TURKS & CAICOS
I just did something I said I’d never do — I went to an all-inclusive family resort for vacation. But life in the time of Covid makes you do wild things. I was desperate to frolic in beautiful water and, more than anything, I needed someone to take care of my kids. The problem with that equation is that most destinations near me, like Hawaii or Mexico, don’t have hotels with kids clubs for toddlers. At the height of Omicron and after searching for months, I finally googled “where in the world can I go on a beach vacation with a kids club for toddlers,” and up popped Beaches Turks and Caicos. I had been to the islands in my 20s when I was deep into scuba diving. It was stunning! And it was actually that water that I was imagining as I searched worldwide. They had great reviews from all the respected places, availability when we wanted to go and the price was (sorta) right. Here’s my review if you’re curious …
The flight there was hard-core. It was a red-eye — a hard-core red-eye that left at 1:00 am for a 3 hour flight to connect in Houston with a 3 hour layover (with no place to sleep) before another 3+ hour flight to land and stand in the customs line for one hour without air conditioning. BRUTAL with young kids.
Let’s talk about the good things, in no particular order. I loved the staff! We thought they were beautiful souls with radiant smiles. I don’t think we ever encountered any sour apples. They have a departure lounge for the day you leave so if you have a chunk of time after you check out but before you need to leave for you flight, you have a place to take a shower and freshen up for travels home. And obviously, the water! It’s unreal. I have been trying to describe the color and I can’t. I’ve also tried mixing paints to find that color, and I can’t! The rooms felt solid — the housekeeping was phenomenal so you’d never have sand everywhere and there were always plenty of towels. They have a microwave and a mini fridge, plenty of drawers. The walls are thick so we never heard our neighbors. But (sorry, there’s always a but with this place …) the beds gave us major back pain. The food was passable, it wasn’t great but it also wasn’t terrible. And I’m not sure how they’ve gone so wrong with aesthetics. I was continually perplexed at both architectural and interior design choices. It was garrish, pretty terrible. And the WiFi is free but rather lame. But better WiFi was available for a price. Again, that was never mentioned in advance.
But the good news is that I think I’d consider another family all-inclusive again. Just not this one. If you live on the east coast and have older kids, it might work for you.
The part that I wish were better: LOGISTICS. I googled it all in advance but even the scores of mommy blogs who wrote about it didn’t share (or experience?) the struggle we had. First of all, there’s a schedule for the kids club that’s not shared anywhere on their website. And it’s an important schedule because you have to plan everything else around that. My kids are two different age groups so their clubs were in two different locations, in different “villages.” We got used to it but it definitely takes away your time to lounge alone on the beach. You also have to drop them off by 10am if you want them to stay for lunch — because if you don’t, they close from 12-2:30pm. For my older son, you had to drop him off at least 15 minutes before the activity otherwise you’d have to wait for the next activity. And then, they close all kids clubs from 4:30-6pm every day. So for us, this meant a similar schedule to home where we were rushing and checking the clock all day long. There wasn’t a breakfast place to get a grab-n-go breakfast so we took the kids to a super quick breakfast at the buffet in our village. Then dropped each off at their respective clubs in other villages. We’d then go back to a more leisurely breakfast without kids before we went to the beach for the day. But then time flies and before we knew it, it was time to pick them up for the kids club closure. We’d typically go back to the beach to play until about sunset when we’d get hungry. But they didn’t allow wet swimsuits under coverups inside the restaurants so we’d have to go all the way back to our room to change clothes and then go back out to dinner. It was just a lot of unnecessary walking and wasted time. I wish there was more grab-and-go food available, snacks or room service. It was also super inconvenient that the water activities were also closed from 12-2. So on the days we didn’t sign my older child up for lunch and wanted to do water activities together, we couldn’t. And our baby wasn’t allowed to do them — no kayaking, paddle-boarding, sailing, snorkling.
With that said, my kids had fun. I thought the childcare for the babies and toddlers was out-of-this-world amazing. They were joyful and engaging. It really felt like they loved their jobs and my baby. I didn’t get that vibe for club for elementary kids. But if you have teens and tweens, that seemed to be poppin. I saw a TON of teens, it was a scene.
In the end, I feel grateful for the experience; for the time spent playing with my kids; for the inspiration and therapy of the water; for reminding myself how important visual curiosity is to my soul. Covid has inspired me to live more in the moment and try to stress less. I’m glad we had the opportunity to do this.