Turk & Caicos Island Beaches for Vacation Tips; Customs and immigration were handled efficiently and quickly, and this was the first island where we were photographed by the immigration officers on arrival. The shuttle ride was around 15 minutes long from the airport.

Upon arrival at Beaches we were greeted warmly, given a nice cold towel to wipe our faces and a punch drink (with or without alcohol) Check in went quickly and we had our room and luggage within 15 minutes. We stayed in a standard room in the east wing  and it was lovely with a king size bed and balcony with a view of the ocean.

Our only complaint was the construction on the property next door started early in the morning and it was noisy on occasion.We were worried about the number of kids but you could usually find a quiet spot on the beach at the end of the property and Iquanas pool normally had less kids. The weather was perfect 31, 32 degrees everyday.

The food and drinks were excellent.We dont like buffets much so we never ate at Reflections in the evening. Our first night we ate at Le Petit Chateau (no reservation required, adults only) and had an excellent dinner and evening. This became our favourite restaurant because of the wonderful menu with many choices (esgargot, french onion soup, shrimp,salmon, beef tenderloin) and the excellent service. The manager, Ciprian from Bucharest was warm and friendly and we chatted with him numerous times. Our servers were Donard, Renaldo and Patricia and they made our dining experience extra special both times we ate there.

We also ate at the seafood restuarant Schooners (shrimp, alaska king crab) twice and it was delicious. Mercedes was excellent. We dined twice at Sapodillas (intimate, reservations required, adults only), with excellent food and service, a little more formal and perhaps not as fun as Le Petit Chateau. It is worth trying Kimonos one night, the food is good but it tends to be noisy and a lot depends on who your chef is and what kind of people you are seated with. We ate breakfast at a variety of different spots but our favourite was Guiseppes and grabbing a coffee at Cafe de Paris beforehand. Lunch was good and we ate mainly at Arizonas and they had a nice buffet. Alex one of the managers was from from Mississauga and he was very helpful. The pizza at Iquanas was also good. It was nice to be able to get premium drinks like Courvosier, Remy Martin and Glenlivet scotch. Fri nights they had a martini bar outside Turtles…look out, they and the Mojito’s really sneak up on you!!! Fanny at the Turtles bar always had a smile and was very nice.

The entertainment at night was not that great. We did enjoy the ventriliquist Fri night in Turtles. The island night Wed night is a lot of fun with the fire show and Sesame Street parade and the different food choices from around the Carribbean were great. We sampled a small bit of everything and then had dinner late that night. We liked to dress up for dinner and the restaurants we mentioned above all catered to that, Collared shirt,long pants and closed shoes for the men and sundresses for the ladies.The craft market on Tuesdays right at the resort is probably the best shopping you will find on the Island. We took a cab to the Saltmills and Port of call shopping areas and there was not much there that you couldnt get at the resort craft market except for the nice art gallery called Anna’s.

The beaches on Turks are fantastic, Grace Bay is one of the nicest, longest white sand beaches we have seen stretching for miles. Beaches resort offers excellent diving and snorkelling packages. We went snorkelling on “tabletop” the variety of fish was fanatastic. One day we signed out some snorkelling gear and walked down the beach to a protected fire coral reef. That was great as well and we even saw a stingray. The hobie cat rides were great (we went out with Steven)

Beverly at the front desk and Sandra at the tour desk always had a smile and were always full of information and helped make our stay more enjoyable.The grounds were well kept and gorgeous with lots of different kinds of flowers and palm trees.

We had a wonderful time at this resort and the people we mentioned above ceratainly helped in making it more special. We would recommend it to families with children or adults travelling alone like us. If we had anything negative to say it would be the number of private parties, in this case not even weddings. When the private parties were held some evenings the hot tub and other public areas would be closed to the rest of the guests and this became a bit of an inconvenience.

We were not aware Air Canada flew down early Sat morn so we flew out of  Toronto via Ottawa at 3 pm (late of course) and then flew out of Turks at 1215 (late again). Good old Air Canada. So really we took the late flt down and the early flt back, had we known there were other options we would have chosen them.

All in all a great time and we intend on trying another Sandals resort, perhaps SANDALS Whitehouse that came highly recommended to us.