Curaçao Castaways Travel and Sunset Waters Beach Resort Make History With First Ever Curaçao Nude Week! NUDE WEEK TAKEOVER--- Curacao, Sunset Waters Beach Resort, August 17-24, 2002 SUMMARY From August 17-24, 2002, Sunset Waters Beach Resort in Curacao was the site of the first Nude Week the island or the hotel had ever experienced. With 140 guests visiting the resort, the Nude Week takeover by clients of Castaways Travel made history on the island as the very first nude group to visit Curacao, a Dutch-owned protectorate in the lower Caribbean near Venezuela. In fact, the national newspaper, the "Amigoe," not only reported the event on its front page, the same reporter visited the resort during Nude Week for an interview with hotel management and Castaways Travel owners, Donna Daniels and Jim Bailey for a follow up story. Once word spread about the group, some local Curacao nudist citizens bought day passes at the resort and joined in the fun. The reporting and follow up newspaper article in the Amigoe was quite positive about the nudist tourism industry in general and affirmed specifically that Curacao is well positioned to take advantage of the growing market demand for such services and recreation sector serving the nudist sector. Sunset Waters Beach Resort has the only legal nude beach in Curacao, a fact little known for years. Curacao and its neighboring island, Bonaire, are part of the Netherlands while Aruba gained its independence a few years. The three islands comprise the Dutch Antilles. BACKGROUND In the early 1990's, owners Donna Daniels and Jim Bailey from Castaways Travel, visited Curacao for hotel site inspections which included the Sunset Waters resort, formerly known as Coral Cliffs. During the year 2000, previous owners of the property sold the hotel to three Chicago-based partners: Bismark Brackett, Lee Harris and Frank Cihak. The trio also owns a real estate development company based in Chicago. Once the new partners gained control of the property, Sunset Waters enjoyed a facelift including a new swimming pool and plunge pool, swim up bar and shower facilities, a beach side restaurant, new fitness center and hotel room upgrades. Kitchen and laundry facilities were expanded. New operating management was brought in to provide professional guidance and market development for the resort. The Bitter End Yacht Club (BEYC) management team from British Virgin Islands fame was selected. The BEYC management company then staffed the resort with trained hotel leadership plus new operations and service personnel were added. Resort marketing and public relations were beefed up. In addition to family and local weekend business which the resort already enjoyed, a new market niche aimed at the international SCUBA diving market was launched by Frank Cihak. Curacao is one of the premier dive destinations in the Caribbean and Frank proceeded to develop both the north American market but also European clientele. Since Curacao is a department of the Netherlands, the Dutch and European market was added to exploit the terrific diving in Curacao. A dive operation called Easy Divers, a Dutch company, provides scuba diving, instruction, certification, snorkeling, fishing and site seeing at a dock on the resort's grounds. A wonderful Dutch couple, Anne Marie and Harry, provide dive services from their Easy Divers shop. After the hotel upgrade was completed and a new management team added, Jim Bailey contacted Frank Cihak to investigate a resort takeover, with August, 2002, selected as the date for the first Nude Week at the resort and in the history of Curacao. NUDE WEEK GUESTS Nude Week in Curacao attracted guest from all over the world. The week's event was promoted world wide in English, Spanish and Dutch publications and via the internet as well as by the hotel and Castaways Travel. A mix of languages spoken by the guests was a welcome asset since the service and wait staff generally spoke at least four languages including English, Spanish, Dutch and their local dialect, Papiamentu, a fascinating mixture of all three languages plus words learned and spoken only by the islanders of Curacao, Aruba and Bonaire. GETTING THERE Curacao is served by many international airline companies including KLM, American Airlines, Dutch Caribbean Airlines, Air Jamaica, Aviacsa plus other scheduled air carriers as well as European charter airline companies. Frequent ferry service between its neighboring islands, Aruba and Bonaire, provide access by sea on a daily basis. Taxi service, car rentals and airport transfer service are available for transporting guests on island to the resort. Nude Week participants arrived on American Airlines, Air Jamaica and Dutch Caribbean Airlines to reach Curacao. LOCATION Curacao is in the southern Caribbean, about 38 miles north of South America with Venezuela its closest neighbor. In fact, on a clear day, from Curacao, one can see the tops of a mountain range near Venezuela's north coast. Sunset Waters Beach Resort is located on the northwest coast of the island on a perfectly secluded stretch of beach at Santa Marta Bay, 5 kilometers from the village of Soto. Hato International Airport is about 25 minutes by car from the resort. The capital city of Curacao, Willemstad, is located 30 minutes from the resort. RESORT and ROOMS The General Manager, Jim Hunter, and his team provided terrific service to all Nude Week participants. Based on the hotel's exit evaluations completed by guests, the resort's service staff received the highest marks for their wonderful treatment of their Nude week guests Other than Nude Week, Sunset Waters Beach Resort is a conventional, all inclusive beach side hotel for families, singles and couples. An existing, small nude beach is suitable for sunbathing nude separately, while the main beach is much larger, set up for lounging, beach volleyball, sunbathing and relaxing. Both the nude and conventional beach sections include thatched roof beach umbrellas as well as convenient webbed shelters, perfect for sunning without getting sunburned. The resort includes 70 rooms in seven hotel buildings ranging from Ocean view suites to Garden view accommodations. Some larger suites can accommodate up to 6 people. Fifty hotel rooms are perched above the Caribbean sea, cliff side for spectacular sun