What an oasis of tranquility in a very unique setting and location. The hotel sits on the Caribbean, with two private ocean-water coves. They are protected from the ocean by man-made rock jetties and are the perfect place to snorkel and cool off from the desert-like climate of Curacao. As Wilemstadt is the largest dry dock port in the Northern hemisphere, there is a continuous stream of absolutely massive ocean liners entering the harbor withing 50 feet of the shore. It is rare to be able to sip a cool drink and watch these massive boats slip by at such close range. Of course, when they dock, the town is over run with hoards of people buying tee-shirts - but you can always walk back to the Avila and swim until the boat leaves. Often we observed the amazing, and prehistoric frigate cranes sitting stationary perhaps 100 feet in the air, riding the off shore wind and looking very much like something you would see in Jurassic Park! We visited the Ostrich Farm, which is park-like concentration of these beasts. It was a great outing. We also found the salt flats where huge numbers of spectacular pink flamingo live. Avila Beach Hotel allowed our family of four to stay in a stand alone condo, with literally a private lagoon. It is elegant, well maintained and run like clockwork. Not your typical Caribbean resort because, frankly the Netherlands Antilles (Dutch West Indies for historians) has such an amazing place in history. Some of it is checkered, as this was THE way station place for the horrific slave trade. Yet it emerged as a fascinating, cross-cultural blend of African, South American (only 30 miles from Venezuela) and mixed Caribbean lineage. Oh, it's worth mentioning, there are as many Dutch here as anyone since they own much of the island and many of the hotels. :-) read more

See all

My partner and I were very much looking forward to staying at the Avila Beach Hotel but on the day that our flight was set to leave for Curacao, my aunt in NY passed away very suddenly, causing us to cancel our trip as we had to make funeral arrangements and support our family. I reached out to the Avila Beach Hotel to explain and ask if they could give us some kind of refund or credit so that we could afford to return at some point and they refused to do so. Their empty condolences meant very little when accompanied by a total lack of effort to mitigate the loss to the money we saved up for this hotel stay, over $2000. We full well understand the non-refundable cancellation policy but most humane companies make exceptions for emergency cancellations due to death to close family members. This is a massive hotel, not a tiny business, and they were not willing to incur even the smallest loss to help their customer. They refused to give any credit even, even partial but stated they hoped to see us back at Avila Beach Hotel. We are reluctant to ever book at this hotel again because of their cruel treatment of our situation. read more