wwb@ihuxn.UUCP (Walt Barnes) (06/10/85)
We just got back from a 1 week vacation at Club Med Turkoise and want to share our experiences with you. Our comments are about our vacation at a particular Club Med, generalize at your own risk. Location: Club Turkoise is located on Provo Island, in the British West Indies protectorate of the Turks and Caicos, about 1 hour and 10 minutes by jet from Miami. The Club is a 15 minute bus ride from the Provo airport. (Between the plane and bus rides was a 1 hour delay at The Provo International airport, a large tin shed, going through immigration and customs. It only took 10 minutes, but you had to stand in line 50 minutes.) How Club Med Works: At Club Med resorts, everything is included at one price, meals, sports, equipment, instruction, etc. You pay only for drinks, excursions, and sundries like postcards, tee shirts and suntan oil. There are lots of planned activities, like sailing regattas, picnics, water polo games, exercise classes, etc. You can participate if you want (and that's why half the people came) or you can ignore the planned activities and do you own thing (and that's why the rest came). Cost: Although you can set up your own transportation and any length of stay you want, most people go with the Club's charters and stay for 1 or 2 weeks. We went in prime season and it cost about $950 per person for a week, including air transportation from either Miami or New York. These prices were for double occupancy. For people traveling alone, they will randomly assign roommates of the same sex. You can also request a single room, which may or may not cost more, depending on the time of the year. Misc Expenses: As is typical of captive resorts, you pay a lot at the Bar. Fancy drinks such as Pina Coladas were $4, a can of Coke was $1.60, and between meal snacks (hot dogs and hamburgers) were $1.60 also. Since starvation is never a problem, we didn't see anyone buying snacks. However, dehydration is a problem and our bar bill was a conservative $40. Others ran up bar bills in the hundreds of dollars for the week. Bar drinks are paid for with "bar beads," which pop together and can be worn as a necklace (however, they also unpop at the most inopportune times, which is why many people bought little sacks with the Club Med insignia to hold the beads). Prices at the club store were also high, tee shirts were $10 to $16 and sun visors were $6. There was a drugstore where you could purchase forgotten sundries: a bottle of shampoo was $4. Moral: don't forget your sundries. (Part of these high prices go to the Turks and Caicos government. There is a 40% sales tax on anything sold to tourists.) GOs: The staff are called GOs. There were about 80. The male/female ratio seemed about 50/50. Most were French, some were Americans. They were all exceedingly competent and friendly, in fact outgoing and uninhibited. They have experts in all the sports they offer and complete instruction at any level is part of the basic package. Instruction may be formal (beginning sailing class at 3:00) or informal (the tennis instructor will be available after 3:30 for individual instruction). By the way, all the GOs were exceedingly good looking. GMs: Guests are called GMs. There were about 200 when we were there but the capacity of the club was 400. About half the GMs came as couples, the singles were evenly divided between men and women. Unlike the ads, not all GMs are exceedingly good looking. (Warning: Do not generalize this demographic information to other clubs, some clubs are singles oriented, some are couples oriented, some are family oriented, offering facilities for teens, preschoolers and even infants. Before you go to another Club Med, find out from a travel agent what its demographics are). About half of the GMs came to have a rowdy time, but they were so rowdy they seemed like more than half. They had beer chugging contests in the restaurant, and enjoyed throwing each other into the pool. You get the idea. If that is what you want, Club Med is for you. It wasn't what we wanted and we still had a good time since you weren't forced to participate and there were so many activities available we did want. GMs were friendly and uninhibited too. There was a little topless sunbathing among the women, and a fair amount of roommate switching each night. (Again don't generalize. We were told Guadaloupe had two beaches, one topless, the other nude.) Accommodations: Rooms were medium sized and very well designed. Floors throughout were done in tile so you didn't worry about tramping in with sand on your feet. Once a day, maids came and wet mopped the sand out, replaced the towels, and made the beds. Rooms, as most other facilities, were not air conditioned, which was the major topic of conversation at dinner the first night. But after the first night we acclimated and got along fine. After a few nights it actually seemed cool in the evenings and we slept with a light blanket. (Everyone else kept saying how lucky we were that it cooled off, but I think our bodies just got used to the different climate.) Speaking of sleeping, rooms have two twin beds. All rooms come with showers; you will get to know your shower well, especially if you participate in water sports. We averaged three showers a day. (You might consider taking a moisturizing bath soap. We didn't, but wished we would have.) Water pressure was fine at