HotelHoward Johnson Plaza Hotel & Casino

Last year Aug06, we decided to go to the ABC Caribbean islands, 1st of all we went to A island (Aruba) then the second island is C island (Curacao, its Southern Caribbean island). And we were on a very tiny budget, so we had to look for a cheap hotel, so we've looking at expedia.co.uk. And we found this hotel which is very central. Its about GBP36 per night per room because we had a special deal, we stayed there for 4 nights but the 4th night is free, but breakfast is not included.

The 2 stars hotel is about 20 minutes from the airport (Hato Airport) and we hired a car from Avis its about GBP70 for 4 days and picked it up from the airport, which was very useful for the holiday (we can drive around to anywhere). It was very difficult to find the hotel car park, because there were no signs or directions. At the end we had to go around the main bus stop station to get around to the private car park.

The hotel itself is located at Willemstad (the capital of Curacao) so its very central. Opposite the hotel, there are a lot of very colorful buildings. If you imagine the Amsterdam Street, with narrow building along a canal (Please refer the pictures below). Theres a floating footbridge that hinges open to let boats through. But when we went there last August, the footbridge wasnt working so there are free transfer boats to bring you to the other side of the town. The boats run frequently from early morning (about 7am) until late at night (about 11pm).

We booked on the internet for double room with the sea view. When we arrived there they shown us a twin room with the sea view and there was a dumped smell in the bedroom and the bathroom, so we werent happy at all. So we asked to change to a double room with sea view. But the hotel staff said it wasnt guaranteed to get the sea view room even booking on the internet, and there isn't any double room left with sea view. So they showed us a queen sized room with the car park view. Then we had to accept it. Well for the price that we were paying we cant ask for that much. This hotel is the cheapest that we can find on the internet!

It has to be mentioned though that the receptionist wasn't really helpful. Unfortunately there was no one else you could turn to apart from the reception.

There's a restaurant on site as well but we didn't go there at all for dinner or breakfast, because when we book the room it didnt include breakfast. The hotel has an outdoor swimming, parking space (free), 24-hour front desk, laundry (with fee), elevator/lift, dry cleaning service, shopping on site, casino and night club. This hotel has 50 rooms divided on 4 floors.

There are some restaurants (including Restaurant Bahila, please refer to photos below), cafes, subway around the hotel. This was very convenience. There was a supermarket about 8 minutes walk from the hotel. Theres also a floating market (with fresh fishes, vegetables) just 10 minutes walk through the floating footbridge.

The room is equipped with cable/satellite TV, bathroom, in-room safe, hair dryer, iron/ironing board, wake-up calls, fridge (on request), voice mail, and coffee/tea kettle, air-conditioned. But there werent any fridge; we forgot to ask for it when we booked online. We did ask the staff to bring us one, but they didnt have enough. But the good thing was there was an ice dispenser machine around the corner near to the drinks dispenser. There is internet access (dial-up) in every room but you had to pay for about USD10 for a night.

The down side is this hotel is not near to the beach! We would have book a beach/seafront hotel if we had more money (I wish). But its cheap so cant really complaint!