My family and I just returned on Sunday from a week in Provo. We were amazed at the beautiful beaches, the constant sunshine and the steady breezes. Here is a summary of our travels:

Hotel - Northwest Point Resort: We booked a one bedroom condo with a garden view. Their winter promotion was 40% off their regular rates plus a free rental car for the week. With taxes, the cost came to $1250 for 7 nights.
Pros -
Full kitchen, washer and dryer, Direct TV with HBO
Attentive staff
Beautiful landscaping
Quiet (we never heard a peep from another hotel guest)
Few guests meant plenty of space in and around the pool

Cons -
Noseeums!
Beach has too much turtle grass
Bathroom needed updating plus there was no bathtub, only a shower

The hotel is about 20 minutes from the start of Grace Bay and the drive goes by quickly, even with the 3 mile section of dirt road leading up to it. Since we explored a different beach every day, we enjoyed the location. With that said, on our next visit, we’ll go in the off season and select a more upscale place near Grace Bay. In high season, however, we just could not justify spending $400 a night on a hotel.

Day 1:
We landed at around 2:30pm and were greeted by Grace Bay Car Rentals. Because the hotel was paying the tab, we were on our way in less than 10 minutes. The drive to the NWP Resort was just over 15 minutes.

Our daughter was overjoyed by the sight of the pool, so we spent the rest of the day swimming. That night, we had dinner at the hotel restaurant where we encountered the major downside of hotel - noseeums. I spent that night feeling like I had crank bugs.

Day 2:
What would possess our children to wake up at 6am on the first day of vacation? As such, we decided to take an early morning trip to the beach. We visited the area of Grace Bay Beach by the Coral Gardens for some snorkeling and swimming. Afterwards, we discovered our favorite restaurant of the trip – The Saltmills Diner. My daughter had the chocolate chip pancakes (delicious), I had the tuna melt (fantastic) and my husband had a curry dish (not sure how it tasted because I hate curry) The Diner runs an ongoing special where the kids meals are the cost of your children’s age. It was a great deal for our six and two year old’s meals.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at Island Scoop. I thought that the strawberry ice cream was not very flavorful and my husband’s coffee ice cream seemed to be freezer burned. We then stopped at Graceway Gourmet for $7 boxes of cereal and $5 bottles of juice. We fixed dinner that night in the condo.

Day 3:
6am wake up call. Again. Can you see a pattern forming here? Today’s beach was Taylor Bay on the south side of the island. Taylor Beach is one of those beaches that you dream of visiting but never thought actually existed. The water is crystal clear, a stunning color and is shallow for yards and yards. The best part is that we only encountered one other family on the entire stretch.

After the beach, we stopped at an open house for one of the highlights of our vacation. A company called Elite Destination Homes was promoting two of their fractional ownership homes and had just finished up with a sale pitch to local realtors. The villas were amazing with unbelievable outdoor living spaces. The sales guy, Tony, invited our daughter for a swim in the pool at Twelve Palms and we proceeded to spend a good hour relaxing under the veranda. If you happen to have $900,000 lying around, it would be money well spent. That would buy you 2.5 months of the year in paradise, with sweeping views and a constant breeze.

Afterwards, we had lunch at Pizza Pizza. We later had dinner at the Tiki Hut. Their food is nothing special, but I would recommend eating there for the atmosphere alone (and the electric blue margaritas).

Day 4:
Since we were on a quest to visit a new beach every day, we ventured over to Malcolm Roads on the west side of the island. Our daughter loved scrambling on the rocks and watching the crabs scurry around. We had lunch at the dependable Saltmills Diner where I enjoyed banana walnut pancakes and most of my daughter’s macaroni and cheese (which she picked at because it was actually homemade and not Kraft).

Day 5:
On day five, we decided to drive clear over to the other side of the island, to Leeward Beach. The beach is a shell lovers dream with conch shells strewn everywhere and all sorts of other types as well. As usual, there were barely any other people around, two to be exact. While we were swimming, we watched a storm form that came upon us quickly. Once it started raining, we packed up and drove over to Grace Bay near the Seven Stars. By the time we got there the skies had cleared up. The water was a little choppy, but my husband and daughter had great fun jumping into the waves.

