Sandals - Beaches Turks & Caicos

Dateline – January 3^rd, 2004 Providencial Island, Turks & Caicos Islands Group.   As the islands  are comparatively unknown to most of our clients, I think it worth starting this review with a brief description of the Islands to get a perspective of what to expect.

The Turks & Caicos Islands are not a well known vacation destination in the United States of America.  They are better known amongst the scuba diving crowd as one of the worlds best diving spots, and rightly so, as they do have some spectacular dives for divers of all skill levels.  As a vacation spot, it is better known amongst the rich and famous as a low key place where the likes of mega stars can relax without being mobbed. 

The island of Providencial is the main tourist area even though it is not the location of the seat of government, that honor falls to the island of Grand Turk just a short distance across the 7000 ft deep channel that separates the two islands. The group of islands which make up the T&C's as they are known, actual consist of seven main islands, some of which are barely inhabited, plus a large number of Cays which range in size from small islands to just sand bars.  The local currency is the US Dollar.

Provo as the island of Providencial is locally known is an island some seven miles long and two miles wide at its widest point.  It houses the main airports for the T&C’s, there being another smaller one on Grand Turk. The islands are very low lying so they do not receive much rainfall and are basically sand and sandstone with barely enough soil to support more than subsistence agriculture. In the more recent past the islands have relied for their income on fishing the main catch being  that of lobster and conch, as well as tourism . 

However, all that is in the process of changing as Provo is just beginning to experience a building boom aimed at wealthier individuals who are looking for privacy and discretion.  Beachfront condominiums are starting to rise on the beach inside the reef that fronts the five miles stretch of white powdered sand fronting Grace Bay, possibly the best stretch of beach in the whole Caribbean.  Prices start at a modest $350,000 US$ for a studio apartment and rise to over $3.25M for a penthouse. 

For the size of the island, Provo boasts a good number of restaurants ranging from casual beach spots to trendy evening dining experiences.  I am told that European and American restaurateurs are looking at properties with a view to the future.  I predict the island will soon become another St. Barts but this one is only 1 hour and 15 minutes from the coastline of Florida.

Property Report:

Two properties stand out along Grace Bay… Club Med Tourquise and Sandal’s “Beaches”.  Both are all-inclusive and both are special places in their own way.  This review is about the Sandal’s property that was my chosen destination for a short family vacation break at the start of the New Year of 2004.

Arriving at Provo Airport was a painless flight of a little over one hours duration.  The airport is reminiscent of many small Caribbean Airports but to my surprise I saw major jets from major carriers including British Airways sitting on the runway.  BA flies here on a "direct" flight from London.. in reality is drops into Nassau for a brief refueling stop so it can get back to the UK, and then immediately leave for Provo.

Driving from the airport to Beaches was a spine jarring experience with every road littered with pot holes, some of them looking more like foxholes than potholes.  Thankfully, there is a major  road building project in hand which will eventually result in a four lane divided highway from the airport right through the middle of the island the the end of Provo.  Anyone who is familiar with the Caribbean will recognized the highway decoration, rusting and partly stripped vehicles of all ages, shapes and colors. 

Shrubbery is sparse to none, new construction is evident along the highway, with new shopping centers and offices starting to appear amongst the traditional West Indian architecture. Turning off the main highway one negotiates ones way across vestiges of tarmac to the imposing entrance of the Sandal's resort.

Sandal's is a fore runner of what the island may eventually be like.  Whilst parts of the resort are older, there is evidence of one major addition from a few years back and another new $10m addition recently completed - the French Village as it is named.  Sandals have grand plans for this resort and there is another major project in the works which will run from the French Village down to the Beach.  This will be themed as the Spanish Village.

Arriving at the Resort

Driving down the entrance road to the Main Lobby Building , one is surrounded by the dazzling sight of Bougainvillea in full bloom, tropic plants abound and  are such a contrast to the spartan, dry outside world you have just left.

Standing in the spacious lobby one looks out across a covered patio to a large pool area surrounded by more well manicured  tropical gardens.  It's at this time that one becomes aware that this is a family resort, as there are children of all ages having the time of their life, their parents bathing in the sun or sitting around the swim up bar drinking tropical cocktails.

