We would love to get back to Provo but lost our cheap flights with Spirit. Grace Bay beach is so beautiful -- the beach and water is absolute perfection I think.

"Go for a walk on the beach, read my book, go for a swim, eat, have a mango margarita, chat with my neighbors ,and repeat several times a day."

Sounds like a perfect day to me! Glad you had a great trip!

Sounds heavenly!! We would love to go there if we can get away from work and family obligations in April. Any recommendations for the best carriers/flights from NYC area?

From NYC , AA direct flight !!

Thanks! And weather is good through end of April?

Weather is fantastic then...

Would this be a good place to go for a week with our adult children, ages 25,22 18 in June? What about water sports, scuba, snorkle etc? How are the prices for food and drinks? pricey?

It sounds like you had a great time! I wish I was going to the Caribbean soon.

vickie1------I don't know about 18-25 year olds. It's a very quiet beach. They do have parasailing, bannana boats, Hobiecats, and boat trips to go snorkeling, scuba, etc. There is walk-in snorkeling at the Coral Gardens area. Never saw any jet skis, but maybe they are elsewhere on the island.

The food & drinks are expensive for dinner, less so for lunch. The casual food places are reasonable (ex--$12 hamburgers). The beautiful dinner places are expensive(ex--$30-$40 for one course only). Since most of the resorts are condos you can do breakfast, snacks, wine etc. on your balcony----there is a huge grocery store. At Ocean Club West where we stay, they have 2 large grills on an island in the pool where you can grill out yourself.

I don't mean to discourage you, only to state the facts as we have seen them. It is the best beach we have been on after many other islands. It may be costly, but most of the islands are so we did not find it more expensive than other trips. IMO the only inexpensive beach resorts are in Mexico.

Do hope I've helped.

Hi,
I am researching "new" destinations to travel. My husband's best friend wants to plan a 30th bday trip for his wife in March 2011. I'm helping him out! Turks & Caicos is one island I have not visited, but is on my list. We are in MD and we only plan on going for 5 days, so we don't want to waste a lot of time traveling. So far this is our closest bet I think. I've not been to Bermuda but pretty sure they are on our weather pattern, so March would be rather chilly there. Other places I am considering are Anguilla, Antigua, St. Barts. Have you been to any of those?

I know someone that always stays at the Royal West Indies on Grace Bay. Are you familiar with? If we stayed at a place near there would we need to rent a car? Are their shuttles, taxis, walking distance places? Thanks so much! Julie

We have been to all islands you listed.

Anguilla and St. Bart's are both favorites of ours, but much harder to get to. St. Bart's probably would be twice the cost of TCI.

Antigua after 2 visits is just not our favorite unless you go really high end.

As far as March in TCI, we've gone 3 yrs. in a row from around the 7th to the 18th-----2008, perfect weather---2009, a bit cooler, extremely windy(felt like Aruba) on the beach, so I was at the pool amoung the palm trees everyday---2010, the best weather, perfect for the beach every day and warm for eating outside at night.

The Royal West Indies is a very nice property(we love Mango Reef for lunch or dinner). It's a bit older(as is Ocean Club West) and in the same price range as Ocean Club West where we have stayed all three trips. Both properties are surrounded by much higher end places.

We prefer the location of OCW because it's a little closer to more shops and restaurants(look on a hotel location map). We have not rented a car, as we do on most islands, because OCW was so convenient to everything we wanted. They do have a shuttle to some places and cabs are always available (Tina's Taxis service, great) but sort of expensive. A huge grocery store is a 5 min. walk. We go out for dinner but like breakfast on our balcony and wine and snacks, etc. in the room. They do have a restaurant ouside by the beach for all 3 meals.

If we didn't stay at OCW, we'd stay at RWI. The original Ocean Club is also nice, but a bit too far away from what we like to do. So make sure you look at Ocean Club WEST. Also if you stay there upgrade 1 click to a Junior Suite. Some of the studio rooms are not in good locations, noisy-bad view. Also look on www.VRBO.com and www.homeaway.com for some very good deals from condo owners. Much better deal than the resorts themselves. We've rented from both services all over the world with great success.

Thank you so much for all the information. I was looking into private villa homes, but looks like we are just going to have 3 couples and it's out of our price range (with flight). They are SOOOO beautiful though.

OCW sounds perfect. I would prefer to NOT rent a car, so the fact that there is a lot within walking distance is great. We never rent a car unless we're going to Hawaii. Prefer to use taxis so we don't have to worry about parking and driving on the wrong side of the road scares me a bit. We do the same thing - eat breakfast in the room and pack snacks for lunch and go out to dinner.

So glad to hear the weather was beautiful this March. We go to St. John in November and 2009 was the most rain we've ever seen. Usually passes pretty quickly over the mountains, and only a couple days throughout the week. But this year it was almost every day!

Thanks again for your help. If I have any other questions I'll be in touch.

Do any of you know about Club Med on T & C? I am considering it with my 23, 19 and 14 year olds. Hoping that all the activities will take care of everyones interest. Any comments?

Do not think they allow 14 year olds...

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