We visited Danny Buoys for lunch – They have a nice patio and pretty good food.

Day 6:
Despite it being cloudy, and a bit windy, we decided to head to the Bight Reef. We didn’t see very many fish, but, then again, we weren’t really trying. Near the beach is a nice little playground and the kids were glad to spend some time there.

That afternoon, we visited the beach at Northwest Point. We drove from the hotel along a narrow dirt road for about 1.5 miles, then walked about a half mile. The beach was rocky but interesting. It would be been nice to have our snorkel gear with us. We had read that there was a giant osprey nest and we wanted to check it out. When we came upon it, we could see that there was an osprey inside, and while we were trying to catch a glimpse, another came swooping along with a large fish in its talons. As a wildlife lover, it was a unique experience. We then explored the shore line and as we checked out the little tide pools along the way, we saw a shark fin. The shark must have been no bigger than 4 feet long but it was still a neat sight to see.

Day 7:
On our last full day of vacation, we visited Sapodilla Beach, another incredible beach with water that is ankle to knee deep for yards. It is the most perfect beach for kids I have ever been to. At lunchtime, we dined at Las Brisas which overlooks Chalk Sound. The food was excellent – We wished that we would have eaten there sooner in our vacation. On our way back to the NWP, we drove through the Blue Hills. There is a stream of some sort and as we crossed over it, we spotted four flamingoes. I was beyond thrilled!

That night, we ate at Sharkbite, a restaurant I had high hopes for but cannot recommend. Our waitress kept coming back to the table to ask us what we ordered then proceeded to bring our daughter the wrong thing. We watched as another server delivered what we knew was her meal to another table where it sat for five minutes until being delivered to us. Of course they automatically added the gratuity on to the bill so my husband had to fight it.

Day 8:
The Saltmills Diner has brunch on Sundays, so we happily indulged in Belgian waffles with strawberries and vanilla ice cream. The perfect way to end our vacation.

I'd be happy to answer any questions about our trip. We researched the entire vacation using this website and are grateful for the advice we received!

Do you have any pictures? I would love to see them, warm me up from all this snow we've been getting! 8-)

Thanks for the request - I have some great photos that I have to upload to my website when I have a minute.

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your trip. We're leaving on Saturday and I took notes on your experiences. Did you have 4-wheel drive? If not, did you have difficulty driving to any of the beaches you mentioned? Thanks.

We did not have a 4 wheel drive car and we did not have any issues (It was similar to a Honda Civic). The beaches at Taylor Bay and Sapodilla have tiny car parks with a short trail to the beach. The road to Malcolm was dirt with lots of ups and downs, but it is solid, not loose sand/gravel. Finally, the road to the Northwest beaches was sand and we drove along until we felt the sand looked too loose.

Have a great trip!

Here are a few pictures from our trip:
http://karaleephotography.net/portfolios.htm

Enjoy!

Nice report - thanks for posting.

Thanks for the feed back and a great report. You actually answered my questions about road conditions - thanks. So it looks like Malcolm Road to the beach is a breeze?

Also, is Leeward Beach on the east end of the island, near the marina?

Any great watering holes that you would recommend?

Thanks,
Ed and Peg

The road to Malcolm Beach is certainly doable without a 4x4. It is bumpy with rolling hills and curves but nothing crazy.

Leeward Beach is in fact on the east side. We accessed it from the north east point, north of the Marina. It is a nice wide beach and we only saw two other people. We also liked watching the snorkle tour boats ferry people over to the cays right off the coast.

I can't help with watering holes per se, but would highly recommend Las Brisas on Chalk Sound. What a view!

Did you see this map? I found it to be the most helpful.
http://www.caribbean-on-line.com/islands/tc/prmap.shtml

Have a great trip!

Thanks for the info, I am going in Sept and can't wait. Thanks for the heads up on some restaurants, we are only going for 5 days, wish it was going to be longer!

Enjoyed your report. Your photos of TCI are beautiful and I also enjoyed your photos of Ireland as we are headed there soon.

As far as Grace Bay, we've had 3 trips there and it is currently our favorite place to go in March. You could try www.vrbo.com or www.homeaway.com for some good prices. We have used both with great success.