Accommodations

Accommodation at Beaches consist of a variety of different choices, each showcasing a unique mood and ambiance. Quaint bungalow villas in soothing pastels provide a charming island-style retreat. Two & three story condominium style suites make up the main building. 

Within The French Village there are chic rooms and suites with French doors and wrought iron railings overlooking a huge pool and formal gardens. The accommodations consist of either one, two or three bedroom suites. All rooms have connecting and closing doors with separate entrances and come with up to four full bathrooms.

Presidential Two Bedroom Luxury Suite are located on the ground level of the Pine Cay and French Cay Villa blocks. One bedroom is king bedded and the second has two doubles. Each of these rooms has a full bath with a Roman tub. Living rooms have a double pull out sofa and kitchenette. cribs and rollaways are available.  The suites are only a short walk from the beach, Cascades and Iguana pools.  Centrally located, close to everything.  All rooms have  connecting and closing doors with separate entrances with either an ocean or garden views.

Imperial Penthouse Suites are located on the third floor of the East Wing of the main building. A one-of-a-kind suite with panoramic views from a wrap around balcony. Large living and dining room with full kitchen, one half bath and one large bath with bidet and whirlpool. Bedrooms features a king size bed and the living areas have a double pull out sofa. A crib or rollaway available upon request.  The suites have a view of the ocean.  Besides the above there is a mixture of different, smaller less prestigious accommodations, details of which are available upon request.

Weddings

Weddings are very popular at the resort and a Wedding Department is available to cater to the wedding parties.  Needless to say there are several Honeymoon One Bedroom Suite available.  These are located in the Parrot Cay Villas and have either patios or balconies and a view of the gardens or the  ocean. The single bedroom has a king bed with a whirlpool bathroom and a parlor with kitchenette and double pull out sofa. A rollaway or crib can fit in parlor.  Most resorts have at least one picturesque wedding area which is specially prepared for the ceremony. 

Upgraded Service

Depending on the level of accommodation purchased certain other amenities are included in your room rate.   Suite Concierge Service which pampers you with VIP check-in, special luggage handling, tour arrangements, private parties, and a concierge dedicated to seeing that your dining reservations and other requests are promptly answered and every wish fulfilled. If you're a frequent Sandal's Client you would be a member of their exclusive Club which also carries additional perks and benefits as well as booking discounts.

Activities

The resort is nicely laid out and fronts the beach.  Unquestionably, the major attraction of this resort is still the beach.  Powdered white sand, so soft that you sink up to your ankle in it, runs out of sight in both directions. Half a mile offshore the turquoise blue ocean  breaks over the barrier reef, white foam against the blue ocean, it's a sight to see.  The beach is well served with ample sun beds, some windbreakers and a good number of shade umbrellas.

At the end of the beach the Water Sports office does a full time job of arranging scuba diving trips to the world renown dive sites around the island.  The resort is very well geared for diving as one would expect and a resort course can be taken which allows beginners to sample some of the easier dives without having to be full certified. For the less adventurous, there are frequent snorkeling trips out to the reef which teems with fish life.

From the beach one can obtain the use of a Hobie Cat or Windsurfer and sail inside the reef for hours.   Use of all the equipment is free for all the activities mentioned, although wet suit rental if required is additional.  Canoes and kayaks as well as waterbikes are also available.  Located on the beach are several vendors desk where one can purchase powered motor sport activities.   Parasailing was one occupation that seemed to be very popular and to a lesser extent banana boating.

For the less adventurous there is also a good choice of land based activities; board games, billiards, beach volley ball, croquet, day & night tennis and table tennis.  There is a well equipped gymnasium and a new spa facility offering every type of beauty and rejuvenation treatment one would expect to find.  In the Lobby a Tour Desk can assist you with choosing a day tour should you want to explore off property.

Do not expect Las Vegas style floor shows even in the outside auditorium as night time entertainment mainly consists of local folk running contest and putting on shows with a local flavor.  A disco for teens and another for the parents happens every night as well as the occasional karaoke night. Table tennis, billiards and flood-lit tennis is popular and the adult-only sports bar was always lively. A stroll along the moonlight beach was also a popular occupation I noticed.

