I have just come back from Beaches on the Turks and Caicos islands a winter half term break with my 16 year old daughter. It does not live up to the picture depicted in all the Travel brochures that I viewed. It is not the sophisticated upmarket 5 star resort I though it would be. Having said that I will give the positives 1st. The gardens and walk ways are very good and well maintained, The staff work very hard and are very friendly and helpful. I had to call the main desk 3 times in the week I was there and all my problems were dealt with very quickly. From some one hanging a 'do not disturb' sign on our room door and the maid quite rightly not making the room up, to a lizard getting into our room and my daughter refusing to leave the sanctuary of the bathroom until it was caught. The food is very good especially Sapadilos, Le Petite Chateau and the Japanese restaurant (The 1st 2 are adults only).

The room was basic although we had upgraded to a French Village luxury room. There were marks on the wash basin suround that had not been cleaned properly. 2 draws would not open unless you opened both and then closed the one you didn't want. 1 draw had no handle and the bath spout could be moved away from the wall. We turned the fridge off before we went to bed as the motor cut in with the noise of building site generator.

The negatives are mostly things that we did not like and are mostly subjective. Although the 1st from a health and safety point of view was in my opinion very bad. The bar at the Pool at the French Village was handing out beer in glass bottles to drink around the pool area which could have resulted in a serious injury.

The whole resort is geared for children under 11 years old and their families although in all the brochures I read this aspect was kept to a minimum and the water sport, diving and spa were promoted. It is no fun to be laying by the pool surrounded by noisy junior school children and toddlers. Some times the buffet restaurants resembled a child buggy park. The resort even has its own Beaches buggies which can hold up to 4 pre school children.

Twice during the week we had to leave the French village pool area one because a wedding reception had been booked from 2.00pm and the other because the Sesame street grand parade was taking place there.

A word of warning it was very hot the sun was really fierce but there was only 1 shade per 11 loungers at any of the pools I saw. You had to be down at the pool by 7 in the morning to stake your claim or fry for the day. Quite poor for a resort that was so child orientated.

I basically found the Beaches Turks and Caicos Islands to be an American version of a Butlins holiday camp.

First, I have to preface this review by saying that I went to Beaches in May of 2005. I'm playing catch-up with my reviews after finding Trip Advisor. I've seen positive reviews lately, so perhaps they've corrected many of the problems I encountered when we went with my then 5 year old daughter.

We chose Beaches because we were looking for an all-inclusive resort that catered to families/kids and was on an island that we could fly to non-stop. Turks and Caicos fit the bill and my wife and I had our honeymoon at Sandals (couples only sister resorts) in St. Lucia, so we thought we made a good choice. I could not have been more wrong.

We had a French Village Luxury Room with a view of the pool. The room was average. Your basic hotel room. There were some instances of cockroaches and ants, but it is the Caribbean and we've come to expect this. The French Village is not close to the beach, so plan accordingly if you want to be closer to the beach.

The staff that we dealt with were, for the most part, friendly. There was the occasional grumpy or indifferent employee, but we've come to expect that not every employee can be expected to be friendly and hospitable all the time. Everyone is entitled to bad days.

Overall, the food was decent, but not great. Some high points, but more low points. The best meal we had was at Sapodilla's which is the adult only restaurant (we got a sitter for that night). Kimono's was horrible. The sushi was mediocre and while the hibachi tables were fun, they doused every course in this horrible terriyaki sauce. We've been to a lot of Japanese restaurants and the best cook the food with a little bit of soy and fresh garlic. There was none of that here. The breakfast buffets at both Giuseppie's and Reflections was standard resort fare (not hard to screw up). Arizona's and Schooners are slightly above average for dinner. Perhaps the view and sunset at Schooners makes the food taste better. Lunch buffet at Arizona's was not bad, nor was dinner at Giuseppie's, but again there was nothing outstanding to speak of. Not even one signature dish in each place. Bobby D's is just plain nasty, but the kids love it. Lots of fried food and bad pizza and hamburgers. The hit of the week was Cafe de Paris. It was close to our room and my wife loves coffee, so she was there during the evening. The pastries and snacks were very good. My daughter loved getting hot chocolate (to emulate my wife with coffee) at all times of the day. A great memory.

With 3 pools on the resort and a nice beach, you would think that it would not feel crowded. Wrong! First, as with cruises, you have to be up at the break of dawn to get a decent seat and sometimes to get a seat at all. People throw towels and books on chairs at probably 6AM to reserve spots. I could deal with this if the people were actually using the chairs throughout the day. There was multiple occasions where the "saved" seats were left unoccupied until later in the afternoon after the people came back from the beach. This practice was also prevalent on the beach. The staff was doing nothing about this. To make matters worse, the pools were closed more than once during the week. There is a no diaper policy for the pools, but parents ignore the warnings anyway and their non-potty trained kids ruin it for everyone when they defecate in the pool. By law, it has to be shocked and shut down for 24 hours. To compound this problem, 2 of the 3 pools (the one in the French Village and the kiddie pool) were shut down at the same time!!! Probably the same kid that did it too. Now the whole resort is crammed on the beach and the pool by Arizona's.

We put my 5 year old in the Kid's Club on the 2nd day and she hated it. She said that the people were always yelling (they weren't even yelling at her, but that upset her nonetheless). After that, she didn't want to go back. I will chalk this up to bad parenting and not put the blame entirely on the people that run the Kid's Club, although they probably could have handled the situations that I witnessed, a little better. That being said, my daughter loved the babysitter she had when we went to dinner for some mommy/daddy time. She told us all the great things she did with her. I wish I could remember her name for the purpose of this review.