Turkoise, but according to the dinner conversations it is a problem at other clubs. Beach: The beach is beautiful and goes as far as the eye can see in both directions. (This won't last forever. Although construction hasn't started, a Hilton with a casino is going in next door, and other resorts will surely follow.) The beach had a gradual, sandy bottom so you could walk out 10 to 15 meters before your head was in the water. The beach was also lovely at night and we took several moonlight walks and never felt that our privacy was endangered. Reef: A great deal of the Island is surrounded by a barrier reef that provides excellent snorkeling and diving. The reef is too far off shore to get to good diving and snorkeling without a boat. There is plenty of shallow reef (2 to 4 meters) with beautiful coral formations and plentiful fish. We saw lots of parrot fish up to 30 cm, assorted squirrel fish to 15 cm, triggers, tang, butterfly fish, etc. The highlights were a 30 cm queen trigger fish and a 1.2 meter baracuda. (Contrary to old wive's tales, baracuda are not dangerous, except in unusual circumstances.) There was also a 2.5 meter baby dolphin that followed the snorkel boat in and out. You could get close to him but he wouldn't let you touch him. For divers, there is plenty of deeper reef and a wall that is breathtaking. Weather: We went (5/19 - 5/25) during the rainy season. It rained one day. The other days were partly cloudy or sunny. Highs during the day were in the lower 90s, lows at night were in the upper 70s. The climate isn't supposed to vary much year round. Sun: The sun was dangerous. Many people said it was the strongest sun they had ever experienced. Everybody needed lots of sun screen. We used SPF15 and waterproof SPF12 most of the time and still managed to get a tan. (And yes, we burned the spots we forgot to put lotion on: the tops of our feet and ears.) Four people who thought sun screens were for sissies ended up staying in the infirmary from sunburns; one person who fell asleep on the beach for 4 hours was airlifted to a hospital. Facilities: The Club has extensive facilities, including two restaurants, a bar, an auditorium, video room, library, several exercise rooms, an infirmary, an arts and crafts room, etc. More on sports facilities and restaurants later. The library has lots of paperbacks you can borrow. They show movies in the video room (a big screen TV with a VCR) twice each day. We went when we wanted to escape the ravages of the sun and saw Flashdance and Footloose. There are two jacuzzis, one heated and one unheated. "An unheated jacuzzi?" you say. Yes, and after all day in the hot sun several people thought it felt kind of nice. The infirmary is staffed by an nurse. They do have washers, dryers, and irons (no coins needed) so bring some laundry detergent. Even if you think that you have brought plenty of clothes, by midweek you will want to wash the sea water and sand out of everything. Food: The club served three meals a day at its two restaurants. The main restaurant seated about 400 people and the small restaurant, the Sea Hawk, seated about 75. Breakfast was served buffet-style in the main restaurant from 7:30 until 10:00. Breakfasts were pretty much the same each day, lots of kinds of fresh fruit, lots of kinds of cheeses, meats (bacon, sausages, ...), breads (toast, rolls, croissants, French toast, pancakes, ...), cereal with milk, etc. In addition to the preceding buffet items, they would cook omelets to order. Orange juice, coffee, tea, and "milkshakes" (more like smoothies if your familiar with health food) were available to drink. From 10:00 to 12:00 breakfast was served at the Sea Hawk for late risers. It was a miniature version of breakfast in the big restaurant with slightly fewer selections and a relaxed, unhurried atmosphere. Lunch was served in the big restaurant from 12:30 to 2:30. It was also buffet style. The highlights were lots of fresh fruit and salad makings. The salad bar was really quite extensive with all the standard things and lots of unusual goodies. Other buffet items included shish-ka-bobs with fish or beef, hamburgers, hot dogs, pan-fried steaks, several different kinds of potatoes (the French fries were excellent) and half a dozen kinds of frozen vegetables. There were always lots of different kinds of cheeses and there were good pastries for desert. Some days they had ices or ice cream. In addition to the precedings items, available every day, they always had an appetizer of the day. I remember melon with proscuitto, fruit salad with rum, and smoked salmon with caviar. Also, they had two or three entries each day, I remember salmon pate cooked inside French bread, several kinds of chop suey, and an excellent spinach salad with hot bacon dressing. I don't remember the entrees very well because I usually had enough salad and fruit that I didn't make it back to get the entree. Unlimited beer and table wine (red, rose, and white) along with orange juice, coffee, hot tea and sweetened iced tea were available to drink. Lunch was generally tasty, always abundant, and was the best meal of the day. Dinner was the worst. It was served at 8:00 in the big restaurant. Its high points were a repetition of the salad bar, fresh fruit, and cheeses from lunch. An entree was served at the table. I remember filet of sole, duck with orange sauce, roast chicken, roast turkey, and