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We have been written about Parrot Cay in Turks and Caicos for a while. Now we would like to share our clients experience who stayed at this exclusive resort a couple of weeks ago.
Service
Can’t say enough about the high level of service in this resort. Every minute of every detail is thought of. We’ve traveled quite a bit (many Caribbean islands, Cruises, Europe and more) and by far, this is top of the line. As an example, we ordered hard boiled eggs for breakfast for our two year old son, when they were brought out, he touched them and the waiter saw that they were a bit hot. He ran to the rescue, said he will take the eggs back, cool them and peel them. This is one of many examples of true service. Ran out of cash, no problem, and call front desk – they will advance it against your credit card. Checking into the flight, email the boarding passes to concierge they will print them for you. Don’t feel like walking to breakfast, call up the lobby, they’ll pick you up on a golf cart. If you call room service once, they know your preferences and what you ordered the day before.
Overall
5 starts on service.
Transfers
This deserves to be in a category by itself. To get to resort, you take a 30 minute car ride, then a 30 minute boat ride, then a 15 minute golf cart ride. It’s a mission, but this mission is though through the very little detail and perfectly project managed. When you get to the dock to take the boat to the resort, they greet your with ice cold beer, hand towels and take care of anything else that you need. The only time you see your luggage is when you take it off the belt, next time you see it is in your room. On the way back, you needn’t think of anything. They know your flight, and project manage your pickup and delivery of you, your family and your luggage all the way to the check in area. No-one asks for tips; that shocked me! I still tipped a few bucks to the driver and the bell boy, but it was absolutely unnecessary.
Overall
5 starts on Transfers.
Beach
The beach is brilliant. Sand feels like powder. What I didn’t expect is a hostess-like service that greets you upon entering the beach, directing you to an available set of chairs, sets up an umbrella and gives you a flag that you can stick in the sand if you want anything form the bar as opposed to having to seek out an attendant or raise your hand and chase after them like you do in other resorts. All usual non-motor vessels are included and are readily available for use. Another pleasant surprise was that they had a chest full of toys for the kids to play in the sand; this alone, saved a tremendous amount of time and kept our two year old occupied for hours. Other than that, the beach offers a perfect view of the beautiful sunsets. In combination with the crystal clear, turquoise Caribbean Sea water, really can’t beat that.
5 starts overall for the beach.
Activities
Who cares! You don’t go to Turks and Caicos for activities you go to Turks and Caicos to forget that time exists. In fact, there were not a single set of clocks or any other time keeping mechanism in our room. The only one thing we tried was a tennis court, and that was great. Rackets and balls readily available along with ice cold water, towels and benches in the shade. The court is pristine. If you’re into that, strongly recommend it. Some kind of tips/activities are available, but we didn’t try, we were busy for the first few days trying to teach ourselves to not track time.
Staff
This is an interesting category. I would say that you can compare the staff in this resort to an apple tree. Most of the apples are great, but there are still a few rotten ones that leave a super bad taste in your mouth. The ratio is though is roughly 90% of amazing staff, to 10% of just straight out “if your manager saw you, you’d be fired on the spot”. I got a nasty bar keep, a few housekeeping issues, a rotten waiter once or twice, but nothing crazy. Could definitely use improvement here. But the staff that is great, like our concierge that met us in the buggy and managed us through the entire stay (Sasi) made up for the rotten apples.
3 starts here
Food/Restaurants
I can go on here for a long time. Let me try and be concise. There are only two restaurants, granted they change menu daily. What makes for a great restaurant?
Décor – 2 of 5.
Food – very spotty. Ranging from amazing to plain out garbage. 2 out of 5.
Service – 3 out of 5.
Ambiance – was always great to be outdoors, but on days with live music, it was annoying to have to listen to Country music in the middle of the Caribbean. 2 out of 5.
Value – 1 out of 5. Let me explain. We are huge foodies. We are used to paying for great meals. However, if I am paying ~$50 for a steak, I expect that to be a great steak. The steak was pure garbage, I could make better with a piece of meat from Stop & Shop in my oven with my eyes closed. Same goes for some other platters, like fish, weird Asian courses and strange appetizers that made no sense. It wasn’t all bad, it was just average, but for just average, it was severely overpriced. First thing I did when I got home, was cook a great steak!