Now onto the low point of the week and the main reason we will not return. My wife is fair-skinned and likes to stay out of the sun when possible. On the beach there are a limited amount of thatch huts to provide shade. One day, I stayed by the pool and she took my daughter to the beach. She came back about an hour later crying hysterically and shaking. Apparently, a group of people took their stuff and left the beach hut. Seeing this, my wife made her way over and sat down. After being there for a bit, an elderly man approached her and demanded to know what she was doing in "his" seat. She said the seat was empty and no towels or belongings were there. He became beligerent and said that is impossible and that they had those chairs all week. He then proceeded to pick up her beach bag and throw it a good 10 feet. All of this right in front of my daughter. Understandibly distraught, she got up and took my daughter back to me by the pool. When she told me, I almost lost my cool and was going to go down to confront him, but instead we filed a report with security so that we would not get kicked off the resort for starting a fight. They said they couldn't do much unless they caught him doing it, but we pointed the man out to security and they were going to ensure that they didn't do this to anyone else. As far as we know, they did not confront them about the incident.

Overall, the resort is nice and we could even look past the shortcomings in the food, but what we cannot tolerate is rude and low class guests that ruin the experience for everyone. People that have no respect for the facilities (pool), are rude to the staff, expect their rowdy and uncontrollable kids to be babysat while they go off to the beach, are pushy in lines at the buffet and worst of all, expect that anything on the resort is "theirs" and there for the taking (chairs). I e-mailed the resort after this trip and we never heard back from them. Not even an apology in an e-mail. For the sake of anyone that has gone since then, I can only hope that they took our feedback and made changes. I will never know though since I won't be going back.

We loved Beaches! We have been to this resort twice and the only complaint is that the word must have gotten out how wonderful this place is. It can be crowded at times, and the the dive shop has long wait list for every excurtion, certification, and even snorkel gear.
Still is one of our favorite places, and would return in a heart beat.

There is so much to say about Beaches that I will try to cover most of the highlights with out getting dreadfully long winded.

We decided on Turks and Caicos for our wedding because the photos were amazing and my new husband and I wanted to make a vacation out of our special day. We booked with a private travel agent and that was a bad decision the agency fired and rehired so much we didn’t know who our agent was at the time. Although the agency was a major pain all the folks on Beaches end were simply amazing and handled every change and bump in the road with a quick reply and the simple phrase “it is not the first time and it won’t be the last.”

Once arriving to the island we were quickly brought through customs in a small airport with a band. The experience was slightly overwhelming at first but as soon as we found out luggage and walked out the front of the air port there were reps from Beaches standing waiting to flag us down, they promptly gathered our belongings handed us cool towels and water bottles and got us in very nicely air conditioned van and on our way to the resort. The drive to the resort was nice and comfortable chatting with other couples from the flight and all and all just being super excited.

Once we were received at the resort we were taken into a private area and given the needed paper work for our stay and our wedding and were escorted to our room with cool drinks and cookies in hand, if you are going for cookies at any point go to the concierge office, they always had the best ones.

Our room was beyond amazing! There were several new bottles of nice liquors, champagne, several wines and a full fridge of water, beer and other refreshments. The air was already pumping in the room and our luggage was waiting inside the room for us. All and all the room was perfect for the two of us. A great king size bed and a pull out trundle bed in the corner nice lighting and a sliding door with balcony.

Once unloaded for the most part we put our suits on and went exploring. The beach was so much prettier than any of the pictures portrayed. It seems like you could see for miles over the clear blue waters. Absolutely perfect in every way.

During our seven day vacation we were able to eat at all the restaurants but Sapodillas but we were okay with that. Arizona’s has the best cheese sticks and Giuseppe’s had the best breakfast buffet. We never went with out food nor drinks and from other reviews that said they were watered down must have let too much ice melt. All the staff at the resort was beyond amazing and maybe we went during a slower season but it was great and any bar we went into we were recognized and handed our “normal” drinks.

There were not that many folks, which was nice we had our own pool for at least and hour or two each day.

The wedding staff at Beaches was perfect. Each detail and beyond was taken care of. All worries I had were instantly washed away. The flowers were great, we were able to bring a loaded ipod and had that going the whole event for music, it did rain during our dinner rehearsal and we were all quickly escorted to another restaurant that they had kept closed in case of rain just for us. Any time it seemed like there might be a bump the staff quickly rectified it.

We did visit the spa and had an amazing time the staff is very eager to please and the prices were very fair for the services. Brides I would recommend you have your nails done before you head to the islands the salon was okay but I was really pleased that I had already had mine done. I did chip on of my pink and white nails and they did not have the supplies to correct it but they did a couple touch ups on paint and it was fine but don’t go down expecting to get acrylics or gels they didn’t have the equipment.

So the break down
Staff: Amazing!
Food: great
Wedding: perfect
Room: clean and comfortable

If you are planning a wedding at this resort and want to ask me ANY thing please do not hesitate to contact me.

One of our favorite things while we were there was that it seemed like all the other guests were in bed by 10am and our group (7 late twentiers) pretty much had free reign over the whole resort and the staff was really accommodating. We spent many evenings until 2am in one of the Jacuzzis and hanging out and no one seemed to mind us at all. We also left the resort on our last night to go to da conch shak and it was wonderful. We paid about $12 round trip per person to get a van to come pick us up and drop us off and it was such a treat the food was great and they allowed each of us to take a conch shell home with us. Dinner was about $18-$23 (drinks, appetizer and meal) for each of us. And yes they do have presidentes. If you do end up at Turks and Caicos tell OD that we said hello!

Happy travels!