Families

For families with children, from the very young to teenagers there are  many diversion to keep them amused.  Pirates Island is the spot for the older children as it has so many interesting things to keep them amused.  The building is based on a life-size Pirate Ship and has video games center, 6 big screen TVs,  Jungle Games Room, 50's style diner, a large kids' pool with huge winding water slides and a swim-up soda bar and whirlpool as well as a self-serve ice cream machine and cinema, disco & karaoke.  The Video Game Center has the latest cutting-edge video technology from today's best interactive game publishers and hardware manufacturers. It's high tech, high speed and highly popular.  For the younger set there is also the Kuda Club which is located on the beach side of the resort and is basically a fun spot with organized games and supervised activities to amuse the pre-teens.  For infants there is a baby-sitting service and staffed nursery.

Pools

Two of the resorts pools are located immediately behind the beach  (there are in fact five and three hot-tubs with four of the pools have swim-up bars), large and well utilized, these pools are definitely a focal point for families.  Located adjacent to one of the pools is the Arizona Restaurant, this is a casual by day and a la carte by night  restaurant.

Restaurants

Beaches has ten restaurant choices to choose from, ranging from gourmet, ethnic to family buffet.  Some of the restaurant require reservations, but there is never a surcharge.  You can choose to dine casually or formally, indoors, outdoors, even under the stars overlooking the sea.

To very briefly describe the restaurants and the cuisine served as I found it..

• Reflections - is a casual family, buffet style restaurant which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner.  It is located in the main building in a patio setting adjacent to the lobby.  Food tends to cater to the unadventurous palate although some Caribbean dishes are featured.

• Arizona - was mentioned earlier.  This is supposedly a restaurant serving southwestern food.  Personally, apart from the chips and salsa I did not find much that was very south western on the menu.  At lunch, adjacent to the restaurant on the beach side there is a barbeque grill where a chef will cook you fast food, this was very popular with families with children.

• Kimonos - is a tepanyaki style Japanese restaurant.  Reservations are a must. The ingredients used where the usual and of good quality, no lobster or exotic items where offered, shrimp being the seafood offered.  I found the chef (Jamaican) to be very pleasant but not really a qualified tepanyaki chef.  The food was diced way to small and overcooked, resulting in a dry and uninteresting meal tasting solely of teriyaki sauce.

• Sushi bar/restaurant - This proved to be one of our favorite places.  Run by a very personable and hard working oriental gentleman by the name of Yoshi who proved to be skillful at his trade.  To facilitate the number of people who drop in the standard fare is a nice plate of mixed rolls. However, time allowing, Yoshi will make you custom sushi to your choice, assuming the ingredients are available. The restaurant is located adjacent to Kimonos and is oriental in appearance, open to the garden and nicely done.  The sushi bar itself could be bigger as most people wanted to sit around the bar, but there was ample seating at tables as the crowd rotated.

• Schooners - This restaurant I did not try other than for breakfast.  It is beautiful located right on the back of the beach area, has a large patio and covered deck, inside it is rather small, but the inside is rarely used.  It serves breakfast a la carte and is considered to be a seafood dinner restaurant.  We ate breakfast there twice and found it a delightful place.  Sadly it is closed at lunchtime when most people are in this area and as such we felt the restaurant was missing the point to a great degree, lunch on the beach would have been a great experience.

• Sapodilla's - is in the main building. It features fine International cuisine with white-glove service for adults only. It is a non-smoking restaurant and reservations are required. As one would expect dress code is resort casual  (long pants and collared shirts).  We enjoyed this restaurant, there where some creative use of the standard food products all served with aplomb by a waiter who knew his business.

• Giuseppe's - is located in the French Village. As the name suggests it serves Italian cuisine in a casual setting. Reservations are not required. Dress code is casual elegance. Also serves breakfast buffet with made to order omelets, buffet lunches with a pasta station are featured.  We did not dine here as we tried lunch and were not to impressed.  The cuisine was rather ordinary, and bore more resemblance to American fare than true Italian.

• Le Petit Chateau - Also located in the French Village.  This strives to project the authentic bistro setting, serving fine European cuisine and French specialties in an intimate setting. For adults only and reservations are not required. The dress code is resort casual (long pants and collared shirts). We dined here and enjoyed both the food and the setting, the bar area also doubles as the disco later and became rather noisy towards the end of our meal. The ambience in the restaurant in pleasant, but the bar does not quite cut it and seemed rather sterile. Perhaps due to the family make up of the clientele the disco was not a hot spot, but was certainly noisy enough to drive you onto the patio with your beverage.

