ABC Islands

I figured that it was time I got caught up on some travel info. Way back in June (the 17th, to be precise), we took a trip to the ABC Islands. Where are these islands, you may ask?

They are just off the coast of South America, and the three islands aren’t particularly related. They are, in fact, three separate countries – but they do have a nifty naming mnemonic. Specifically, their names are alphabetical, and right at the top of the chart: Aruba is A, Bonaire is B and Curacao is C.

We visited all three, since we were there and all.

When we went to Jamaica in January, we chose to be bumped from our flight and receive two free round trip tickets from USAirways, valid for flight to anywhere in the US or Caribbean. This is different than the standard vouchers they offer, which are only for the US. Technically, the vouchers are identical, but since we were bumped from a Caribbean flight, our free trip could be in the Caribbean as well. Sweet!

For those of you keeping track, you may have noticed that this means we went to Jamaica right after I was laid off and Aruba right after we found that my wife would be without a job. Yup. No reason to skip vacations, especially when they have already come out of the checking account!

Though we chose USAirways for rather obvious reasons, that set of flights only got us to Aruba and back. We wanted to visit all three islands, since we’d be right there and all. We actually thought about trying to get to South America as well, but it ended up being too tight (and too expensive). So to get between islands, we found that island hopping was cheapest with BonairExel. We made reservations via email weeks before our trip. That went very smoothly. Total of about $200 per person for three flights: Aruba to Bonaire, then Bonaire to Curacao, and finally Curacao back to Aruba.

Make sure you watch out for – and account for – your departure taxes. Because each of these islands is its own country, they each collect departure taxes when you leave. Since we flew into Aruba on USAirways, the Aruba departure tax was included when we returned home. But it wasn’t included if we went from Aruba to a country other than the US.

Luckily, because we landed on Aruba, and then only a little while later left for another country, we weren’t considered to have “entered” Aruba. The same was true when we stopped in Curacao during our flight to Bonaire. If you spend the night prior to moving on, you’ll need to keep this rule in mind, as it may result in an extra set of departure taxes!

Strangely, the departure tax for Curacao can apparently be included in the flight cost, yet Bonaire cannot. So in the end, USAirways handled our Aruba departure tax, we had to pay it ourselves upon leaving Bonaire, and finally BonairExel handled the departure tax when we left Curacao to return to Aruba. Confused? We sure were. I’ll include some more detail in upcoming posts, where I’ll also go into some more info about the islands themselves.


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