
- 3Hato Caves, Turtles & Beach★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 372 reviews
Four Curacao bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of this island can be arranged from a beach bar the night before. These four run on crossings, group sizes and course calendars that take no interest in when your flight gets in.
- 01Klein Curacao Day Trip with Premium Open Bar and BBQ-LunchThe boats leave early and they leave once. The crossing runs about two hours each way, so there is no later sailing to catch.
- 02Aquafari Tour in CuraçaoA departure carries a fixed number of scooters. The constraint is the slot, not the price.
- 03PADI Open Water Course in CuracaoAn Open Water course runs over consecutive mornings, so it has to sit at the start of a week rather than the end of one.
- 04Happy Hour Sunset CruiseThere is one sunset departure a day and it moves through the year with the sunset itself. The time is set before you arrive, not by you.
The wind decides which side of Curacao you get in the water on.
The trade wind comes out of the east nearly every day of the year. That is why the north coast is a wall of surf at Shete Boka and why every swimming beach on the island sits on the leeward west side. It stiffens through the afternoon too, so boats go early and the back half of the day belongs to caves, courtyards and the old town.
- 1Guided Tour at the Curaçao Liqueur Distilleryfrom $20
- 2Curacao Beach and Hato Caves Tourfrom $69
- 3Hato Caves, Turtles & Beachfrom $90
By part of the island
By kind of day: water, road, town or table
Willemstad, the leeward beaches, Klein Curacao: how a first week on the island tends to run.
The newest Curacao tour reviews.
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The Lemon Beach Adults Only Relaxation by the Sea
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Sunset Sip and Paint Overlooking Curaçao Iconic Skyline
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Sunset Boat Trip in the Spanish water and coastline of Curacao
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Snorkeling Boat Trip Tugboat Beach and Spanish Water Curacao
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Snorkel Trip on a Catamaran Yacht All Inclusive Experience
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Curacao Airport (CUR) to Curacao – Round-Trip Private Transfer
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Private Luxury 28ft Boat Trip Coastline Trip Curacao
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