• Café de Paris - Located in the French Village, this charming café features a wide selection of delicious French pastries, coffees and baguettes. It is purely a Cafe and does not serve meals, however, a nice touch that we enjoyed, between 4 and 5.30pm a chef prepared fresh, made to order crepes to go with your coffee.  A generous number of delightful toppings are available for you to garnish your crepe with.  Proved to be a popular spot and one should be prepared to wait in line to be served. 

• Bobby D's - is a '50s style diner located inside the Pirate's Ship.  Featuring made to order burgers, hot-dogs, patties, pizza and desserts, including self-serve soft ice-cream machine.  Basically for the kid's during the day, and is the only 7/24 outlet for food at other times.

Bars & lounges

Located around the resort are more bars than I can recall counting, some are open only during the day, the pool bars for example, other open for the evening.  We liked the idea of some being adult only bars and found an interesting group of adults with whom to hang with on most occasions we visited. 

Overall impression: We found the resort to be well maintained and on the whole well run.  One can always find some criticism even in the most exclusive, expensive hotels, and we had some criticisms with Beaches also.  However, almost without exception none of the things I would criticize had any bearing on our overall enjoyment apart from the following;

• I failed to understand why our "concierge" suite took until 5.30pm to be cleaned and prepared.

• It took three calls and several staff visits over two days to stock the minibar etc. 

• It took three days to get a second bathrobe put in the room.

• We particular did not like the "attitude" we got from the staff in the dive shop.  The white folks being by far the worst and most unhelpful. The beach watersport staff were quite the opposite.

We liked.. So many of the staff we met or just ran into, from the highest to the lowest. We liked the fact that many of them where so friendly, obviously there were exceptions, but overall one came away with a good feeling.  More resorts should train ALL their staff to look clients in the eye and wish them a "good morning" or whatever, with a smile.

We liked the property overall.  The French Village was a bit too Disney-ish for my taste, but people staying in that section liked it although a common complaint was its distance from the beach. It was nice to be in an oasis of cultivated tropical gardens when all around the resort was not unlike a desert.

The resort is rather isolated and taxi's are not cheap, unlike other Sandal's properties there are no others on the island where you get visiting rights  as one can do in Jamaica for example, so you are rather obligated to spend all your time in the resort.

We like the watersports - and sailed and dived everyday as well as doing other fun things. The diving in the Turk & Caicos's is nothing short of spectacular and anyone who has a PADI certificate should take it with them and enjoy the experience.  All your scuba diving is included in the package cost and is great value even when one dives on a spot across the island that required transportation to meet a dive boat in a distant harbor there are no additional fees.  Located on the island is a great golf course.  Expensive to the point of being prohibitive by the time you pay green fees, club rental, taxi fare and purchase balls etc. but if you just have to play golf - then its here for you.

We really like the sushi bar and enjoyed Yoshi the chef. We liked a number of the other restaurants also and found the food overall to be good considering the limitations the resort works under in this department.  (shipping everything in, limited choice of food produce, virtually no fresh food on the island).  I was disappointed that one was not able to get a fresh conch salad or conch chowder even though there is a conch farm right on the island and conch are plentiful, nor was a lobster available even at an additional price.

During our short stay at the resort we saw numerous wedding ceremonies, all were professionally done with delightful decorations and staff to assist.  Ceremonies could be in several locations, even on the beach.  Thinking about it, one soon realizes that this is both a delightful and different way to get married as well as an extremely economical way.

We enjoyed being in a more European atmosphere, not only being on the British Island, but also being with a large number of British and people from other European countries made for a very cosmopolitan mix. I did not particularly enjoy the amount of cigarette smoke we where subjected to as unquestionably Europeans smoke so much more than American's do these days.

We liked being only a short plane ride from the US and not having to spend hours flying across the Caribbean and this point alone would tempt me back.

There is no question that Sandal's as the parent companies strives to deliver a top of the line product at whatever level one "resorts" too.  This was no exception.