For whoever is planning this one.
Curaçao in seven days.
Steal our week.
Which beach on which day, where the cruise ships aren’t, and the Thursday night Willemstad lifts off. From the people who live here.
The ships pick your beach day.
The rest of the week moves around it.
You’re in hour nineteen
The person planning a group trip puts in nearly nineteen hours, according to one survey.1 You’re reading a Curaçao itinerary, so you’re inside one of those hours right now.
Let’s make it the last one. Here’s a week on the island the way we’d plan it for our own people — which beach on which day, where the cruise ships aren’t, and the night Willemstad lifts off. Take it. It’s free.
A sample week.
Yours gets built around your people.
Plain lines are the island: anyone with a car and a towel can do them. Lines marked Tommy Coconut guests are the parts my family runs for the people staying with us. Skip those and the week still works.
1 Talker Research for Discover Puerto Rico, 2026: women surveyed reported nearly nineteen hours of planning over eleven days.
Why the days are in that order
Stand on the Handelskade on a busy morning and the cruise ship in the harbor is taller than the town behind you. Some days several are in port, and their passengers want what you want: the famous west-coast beaches, the old town, the boat tours. Other days there are none.
So the ships pick the order. CruiseTimetables publishes Curaçao’s port calendar a month at a time. Open it, find the day in your week with no ship in port, and that is your west-coast day. I won’t give you a date; ship calendars change. For the weather side of the question, read the best time to visit Curaçao.
The second rule is dinner. Eat where the day ends, not where the restaurant is famous. Nobody drives back across the island, showers and drives out again. Not twice.
The week below lands on a Saturday, so Wednesday and Thursday fall where they matter. Landing another day? Slide the beach days around them.
Land
The first photograph of the week is taken from a car window. On the Queen Juliana Bridge, the Handelskade sits below you, every house a different color, as if the street could never agree on one.
From Hato airport to Jan Thiel is about forty-five minutes. Plan nothing else today. Swim, eat early, sleep. The island will still be here tomorrow. It has had practice.
Dinner: Villa Vis, a five-minute walk, on the water. Fresh catch, and the softest landing on the island, which is exactly what a first night should be.
Tommy Coconut guests: Jeremiah is waiting on the other side of customs and drives you in. The table is already booked.
Your own beach
There is a tugboat lying in shallow water off Tugboat Beach, a short swim from the sand. Nobody parked it there on purpose. The fish moved in anyway.
Day two stays close. Jan Thiel Beach is a few minutes away, with its four beach clubs: Zanzibar for a slow lunch with a swim, Zest for bright, clean plates, Koko’s for feet in the sand, and Papagayo when your group is big and loud and proud of it. Pick one, stay all day.
In the afternoon, take a mask to Tugboat for the reef. More beaches, with the ones we’d drive for, are in the best beaches in Curaçao.
The west coast
At Playa Piskado the fishermen clean their catch on the rocks, and the sea turtles swim in for the leftovers. Not an aquarium. A habit.
Do the west coast on your day with no cruise ships in port, and do it in this order. Playa Piskado first, early, with snorkels. Then Grote Knip, the postcard: turquoise water, cliffs and a short walk down. Then Kleine Knip, three minutes on — the stop nobody makes. Make it. It is usually empty, calm and shallow. Finish at Porto Mari, where the reef starts at the sand.
A pastechi on the way out, the island’s filled pastry, eaten in the car. A batido on the way back, a fresh fruit shake, mango or passion fruit. If you’d rather sit down for lunch, Karakter is on this coast and worth the drive.
Tommy Coconut guests: your EV-SUV is in the driveway and the day is on your personal week website.
Kendall read her week before she landed and answered in capitals:
“GUYS!!!!!!!!! This is more amazing than anything I could have expected!! WOW! We are in happy tears going through this!”
Nine exclamation marks, and she hadn’t seen the water yet.
On the water
From the water, the south coast looks like a different island: small beaches with no road to them, and water that changes color every hundred meters.
Give one day to a captained boat. A small boat, a captain who knows the coast, a couple of snorkel stops and nowhere to be. Half a day is enough; a full day on the water is a long day for anyone under ten. What to look for, and what to skip, is in the private boat trip guide.
Tommy Coconut guests: Captain Magic Mike takes you out, and the BBQ on board is one of your seven included dinners.
Midweek
Weekdays at sunrise, two dogs walk out to look at flamingos. They are Happy and Lucky, our Board of Directors, and they take the job more seriously than the rest of us.
Midweek is slow on purpose. Sleep in, or get up early for the flamingos: go quietly and keep your distance. Then the pool, and nothing else until dinner.
