Beaches Turks & Caicos

“Not worth the money!”

Let’s start with the good. The beach was beautiful and well maintained. The most beautiful beach Ive ever seen. The staff were mostly friendly and accommodating. Although we did get told no a lot. (No beach chairs, no towels, no snacks, closing down early and so on) Most of them went above and beyo… more

Let’s start with the good. The beach was beautiful and well maintained. The most beautiful beach Ive ever seen. The staff were mostly friendly and accommodating. Although we did get told no a lot. (No beach chairs, no towels, no snacks, closing down early and so on) Most of them went above and beyond to try and make us comfortable. The whole site was allergy friendly. Many gluten free bread options and desserts. (More on this later) The layout of the room was great for our family of 4 and incredibly clean and stocked with drinks. The security (yes we needed security because they said it wasn’t safe to leave the resort and they were there to keep the locals from harassing us on the beach) was top notch at this resort and we felt safe. The excursions were the best part of our trip and a once in a lifetime experience. For us that’s where it ended. The ride there- You do get a free pick up from the airport. In a rough, falling apart, stuffy, hot van with a bunch of people you don’t know, with a driver that doesn’t want to be there. Very inviting! Now once you get to the resort the staff showers you with happiness and customer service. But the check in process takes forever. Food. The food was disgusting. All that money for all inclusive and we found ourselves fighting to find eatable food. And having to wait 30- 45 minutes for a table to eat disgusting food. We do not drink alcohol. I will tell you all of the drunk people said the food was good. All of us sober people, said that it was gross. We got up and left at multiple restaurants because the food was so bad. The only ok food we ate came from Arizona’s for lunch because they actually grilled chicken and steak on the grill. But they are not open every day. Barefoot by the sea had good salad. For Dinner we found that the steak at Schooner’s was good but nothing else. Mario’s was ok. The restaurant that you had to make reservations at, Kimanos was the best restaurant on the property in our opinion. We ate here our last 2 nights. But who wants to eat the same thing every day. Breakfast is mostly the same at all the restaurants. We found that Barefoot by the sea and Neptunes did have a few things on the menu that were good and different from the others. Most of the food is frozen premade and just reheated. Including pizza. Room service comes from the Mario’s kitchen. It’s the same food as The Cricketers. It’s absolutely disgusting. We got a few comments from the locals saying that they thought Americans eat like that. Although I think this is true of a lot of Americans, we are not all frozen hamburgers and fries, fried food and frozen pizza lovers. We might have missed out on the good restaurants because Le fetat Chateau was closed the whole time we were there and there were a couple that were age 12 and over. I think that this is ridiculous because this is supposed to be a family resort. That’s why we chose it and we paid for all inclusive and now we’re excluded because of age. (My son is 11 and gluten free and they won’t make any exceptions even though he was 3 months away from 12) No to go orders either. Gluten free- this would be an amazing feature if you are celiac. They take it very seriously. The only problem is they require you to fill out a form for every single meal that you plan to eat and where. Even what time you plan to be there. These must be turned in 24 hours in advance. So you’ll need to call and speak with them before your arrival. They also provide gluten free snacks that you have to go by and pick up every day. The gluten free snacks and sweets were a great touch. My son has a wheat allergy and doesn’t react to cross contamination so we told them that we would not be taking advantage of the forms except at kimonos for gluten free soy sauce. They fought with me every day about this. I have been doing this for 7 years and so I know what we can get by with and what we can’t but they were very insistent that I listen to them. I feel like this service is to protect them and not us. To make it easier on them and quicker. In the US the chefs are always happy to tweak something simple to make it gluten free. We found that at every meal they asked us if anyone had allergies (which was great) but then immediately said do you have a form filled out. Then most would say, well I don’t know if we can serve him. I had to sternly tell them that they would serve him and to go talk to the chef about it. There were a few waiters that were very accommodating and listened to my instructions. (Mario’s were fantastic about it. The food here was just ok but my son loved it because they had gluten free pasta and bread.) Snacks-there are no snacks in the room. I wish we would have known and brung our own. The stores snacks (that we had to pay an arm and a leg for) were slim pickings and every time we went to that store it was empty because there’s tons of people trying to buy snacks and not enough snacks stocked. Pools- the pools are impressive but they were all disgusting. Full of mold. We went on a hunt to find a cleaner pool and even then it still had mold in it,just not as much. The water park was the same. This is a big deal because owning a pool , I know it doesn’t matter how much chlorine is in it, that mold can still harm you and means you have bacteria that you can’t see in the pool. Especially if you swallow it. The towels were almost always empty. And good luck finding a chair. There were Towels in chairs everywhere, which is why there were no towels or chairs. They do have rules about this but we only seen them enforcing it twice in 8 days. And kids were running around everywhere with no parents. I seen parents hanging out on balconies yelling down at there 5/6 year old children swimming alone. Waterpark- It wasn’t that busy when we were there in October and they were short staffed. The staff running the water park were asleep on the benches, seats and picnic tables. Which meant that kids were running around unattended and doing whatever they wanted. I hope you don’t need a lifeguard. It was a mess. Trash and food everywhere and no towels. People unfortunately need rules and directions or they just take over and do whatever. The pools in the water park were still moldy but not as bad as the pools. The lazy river barely moved. And it was a constant battle to get a float because there was no one monitoring it. Activities- most of the activities were closed while we were there due to rough water. We took several off site excursions. Some not ran by Beaches(Given to us by security) They were expensive but worth it. This was the best part of our trip. Bag check- what a joke! Their bag check was leaving your bags sitting on the patio, unattended, with no tags on them. I guess they think no one will take them?? But you could just walk right off with them. Or open them up and take whatever because they’re just sitting everywhere and no one is watching them! Time- everyone is on what they call Island time which translates into standing around talking, complaining about their jobs and being lazy. If you are impatient then don’t come here. A lot of our time was spent waiting on things. Overall, this wasn’t the worst place we’ve ever stayed. I would call this a 3.5/4 star hotel with 3 star food. But as far as resorts, it’s the worst one we’ve stayed in and the most expensive. For the amount of money we paid to stay here we were expecting luxury. For this island this might be considered luxury but I can think of several places where it would be half the cost and pristine luxury treatment. The beach might be a little less than this one but I would rather not come back here. The money doesn’t make sense.

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