NITROGEN NEWS

Trip Reports and News

(The E-Newsletter of Aqua Dreams Travel, Inc.)

September 1, 2003

Over the past several months, staff at Aqua Dreams Travel, Inc have visited several of our destinations that we feature. We visit our dive operators and resorts to make sure that we remain current on their operations and to make sure that the resort and dive operator is as we represent it to you. When we visit the folks we work with in the Caribbean and Central America, we check the cleanliness of the rooms, quality of food, safety equipment on the boats, rental gear, compressors, etc. We visit any new dive sites or attractions and generally try to experience the resort and diving just as our customers would experience it on their hard earned vacation. One of the most important things we do is to establish or firm up our relationships with our suppliers. This part of the visit is very important to our customers. One of our customers recently wrote back to us,

“We are now back from our trip to Utila. We had a wonderful time, and wanted to express my gratitude for all of the assistance you provided on getting us there. I have to say that one of the real treats was the special treatment we seemed to get both at the Mango Inn and in the Utila Dive Center for being some of the Aquadream folks.

“Thanks again for everything. We will certainly look you up again for our next trip of this type.”

When people have great dive trips, they usually report back about the quality of the service, good food, and accommodations and diving. When they report on a terrible dive trip, they seldom mention the diving or food, but rather, mention the poor service they received along the way. While our visits do not make a dive operator more service oriented or a hotel more responsive if there is a problem, they do have an impact. And, hey, we are all divers here at Aqua Dreams and we need to get in the water as well!

Trip Reports

ST. CROIX

St. Croix is one of the U.S. Virgin Islands located a little to the southeast of Puerto Rico. As a United States Territory you do not need a passport or birth certificate to travel to St. Croix as you are still within the jurisdiction of the United States. (While proof of citizenship is not required, it does speed up your departure home to the continental United States). English is spoken through out, the dollar accepted and even though driving is on the left in many respects you still feel like you are at home, but even Toto would quickly realizes that this is not Kansas; you are in the Caribbean.

St. Croix is one of the few non-volcanic islands in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean. As a comparatively flat island, it is primarily dry and hilly. There is one area that can be characterized as a rainforest near Frederickstad where you can visit a special bar with very large beer drinking pigs! Denmark owned the US Virgin Islands before the US acquired them in 1917. Danish Caribbean architecture is in proud display throughout with the remains of windmills for sugar processing scattered throughout the island.

We particularly like Christianstad for its quiet ambiance, great food, good shopping and convenience to some of the best diving in St. Croix. St. Croix Ultimate Blue water Adventure (SCUBA), owned by Molly and Ed Buckley is our preferred dive operator and the Hotel Caravelle, located waterfront, could not be more convenient. Diving is a mixture of coral gardens and walls with the walls of Cane Bay and the East and West wall of Salt River among some of the best wall dives in the Caribbean. Diving depths start as shallow as thirty feet and go beyond recreational depths with ample opportunity to multilevel your dives. SCUBA offers NITROX and all of the standard opportunities for training, as well as one of the most fully stocked dive stores that rival that of the Continental US!

The Hotel Caravelle is a nice, comfortable hotel located directly on the waterfront of Christianstad. The hotel features a swimming pool and a restaurant/bar that is waterfront where you are able to sit and enjoy the day while watching the floatplanes come and go to St. Thomas and San Juan!

Over the years, there have been reports that St. Croix was troubled with crime. We did not notice any particular problems, nor were there times that we ever felt unsafe. We spoke with Ed about this in length. Ed has been on St. Croix for about 18 years and feels that the crime is not a problem as long as you use common sense. Many people leave for vacation and, unfortunately, sometimes leave their good sense and judgment at home. When you travel in the States you normally lock your doors, keep you wallet and handbag safe. Most people do not go down alleys or streets that are dark. Unfortunately, one needs to use common sense no matter where you travel in the world. St. Croix is cleaner, safer and certainly friendlier that most places people visit. You do not need to worry about crime, but please do not leave you brain at home!

Overall, St. Croix and St. Croix Ultimate Bluewater Adventures/Hotel Caravelle is a wonderful combination for a weeklong dive trip. You will have a good variety of dive sites; quality walls and reefs, outstanding service at one of the friendliest dive shops on earth and nice convenient and comfortable accommodations, and several opportunities for good food and relaxation. Low season packages for 2003 include roundtrip airport transfers, accommodations for seven nights, diving for five days with all equipment included, breakfast daily and all taxes and service charges. Price, based upon double occupancy, is $858.00 per person. Other packages with quaint Bed and Breakfast resorts and beachfront resorts can be arranges. American Airlines and US Airways serve St. Croix with non-stop flights from Miami, San Juan, Charlotte and Philadelphia.