up and sun sets. The remaining 20 are garden view accommodations. Rooms are air conditioned and contain two double or king sized beds, color TV with satellite service, private bath and bedroom, and most have telephone service. For Nude week, all the resort's facilities were available to all nude guests. The two areas where clothing was required was the reception area and the main restaurant. All other facilities of the hotel could be enjoyed completely nude. RESORT SERVICES Sunset Waters offers an all inclusive plan as well as an ala carte program for dining and drinks. If the all inclusive plan is selected, all meals, snacks, all bar drinks, entertainment, beach side activities, hotel sports, taxes and tips are included in one up front price. Airport transfers are available for an extra charge. The resort also provides convenient shuttle service to WIllemstad six days a week, compliments of the hotel. On site there are three bars, two restaurants, non-motorized water sports, two beaches, beach and pool volleyball, children's playground, dive shop, fitness center, gift shop, tour desk, car rental desk, miniature golf, a full-service casino, tennis and basketball. Live entertainment is provided several times a week. Nude week guests enjoyed the resort on an all inclusive plan which gave them plenty of flexibility to count calories. DINING The main restaurant serves breakfast, lunch and dinner while the beach side bar and grill offers drinks and lunch daily. Breakfast is buffet style, with an omelette station, offering cold and hot cereals, pancakes or waffles, bread, eggs, bacon, ham, fresh fruit, juices, milk and coffee. Lunch is served ala carte off a set menu that changes daily with dishes ranging from Creole to Caribbean and American fare including burgers, fries, sandwiches, fresh fish, chicken and beef plus pasta and vegetables. A salad bar rounds out the mid day meal. Deserts are wonderful and are surprisingly tasty. Evening meals may be served buffet style if the resort is full or ala carte by waiters if occupancy lower. Grilled fish and catch of the day, steaks, other seafood, chicken and chef's specials offer a good variety for evening dining along with mixed drinks, local wines and soft drinks. Nude week evening meals were served buffet style except for the Friday evening meal, which was served by waiters at each table. A nice touch at all three bars was the availability of champagne to toast the historic nude week occasion. Beachside, the Savage Turtle Bar & Grill serves up a variety of bar drinks plus conventional burgers, hot dogs, sandwiches, fries and grilled items. Beach parties and BBQ meals at night are fun and feature a variety of local dishes which reflect a different mix of fare built around vegetables, fish, pork, chicken and beef. The highlight of Nude Week included a terrific Friday night ala carte evening meal consisting of prime rib, grilled fish and a chicken dish where no one went to bed hungry. NUDE WEEK THEME NIGHTS Every evening, a theme night accompanied by a related dinner menu greeted Nude Week guests. During the week, live entertainment was often provided by local talent ranging from folklorico performances demonstrating the rich cultural mix of music and dances to live bands for dancing au naturel. Karaoke night proved once again nudists make great entertainment. Arguably, the highlight of the week's theme parties included Toga night as well as "Castaway" night where guest dressed up in their best or worst costumes reminiscent of their favorite deserted island fashions. See photos to appreciate the creativity. Theme nights included 70s music, Caesar's rampage with pasta and togas, a beach BBQ for "Castaway" night, Karaoke with pajama night and a fun theme to end the week on Friday called "little black dress night" to go along with the elegant meal to wrap up the week. ENTERTAINMENT The hotel's activity staff was small but vocal with Eddie and Choo Choo, two great Columbian guys, providing all the activities one could handle. The beach waitresses and waiters added color and their great personalities to the mix of cultures that served guests at the resort. Employees represent cultures from South America, Europe, the Caribbean, Africa and of course the Netherlands. Music was provided pool side and on the beach with both live and recorded tunes for guests to enjoy. SPORTS Eddie and Choo Choo kept the gang busy with beach volleyball, pool volleyball, pool basketball, ping pong, miniature golf tournaments, basketball, tennis and loads of crazy beach games and beach aerobics. HIGHLIGHTS of NUDE WEEK One of the highlights of the week included a nude hike up and down several trails in the countryside adjacent to the hotel. Eddie and Choo Choo proved to be two legged human mountain goats and scouts while the rest of the 22 nudists participating in the hike did their best to avoid the cactus and thorny bushes along the trails leading back to the resort. However, the best moment occurred when one of the local residents driving near the hotel did a double take as she spotted the nude hikers on a path near the road, where she barely escaped driving her car into a ditch. "Castaway" night provided a new source of belly laughs for all participants due to the creativity of the guests. See the photos for a sample. Caesar's Rampage with Toga night once again proved to be entertainment in itself as costumed guests formed an impromptu conga line throughout the main restaurant and onto the cliff side patio. Nude week guests christened arguably the world's first nude casino on land when they invaded the gaming tables for roulette, black jack, bingo and slot machines. The best acceptance for Nude Week occurred when the casino manager insisted a photo be taken of him and his volunteer nudist gamblers to prove to all his friends in Las Vegas he was the first to have a nude, resort casino. SUMMARY A great place for Nude week. Great service and wonderful security since the resort is at the end of the only road leading to the hotel, five kilometers from Soto, the nearest village. The service and wait staff are wonderful people and made friends easily. Nude weeks in 2003 include April, July, September and December. See the complete 2002 nude week photo album.

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