Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Trip Report Turks and Caicos trip report

Well, we just returned from our first trip to T&C. I am new to this trip report stuff, so I thought I would let you know it might be kind of long so I will put the basics of the trip first and then if you want to read on you can =) . I'll start with the restaurants, and by saying that we are pretty simple people when it comes to food. We are not really into super expensive or fancy.
The dress-up night that we had we went to Coco Bistro, loved the atmosphere of it, but was pretty expensive, would probably go back there but maybe just for drinks so that we could get the atmosphere without the price tag.
Another place we ate at was Mango Reef, a little more suited for us middle of the road people and we had our best waiter that we had the whole entire trip, Jean-Luc, he was so attentive without being annoying and very friendly. Good food, would definitely go back.
I know a lot of people might not agree but our very favorite place to eat was the Tiki Hut =), we ate there three times, It was not only decent prices but great food and atmosphere. My husband is a big meat eater and had steak four different times while we were out, twice at the Tiki Hut, he said it was one of the best steaks he had ever had. It was the 22 ounce rib eye.
Ate at Da Conch Shack one night, food was just so-so, but it was nice to sit on the beach and have a drink, but did not like the drive down there. Don't think we would go back. Explain more about that later.

The place we stayed at was the Turks and Caicos Club. It was very nice atmosphere if you want a little more seclusion than the main row of all the big hotels. Had the beach almost to yourself and the great snorkeling reef right next door. Nice room. The only negative that I can say is that we did rent a car because we knew we would have to drive everywhere, which is kind of a bad thing when you hear some of our other driving experiences. So I think if I had it to do over again I probably would stay closer to the main area of hotels and then if I wanted some beach privacy I would go on one of those excursions that take you to a deserted island.

We did the Snuba with Jodi, she is absolutely awesome. She turned my husband into a total fish, and he used to not be a water person. I had somewhat of an anxiety attack when we were down there and I got a bunch of water in my mouth and couldn't breathe, I went up to the top and she was so, so nice and got me relaxed enough to go back down which I was really happy about because then I got to get my picture taken with a turtle which is what I was really looking forward to and she made it happen for me. She is great!

We also did an excursion through Silver Deep and had a very good time. Got some awesome shells over at Ft. George Cay. My husband actually got to see a Lemon Shark when we were there. He was pretty excited about that! He was the crazy one wading out into the water with his camera trying to get a picture when no one else would go out. Our captain "Pringles" was great!

Those were all the great things that we loved about the island. Now there were some negatives, so I hope all of you that love this island will either be objective or just ignore the rest of my report. After all we all get to have our own opinions =) . The first day we were there was a Thursday and we wanted to go to Da Conch Shack because we heard it was great music and dancing on the beach that night. Well, we were not prepared for the things we saw on the way, it made us very nervous driving around the island. It didn't seem very safe, but we tried to have an open mind throughout our trip. Well, my husband always likes to get a newspaper when we go on trips. The two newspapers he got on our trip were kind of scary when half of the paper talks about all their crime problems: rapes, armed robberies and alot of other problems with illegals coming over from Haiti causing alot of the problems. So even after reading that and having my sunglasses stolen(we had to switch rental cars when ours broke down and I forgot to grab them out of the car and within an hour called them to try to get them and of course they were know where to be found). We were still trying to have an open mind about the island. Well we met some people along the way that had lived there for years and then they started telling us all about the problems they had been experiencing in the last few months and that they were hoping this new government that is coming in to take over will hopefully help solve some of these problems, because they know that this will give them a black eye to some tourists. Ok, still we are going on at this point of our trip and trying not to get discouraged......then we had our worst incident of our trip...... we were on our way to dinner one night to the Tiki Hut and I notice someone standing in the road, I thought maybe we should slow down, that maybe someone was hurt or something. Then I saw him have something in his hands, and I start yelling at my husband to don't stop! don't stop! So we speed up, and as we are going by him he is yelling something and we notice he has a big two by four piece of wood and he looks like he is going to try and break our window out. We try to speed by but he did hit our car, really hard. He then tried it with someone else going the other way. By the time we got to the Tiki Hut I was shaking and ready to cry I was so scared. I told the people at the restaurant and they said they would call somebody. I couldn't stop shaking for about an hour. So hopefully you can see why I am a little hesitant about some things there.

We were also kind of bummed out about not getting to do alot of things we had planned because of the weather. We couldn't go out parasailing or on Jet skis the whole week we were there because of the weather. Those were two things I have never done and really wanted to experience. We did get to do some snorkeling. But even our snorkeling excursion got cancelled because it was just too choppy. One day we had to stay in our room the whole day because it was so stormy. The rest of the time it was stormy on and off every day except for the day we were leaving. I told my husband this was a Murphy's law trip about everything going wrong that possibly could. But even after all of that I still would consider going back because I have never seen a beach or water that beautiful in my life!! I think if I were to go back I would stay in the main hotel area where you have everything so close to you and then maybe take a taxi once or twice and that way you probably wouldn't run into some of the things we did.

Also, if anyone knows how to put pictures on here I would appreciate any help with that. Despite the weather we did get some beautiful pictures and I would like to share them.

Hope nobody is offended about what I wrote, just trying to be truthful =).
Thanks.