COSTA RICA

Next we went to Costa Rica for a week of several adventures with Bill Beard’s Adventure Travel. We flew into Liberia and we met by Cero, our guide for the week. To our pleasure, it turned out that Bill Beard and his wife Nadine were also there during that week. What a gas! We began our week with four nights at the Sol Playa Villas, which is a nice hotel that is on a hillside with all rooms overlooking the bay at Playa Hermosa. There is a very long black sand beach that is easily accessible by hotel tram. Sol Villas also has private, one, two and three bedroom villas, many with there own private dipping pool.

Diving is Costa Rica is much different than Caribbean diving. The first difference is that you are not diving in the Caribbean! The diving is around rock outcroppings in and on the edges of the Gulf of Papagayo on the northwestern Pacific shore of the country. Water temperature will vary from the upper sixties in winter to the lower eighties in summer. The diving in Costa Rica is centered upon one thing: fish, tons of fish. The thing that makes Costa Rica so fish abundant is what keeps the visibility comparatively low in Caribbean diving terms: plankton. While the diving is not reefs and walls, it was incredible. On one of our first dives, all of a sudden it got dark. When we looked up to see what had happened, there must have been a couple of hundred Mobula Rays. These rays look just like Manta Rays, but only smaller. They only get a wingspan of about 24 inches. They were so thick that they blocked out the sunlight! As Nadine said, it was not a school of Rays, but a University of Rays! We also encountered White Tip sharks, Bull Sharks, and fish balls. Not just a few Bull sharks, but a good dozen ten to fourteen foot sharks. The schooling fish were so thick that you thought that the big black cloud coming your way could be a whale shark which occasional find there way to the Gulf of Papagayo. Fish that you normal do not associate as schooling fish- Butterfly fish and Puffer fish would appear in large schools! There were many different species of Eels, Nudibranchs, Puffer fishes, Angelfish, Butterfly fishes and the occasional pair of Moorish Idols. We even saw what appeared to be Red Lipped Blennies that were so big that they must have been on steroids! There are no pretty coral reefs and the visibility is reduced in Costa Rica, but you will seldom encounter as many big fish on any Caribbean reef dive, as you will in Costa Rica!

After several days of diving we experienced the abundant land adventures offered in Costa Rica. We transferred to the Arenal Volcano area and checked in at the Volcano Lodge. In a matter of two days we went to a Hot Springs and soaked for an hour or so in 102 degree water, went on a Canopy Tour with horseback riding and finished with Whitewater rafting before continuing on to our last destination: San Jose. While eating dinner at the restaurant one evening, we watched as the Lava flowed from the Volcano. Amazing!

If you are wondering what a Canopy Tour is…… well, you get harnessed up and ride horseback up into the rainforest, park your horse and continue on foot about 15 minutes until you reach a platform about 150 up in the air that is in a large tree. Here the guides snap your harness pulley onto a thick steel cable that runs a couple of hundred feet across the tree tops to another platform in a surrounding tree. From the platform, you jump! You are suspended from the cable as you “zip” along to the next tree, while sometimes having a brush with the treetops as you speed along. WOW!!!! Here we were rewarded with Toucans in the nearby treetops. The view was spectacular, birds amazing and the experience of zipping along at the top of the rainforest canopy unparalleled.

From here we went to a river where we went White Water rafting. This river has a series of Class II and Class II rapids, depending upon water level. The ride is about 2 ½ hours and you again see Monkeys, Sloth and many different kinds of birds.

One of the difficult things with planning a trip to Costa Rica is the tremendous number of options available. You could stay for a week diving and still not do justice to the variety of dive sites or you can stay a week inland near Arenal and never want for more exciting adventures. Fortunately, we can offer a combination trip that would include three or four days of diving and a couple of days in the inland. Pricing for combination trips vary with the inclusions and the number of people traveling together. Call for an exact quote.

Bill Beard’s Adventure Travel is offering an outstanding Fall dive special: Seven nights at the Villas Sol Hotel with five days of two tank local boat diving, round trip airport transfers from Liberia, three meals a day and all local alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages (12 p.m. to 12 a.m.) and all taxes and service charges for $925.00 per person, based upon double occupancy. Delta Airlines provides service to Liberia, Costa Rica three times a week, so it is easily accessible from most cities.

Dive Travel News

Bonaire

Bonaire, as many of you know, is one of our favorite destinations because of the abundant shore diving, quality reefs with some of the greatest diversity of fish in the Caribbean and high quality resorts and dive operators. Bonaire properties can be categorized as primarily condo/apartment style or primarily hotel style properties. Generally, the hotel style properties are Divi Flamingo, Plaza Resort Bonaire, Captain Don’s Habitat, Harbour Village and Portofino Hotel & Yacht Club. To be sure, Divi has some studios, Plaza has their Villas and Port Bonaire and Habitat has their Cottages. Nevertheless the majority of the rooms are hotel style and there is a hotel ambiance about the properties. On the other hand, the Condo/Apartment properties in Bonaire are best represented by Belmar Apartments, Buddy Dive Resort, Lions Dive and Sand Dollar Condominium Resort.

