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Trinidad n Tobago + #WestJetfail

Trinidad n Tobago + #WestJetfail

Old Oct 19, 2016, 2:01 pm
  #1  
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Trinidad n Tobago + #WestJetfail

Hey Folks,

This is a quick TR when the Mrs and I went to TnT with a bunch of friends in June for a friend’s wedding. I will preface this TR by saying that I did not do a good job on taking pictures i.e. plane etc – so please be kind. 

Booking the flights for this trip was not hard to do. We had a choice of WestJet or Caribbean Airlines and ended up choosing WJ (big mistake on 2 fronts). A month after we bought the tickets, we found the price went down $100 (grr) and on the return leg, the plane ran into mechanical issues (more to come on this later).

As for hotels, we originally choose to stay for the entire trip at the Port of Spain Courtyard Marriott. Then a couple days before the trip, I got word from a friend that they would also be attending the wedding and spending some days in Tobago as well. There are no chain resorts in Tobago and the best one we could find was the Coco Reef Tobago – so we decided to stay 1 night there and 4 days in Port of Spain.

We arrived at Pearson around 9:30pm for our 11:30pm flight to Port of Spain. Nothing much to write about – self check in, self baggage tag, self drop on the carousel and then headed towards security. Half of our friends heading for the wedding from YYZ were on the 11pm Caribbean Airlines flight. NOTE TO SELF – never again upgrade to business class which is nothing more than extra leg room and a cold meal. Le sigh.

Arrival at POS was on time and we picked up our bags and passed through security without issues. We quickly met up with the bride’s family and currency was exchanged on a side deal – hooray for black market currency exchanges!
We then headed to the check-in area and checked our bags in on the local flight to Tobago. With time to kill, we headed outside to the “food court” next door and had some doubles for breakfast. Nothing beats fry bread with potato, chick peas and hot sauce at 6am with hair frizzing humidity.


Last edited by injian; Oct 20, 2016 at 11:45 am
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Old Oct 19, 2016, 2:08 pm
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Fast forward to our 7:30am flight to Tobago which was pretty uneventful – out seat belts were pretty much fastened all the way through as the flight was 20 minutes. Bags were slow to arrive but eventually we were through and into a taxi cab to the 30 second ride to the resort … LOL. Could have walked to the hotel if we bothered to find out.

Check-in was painless and quick but our rooms were not ready till after 12pm. Our friends were already at the resort, so we just stashed our belongings in their room. I immediately changed and headed to the dive centre. When I arrived there was no one at the shop but it was open – then I saw the dive master arrive for the day – my first experience of island time. 
The dive briefing was good and then we were off for the 2 dives – the first dive would be a wreck dive (ship was called the Maverick) and the 2nd would be a wall dive which was aptly called “The Wall”. This would be my first wreck dive which I thoroughly enjoyed but unfortunately could not take any pics as my camera did not have any underwater housing and did not go to those depths. Pics below are of the Wall which was a shallow dive – nothing unusual and not the best I have seen.












Last edited by injian; Oct 20, 2016 at 11:51 am
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Old Oct 19, 2016, 2:53 pm
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By the time the dives were done and back at the resort, it was lunch time and I was hankering for a cold one. Our rooms were ready by this time, so we all quickly changed, freshened up and headed to the nearby area called Store Bay – there was a public beach plus restaurants and other shops. Wife and I grabbed some crab curry and goat roti which was delicious and then grabbed some ice cream.

The rest of the day was pretty much spent lazing on the beach. The pictures below of our rooms and the resort in general. In the evening, we dined out of the resort at a seafood restaurant (forgot the name and can’t find it on Tripadvisor) and the food was good.

The next morning we had breakfast that was part of the room rate and it was a simple selection – I did not take pics of the selections as the seating area was small and the food was placed in the centre of the area. One interesting thing of note is that there are two falcons tied down on pedestals to the outer ring of the room – the server indicated that this was to ward off other aggressive birds that would come in and pick food off the patron’s plates. While I understood the intention, I was not happy with the fact that the birds were tied down – you will notice the bird in the bottom right corner last pic.











































My thoughts on the overall experience:
1. Service by the staff was not consistent – some were friendly, some were robotic and didn’t go out of their way to make you happy. For example – the first time I ordered drinks from the bar, the bartender said she would find us and bring the drinks to us – great! Later on, we saw a server bringing drinks to another group and we tried to order another round but she said we had to go to the bar to order – weird little things but #firstworldproblems right?
2. Some maintenance areas were open around the resort and there were weird smells coming from them into the main areas – not a good experience.
3. Some of the floor tiles were cracked and paint was peeling off some walls – no effort was made to fix things.
4. The resort was quiet and the beach area was empty most of the time – good for us. When I spoke with the dive masters, they said that we came in the low season and it would be picking up in July. Most of their customers are from the UK and Europe.

Last edited by injian; Oct 20, 2016 at 12:03 pm
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Old Oct 20, 2016, 10:08 am
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No pics?
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Old Oct 20, 2016, 11:28 am
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Originally Posted by DanielW
No pics?
glitch in the matrix ... should be good now.

Last edited by injian; Oct 20, 2016 at 12:04 pm
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Old Oct 20, 2016, 12:31 pm
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Fantastic photos you took/got underwater!
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Old Oct 22, 2016, 4:18 pm
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Unfortunately, no pictures visible.
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Old Oct 22, 2016, 5:46 pm
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still no pictures, please update
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Old Oct 22, 2016, 8:52 pm
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Originally Posted by byromania
Unfortunately, no pictures visible.
Originally Posted by Shanqx
still no pictures, please update
Yes, please update your pictures as it adds so much to any TR.
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