Price – Some of it is mentioned above, the value is just not there. Appetizers are on an average $25-$35; Entrees go for $40 - $55. Don’t mind paying, as long as it is worth it, which it wasn’t. What did seriously annoy me, was the children menu. That never changed. Kids were stuck eating same thing every day, as there are 5 items on the kids menu. And by the way, a hot dog from the kids menu is $28.00; apple juice is $8.00. That just doesn’t make any sense. Can’t say our kids were hungry, but I didn’t expect them to be eating crappy pizza and hot dogs every day in such a high class resort. The wine list is poor, and the decent bottle of Pinot, Malbec or a alike will run you $200/bottle…Everything in the $70 range, is just cooking wine, literally one $70 bottle of wine that I had to reject, came with a screw on cap and tasted like vinegar.
So all in all, restaurants get
2 starts, and that’s a stretch.
Bars
There are two bars on premises. Similar to restaurants, I judge them using the same categories. Overall bar experience left a bad taste in mouth for several reasons. For one, there is an issue with the value proposition. A low end scotch, is $18 a pop. That would have been half tolerable, if the bar keep didn’t actually have to use a shot measurer to give you exactly 30 drops for your $18 bucks. One shot is negligibly larger in volume than a dose of Visine eye drops, that’s just not cool. They do serve nice guacamole and chips with it, but you have to get at least two doubles to measure up to what you get in a New York bar, perhaps I am spoiled, but I just like to get a little more than a “taste” for the that cost. Selection was pretty poor as well, consistent with the food in the restaurant.
Another extremely disappointing issue are that ridiculous charges for the virgin drinks for the kids, that run about $12.00 each for a Virgin Shirley Temple or a Virgin Strawberry Daiquirietc….So imagine this scenario, you have 30 minutes to kill before dinner. You stop by the bar, two adults and two kids. Wife will have a glass of wine, you will have few Scotches, and one drink per kid…that will run you around $100.00; and wouldn’t last you 30 minutes . I am not complaining, but it just didn’t match to overall experience of the resort. Unfortunately the bar experience alone killed it for me. On one occasion we went out to Providenciales (this was a mission on its own, but a great experience) so we stocked up with a few bottles for the evenings on the patio when the kids went to sleep. This was nice.
2 starts for bars and that’s a stretch.
Room/Villa
Absolutely wonderful. Amenities get 5 starts no questions asked. Room was tightened up twice a day. Everything was thought off. Even the bug spray was there under the kitchen sink. Umbrellas, ice machine, refrigerator, wine cooler, shower and a bath, dual sinks….the whole nine. Wi-Fi in the room, granted DSL speed, but it did the trick. Very outdated system with poor signal range, I had to be in the vicinity of the room for Wi-Fi to pick up. Forget about streaming movies for the kids. But I can’t complain. I was able to do what I had to, which is check emails, jump on a Skype call, and check into the flight, so not a huge deal that I wasn’t able to take my laptop on the porch. TVs could use an upgrade, okay for a mid-level resort, but not for this level….didn’t have the HDMI for me to connect the gadgets for kids to watch cartoons, YBPR only.
4.5 starts.
Pool
Magnificent does not describe it. Same level of “hostess-like” service. Maintained wonderfully. Pleasant staff. And again, a chest full of toys for the kids, a real nice touch. Towels never an issue, nor is the space.
5 starts.
Things to do for kids
Not much, if any. But then again, this is not a kid resort. We were thankful they had high chairs and toys on the beach. Other than that the kids are out of luck. Our kids are beach bums, so they really didn’t need anything other than the pool and beach, so we were set, but don’t plan on dropping off your kids at a kids club at this resort, it doesn’t exist.
Random
One thing I would recommend to everyone, is to try and get out to Providenciales at least once or twice. There are great restaurants to eat (Fresh Catch is a must) and full of shopping areas. You can talk to front desk about the schedule of the boat that brings in new passengers, you can get on that boat for free. They will arrange a cab for you to meet you at the dock, then pick you up and bring you back to the dock. The cab will run you $50; but it is well worth it for the night on the town and a no charge boat ride to the mainland. Plus it is where you can stock up on supplies. On Fridays, Danny Buoy’s grill ribs outside.
Summary
Overall a great experience! A few rotten apples here and there took away a star, so in conclusion it was exactly what we wanted, but in some cases the value didn’t match price tag. The departure terminal was a buzz kill. So all in all,
4 starts. Would I come back to this resort? Probably not. Would I come back to Turks Caicos? Without a doubt.