Note that we have added Harbour Village and the Portofino Hotel. The Harbour Village has been in Bonaire for many years, but has re-emphasized its dive program this year after retaining new management. The Portofino hotel is associated with the Harbour Village and is located a part from the Harbour Village property on the edge of the marina. The Harbour Village is an up-scale property with a delightful beach and elegantly appointed rooms. Portofino is a more budget property, yet still retaining high standards. In order to introduce divers to this new option, the Portofino Hotel and yacht Club is offering FREE DIVING until December 15, 2003. Seven night packages with a 4 door pick-up truck, 6 days of unlimited shore diving and 6 one tank boat dives with all taxes and service charges start at $699.00 per person, based on double occupancy.

The Den Laman, located next to the Sand Dollar Condominium Resort is currently undergoing a major renovation. The building has been demolished and a new restaurant and other stores will take its place. This is very good news for Sand Dollar customers: Another great option for dining and more resources close by! Stay tuned as we monitor this construction project. We believe that it will only mean good things for our Sand Dollar customers! Remember seven nights in a two bedroom condo with a four door-AC pickup truck, six days of unlimited shore diving, six one tank boat dives, breakfast daily and all taxes and service charges is only $690.00 per person, based upon quad occupancy at the Sand Dollar Condominium Resort.

Curacao

We just wanted to remind everyone that our Holiday Beach Special is still in effect until December 15, 2003. Holiday Beach Resort and Casino is located just a short distance from downtown Willemstad on the Ortobanda side of Willemstad. Holiday Beach Resort and Casino has a nice beach, good swimming area, great shore dive, Casino and pool. Holiday Beach Dive, owned and operated by our good friend Anton, offers daily two tank boat dives and unlimited shore diving. Seven nights accommodations, six days of two tank boat diving and unlimited shore diving, round trip airport transfers, breakfast daily, all taxes and service charges AND round trip air from Miami is only $999.00 per person, based upon double occupancy (not including airfare related taxes). This is one of the very best values we have found this year,

Utila

The Mango Inn in Utila is adding two air-conditioned “penthouse” units increasing the number of high quality air-conditioned rooms to six. They have also added an outdoor pizza oven to the restaurant! The Mango Inn/Utila Dive Centre is also offering a DEMA special for all bookings from now until October 31. This is available to the general public. Seven nights in an AC cabin with 6 days of three boat dives daily, breakfast and dinner daily, round trip airport transfers and all taxes and service charges is $1,099.00 for two! If you would like to stay in one of their new “Penthouse” cabins, add $150.

DEMA

Each year members of the Dive Industry have their annual industry trade show: DEMA. This year the show will be in Miami during the second week of October. Dive equipment manufacturers, dive resorts, dive stores, travel agents, magazines and training agencies attend this annual event. As an “industry” show, consumers are not allowed to attend, but you should be aware that the show is occurring because several resorts offer specials that are not available at any other time. If you are interested in a particular destination and want us to check on specials, call us at 888-322-3483 or email us at demaspecials@aquadreams.com.

Airline News

American Airlines, Continental, Delta, United and Northwest have relaxed their policies on ticket exchanges and refund ability. Earlier this year most airlines established a use it, exchange it or lose it policy where you had to use your ticket by the first travel date or exchange it for another date after paying the exchange fee ($100-125) or the ticket would have NO VALUE. These airlines have changed their policies so that now, the ticket will have value for one year after the date it was issued if you cancel your reservation before the first date of travel. While you still would have to pay the ticket exchange fee, you will not longer have to make your new reservations before your departure date. Call with any questions!

American Airlines will begin daily service to Cozumel from Dallas on January 31, 2004. This is great news for folks who love Cozumel as much as we do!

US Airways is beginning weekly service to San Jose, Costa Rica adding another option to folks that want to travel to this exciting destination.

As announced in an earlier newsletter, Air Jamaica has changed their Bonaire days to Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday. There are still many seats available on the new Sunday flights around the Holidays; so we would encourage folks to consider Air Jamaica to Bonaire latter this year! They have also- AGAIN- extended their sale to September 12, 2004.

Sol Air has cancelled their Dallas service to Roatan for this fall. Hopefully they will re-start the service latter on this year.

ON THE ROAD…

In 2003, Aqua Dreams Travel, Inc. will be visiting our friends around the country while attending several retail and industry trade shows.

Our 2003 schedule is as follows:

DEMA

(Trade show)

(Miami, FL)

Booth #2536

October 8-11, 2003

Terri, Dani, Tessa, Nancy, Niki & Gene

_____________________________________

Aqua Dreams Travel, Inc.

4708 SE 8^th Ct. #3

Cape Coral, FL 33904

(1-888-322-DIVE)

info@aquadreams.com