steak and lobster tail. Although these may sound good, they weren't. I would have been very disappointed if I had gone to a restaurant and received food as poor as the dinner entrees. They were flavorless, had poor texture, and in general were poorly prepared. As with lunch, beer, wine, etc. was available to drink. By the end of the week, the same wines (1983 French table wines) became very boring. The last night, they included Andre champagne with dessert. Dinner was also served in the little restaurant at 8:00. You had to make reservations between 12:00 and 12:15 by the swimming pool. When eating at the Sea Hawk you would be hard pressed to tell you were at the same resort with all the rowdy people. The atmosphere was quiet, usually about 30 people ate there. They only served fish (sometimes previously frozen). An example menu might be, fish soup with spiced sherry sauce, boiled shrimp with mustard sauce, and broiled grouper. As always, a salad bar and fresh fruit were available. The food was above average, making it much better than dinner at the big restaurant, but the most noticeable difference was in atmosphere. It was quiet, refined, and relaxed. Dinner at the big restaurant had the ambience of eating in a high school cafeteria. (Lunch in the big restaurant had the same ambience, but we didn't seem to mind as much at lunch.) If you get the idea that this club provides quantity not quality in their meals, your right. In the preceding discussion I was careful to mention if something was either good or bad. Most food was just average. Don't go for gourmet meals, but don't be turned off either, unless eating fancy meals is what you go on a vacation for. (Our opinion that dinner was at best marginal was widely held by other GMs. Almost everyone who had been to other Club Meds thought this one had the poorest food of any Club Med. Some, but not all, went so far as to say that the food provided at other Club Meds was typically excellent. The newness of this club or staff transition (see misc.) may have been responsible for the poor dinners. I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of the food improves.) Water: The drinking water is seawater desalinated and filtered at the club. Its fine to drink but tastes flat. Carafes of water and buckets of ice are available at all meals and there are a couple of drinking fountains located around the club. By the end of the week, we had discovered that you could make unsweetened ice tea by brewing hot tea and pouring it over ice. In retrospect, it would have been nice to have had something like Wyler's to add to the water to cover the taste. Dehydration is a big problem, and it's hard to drink enough water when it doesn't really taste very good. Security: The club is physically isolated from the surrounding area via fences, except along the beach. There are uniformed guards around, but they are not obtrusive. I noticed them walking rounds in the evenings on several occasions. Rooms don't have locks. When you enter the club you are encouraged to leave all you valuables in the "bank." We did and it worked out fine. You don't need any cash at all during the week. If you buy anything, just sign for it. The day you leave you settle your account. They accept cash, major credit cards, and traveler's checks. You can leave your camera at the bank if you are concerned about it, Although mine is valuable, I kept it in the room in plain sight when I wasn't using it and had no problem. All of the housekeeping personnel are Club Med employees who live on premises, rather than locals. Water Sports: Club Med was originated to provide water sport oriented vacations and this club is true to that ideal. All water sport facilities and instruction are included in the package. There were about 20 sailboats, divided evenly between 2.5 meter lasers, 4 meter club IIs, and 6 meter catamarans. Sailing instruction is available or you can just take a boat if you know what your doing. They have a chase boat to come get you if you get into trouble, but if you do need them, and you took a boat saying you didn't need instruction, the informal rules say that you owe the sailing shack a bottle of liquor from the bar. This never happened while we were there, but they tell you because they don't want people getting in over their head, so to speak. Once a week they have a regatta and people into sailing get to compete around a standard triangular course. They have about two dozen wind surfboards and it works the same as with sailing, instruction is available or just take a board if you know what your doing. They also have a chase boat and once-a-week regatta. There is swimming in the ocean and in the pool. Also in the ocean is a daily water exercise class. They have a swimming instructor who will teach you to swim if you don't know how or help you perfect your butterfly stroke if that's what you're after. There are also water polo and water vollyball games in the pool. The reef is too far offshore to go snorkeling without a boat. The snorkel boat goes twice a day, at 10:00 and 3:00. Snorkeling was a big part of what we went for and we were not disappointed. It's a 15 minute ride out to the reef and you get to snorkel for 45 minutes. SCUBA is available as an excursion. Since it is not provided by Club Turkoise, it costs extra. (Some other Club Meds do provide SCUBA, including instruction and all equipment, as