Eat close to home. Brisa Do Mar sits at Caracasbaai, three minutes away, off the tourist map: local fishermen, local beer, fresh catch from the bay.
Tommy Coconut guests: if your week has a Wednesday, it has Sunset Club: 17:30 to 20:30 on Jan Thiel beach, a bonfire and a BBQ run by the family. Walk over barefoot when you feel like it.
Willemstad
Every postcard of Curaçao is the same row of painted houses on the Handelskade. On Thursday night the street behind it turns the music up.
Go into Willemstad in the late afternoon. Walk the old town. Then eat on the water at De Gouverneur: the harbor in front of you, Punda’s painted facades across it. Reserve the terrace. It is about twenty-five minutes from Jan Thiel.
Stay for Punda Vibes, every Thursday from 16:00 to 22:00 in the streets of Punda, according to curacao.com. Music, stalls and the old town at full volume.
Tommy Coconut guests: on Thursdays at 17:00, T-Cam walks through the streets he grew up in, the ones that hold the stories. If you feel like joining, say so in the group. The walk ends at dinner and the night in Punda. No driving home in between.
Nothing
On day seven, the pool is the activity. We list it as a Dushi Memory, and we mean it.
Do nothing on purpose. Every week needs one day that isn’t a plan, and the last full day is the right one. Float. Let the ocean worry about the schedule; that’s his job.
For the last dinner, go somewhere that feels like the island: Pasawa Eatery. Shipping containers, street art, seven food stalls and a bar in the middle. No reservation needed, and everyone orders from a different kitchen. That is the point.
Leave slowly
Don’t set an alarm on the last morning. Coffee, one more swim, then back over the bridge with the Handelskade on the other side this time.
Tommy Coconut guests: late checkout is guaranteed, and Jeremiah drives you to Hato.
What the family is doing this week
Tommy Coconut guests: my family keeps its own week on the island, and you’re invited to any of it. You drop a message in the group when you feel like it.
Monday, late afternoon: Boy and Britt are line fishing at Caracas Bay. Tuesday morning: Raymonde and Cameron snorkel at Tugboat. Weekdays at sunrise: the flamingo hike, led by the dogs. Friday morning: Ray and Kim give back locally — some weeks a beach clean-up, some weeks something else. Sunday afternoon: padel.
The full list is on Dushi Memories.
Five days, or small kids
Five days instead of seven: cut Day 5 and Day 7. Keep the west coast, the boat and the Thursday. You lose the slow days, which is what short trips always lose. Come back for them.
With small kids: same week, shorter days. Do the west coast as two beaches instead of four — Playa Piskado and Porto Mari are the flatter walks in — eat early, and give the afternoons to the pool. More in Curaçao with kids.
What we’d skip
Skip the plan to see the whole island in one day. Curaçao is small on the map and big from the driver’s seat.
Skip the famous beach on a busy ship day. It will be there tomorrow, emptier. And skip booking every dinner from your phone on the beach. That is how hour nineteen becomes hour twenty. Our tables are on the Restaurants page.
Or we build yours
“I plan the vacations typically and they took over and handled the whole thing. I literally did not have to lift a finger.” — Andy, Google review, June 2026.
Andy was the family travel agent. Was.
“Britt took care of everything for us from the itinerary to all our excursions and all our reservations!” — Mike, Airbnb review, Dushi Hideaway, August 2025.
This page is a week. A Dushi Week is the week, built for your people: the estate, the car, the boat, every dinner booked and a family on the island who answers when you message. About fifteen minutes of your time — or as much more as you want.
Frequently asked questions
How many days in Curaçao is enough?
Seven nights gives you the west coast, a day on the water, a Thursday in Willemstad and two days that ask nothing of you. Five days covers the highlights if you cut the slow days. Fewer than that and most of the trip happens in the car.
Which day is best for the west coast?
The day with no cruise ships in port. Check the monthly port calendar on CruiseTimetables before you travel and move your west-coast day to match. Then leave early.
Do I need a car?
For this week, yes. The west coast, Willemstad and most of the beaches are a drive from Jan Thiel. Tommy Coconut guests have an EV-SUV included with the week.
What do we do on a cruise-ship day?
Stay on the south-east side. Jan Thiel Beach, Tugboat and a boat trip all work on a busy ship day. Save the famous west-coast beaches for a quiet day, and go into Willemstad in the late afternoon.
Or we build yours.
Keep the page.
Hand us the planning.
Tell us about your people. Five minutes with Boy, and the week gets built around them.
Vacation is holy.
T