part of the basic package.) Land Sports: Facilities and equipment are available for numerous land-based sports as well. These include basketball, soccer, tennis, volleyball, jogging, weight training, yoga, ping pong and more I can't remember. As with the water sports, instruction is available. They organize tournaments and schedule games in the team sports. Arts and Crafts: This air conditioned room provides you with something to do when delicate portions of your anatomy are sunburned. They provided materials for bead stringing and silk painting. Most participants did silk painting. There was a materials charge of $4 for scarfs all the way up to $24 for pareos. A word of warning: since the paints stain, don't wear good clothes. Shows: Every evening at about 10:00 the GOs put on a show. One night was a dancing show with production numbers, kind of like a poor imitation of Las Vagas. Other nights were a GO lip sinc contest, and a GO talent night. One night was a GM talent show featuring a bunch of guys doing Swan Lake and a cute strip tease. The shows exhibited a great deal of enthusiasm, if not talent, and a good time was had by all. Disco: After the evening show, at about midnight, the disco opens. It goes until dawn. We never went but lots of people stayed there until it closed, according to talk at the meals. By the way, the disco music until all hours never disturbed us, and we were not clear on the other side of the village either. But it probably makes sense to ask for a room away from the disco if you want peace and quiet. Be sure to ask when you make your reservations, don't wait until you get there as rooms are preassigned. Excursions: Excursions are side trips, events, or experiences that are available at extra cost and may or may not be run by the club. For example, an all day trip to Haiti that included lunch, horseback riding, a visit to a 15th century castle, and shopping was available for about $150/person. A sunset sailing cruise was available for $35/person. Scuba diving is available in two ways, for certified divers a whole range of diving is available. They also do a "resort certification" for $79 that culminates in a shallow open water dive. (SCUBA diving is serious business and I would not recommend anyone learn to SCUBA dive this way.) For $135/person we dived the reef in a submarine. We went down the wall 500 feet and flew around the deep reef at about 200 feet. The dive lasted about 1 hour and 15 minutes. The submarine is a small, converted North Sea oil exploration vessel. It was capable of carrying 3 passengers as well as the pilot. We thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to divers, snorkelers, or anyone seriously interested in the world under the sea. You can take pictures out of the 1 meter circular front port and I shot two roles. (I used ASA 1000 film, at 1/60 second from f2 to f4, and got fair results.) Don't wear good clothes. There is some oil and the like on some of the machinery in the sub that could stain good clothes. What to take: Take at least two swim suits. You'll needs lots of sun protection, including sun screens, moisturizer, sun glasses, and a visor or a hat. If you plan to sail or wind surf, take something to secure your glasses or you'll lose them when you tip over. We took beach towels and never got them out once as there were always plenty of lounge chairs available at both the beach and the pool. Don't forget to take some detergent for the self service laundry. You will also need to bring shampoo and personal toiletries although, of course, soap is provided. What everyone wears: During the day, including at breakfast and lunch, men dressed in swimming suits or shorts and tee shirts. Most women wore swimming suits or shorts with some kind of cover-up. For both men's and women's swimming suits, anything goes, from normal to ultra small. I don't remember any overly modest suits. My speedo and my wife's adjustable bikini (adjusted to leave something to the imagination) were about average. Footwear was about evenly divided between sneakers, sandals and barefeet. There was more variance in what people wore in the evening and at dinner. Some people wore shorts and tee shirts, while others dressed up in slacks or sundresses or the like. One evening a week is "dress-up" night and about half the GMs paid attention, wearing slightly nicer slacks or dresses. Some people wore simple jewelry, like gold chains or earrings, while others wore no jewelry at all. Misc: GOs work a 6 month shift at a club. There is a complete turnover of staff at all clubs in May and November. If you go at these times the GOs may not have formed into a cohesive team yet. Further, the GO team and especially the chef de village (the boss) have a lot to do with the character of the club. Because these change every 6 months expect differences at a club over time, just as there are differences between clubs. Mail back to the states was slow. It took 12 days for our post cards to make it back. Other Club Meds: Most GMs we met had been to several other clubs and comparing visits was a major topic of conversation. Although we haven't included hearsay in this review, if you have questions about some other particular club and haven't been able to find answers, we would be glad to pass along anything we heard. Just send mail with your questions. Walt Barnes ...!ihuxn!wwb Cindy Barnes ...!ihnss!taxi