Tobago day 1 – Coco Reef Hotel

Wednesday 20th November

Our 9:30 Monarch flight departure was slightly delayed but only by a few minutes. We flew on a wide-bodied airbus 330, which was only about 20% full. Having the extra headroom inside made for a much more comfortable and less claustrophobic flight. The legroom was OK, the staff very attentive and the inclusive food was excellent.

Mrs TT usually orders a vegan meal, not because she’s a vegan but because she is so fussy. She doesn’t like cheese, which rules out most veggie options and doesn’t eat meat apart from tinned tuna and a bit of plain chicken, which rules out most normal meals. I’m the opposite. I’ll eat ANYTHING, the exception being crab and dumplings but I’ll get to that later. Anyway, we’d swapped seats to give ourselves some more room so her vegan meal was given to someone else, a lovely Tobagan lady going home for the winter. The steward was incredibly apologetic at his mistake and managed to rustle up an alternative from somewhere.

The 9 hour flight was quite tedious but broken up by some quality in-flight entertainment including the film ‘Life of Pi’. We arrived at about 4pm taking the +4 hours time difference into account and proceeded through the rather chaotic airport, first queuing to have our passports checked, then queuing to collect luggage, then queuing to have our customs declarations checked and lastly queuing to have our bags x-rayed.

Our Golden Holidays rep was waiting at arrivals and introduced our taxi driver. We were en-route to the hotel 5 minutes later and at the Coco Reef Hotel in 10 minutes. Super service.
First impressions of the hotel were fantastic being set well back from the road with a snaking drive and fantastic tropical gardens as you approach. You then enter an open air atrium that makes you feel very relaxed and privileged.

We had contacted Eric, the hotel manager, before we arrived as this was a special holiday for us. As a result we were upgraded from a garden view room to a junior suite! We were taken up to our room (no 212) and were delighted to find a plaque by the door specially painted for us saying ‘Turner Suite’. What a lovely touch. We also had a complimentary bottle of wine and a fruit basket!

What a lovely touch – our own room plaque!

Being a corner room, the balcony was a bit smaller but we had a palatial room with a separate lounge area. The view was over the small pool and through the palm trees to the beach. We had a huge bathroom with two sinks and a low bath with a shower over it.

Our room

As we were staying on a B&B basis, we ate in the hotel on the first night. We had one course each, mine a main course only at 129 TT$ (Trinidad & Tobago Dollars). My wife had a starter at 58TT$ as she only wanted a salad. I had a beer and she had a big glass of wine for 38TT$. The full buffet was around 250TT$ I had the fish, which was excellent.

Tobago day 6 – Eric the Manager

Monday 25th November

It was raining hard when we woke up but it had passed by the time we went down to breakfast.

The day was spent swimming, reading and generally relaxing. We tried the little pool, went snorkelling again, swam in the lagoon as the sun set and generally had a lovely day.

As Monday evening is the manager’s reception, we wanted to meet Eric and thank him for our special treatment. He’s a very jolly chap. He said we could keep our room plaque. “Everyone does”, he said. He told us they only usually do that for regular guests, so we really were getting VIP treatment.

He also said that our room was a junior suite and that they’d put someone in the one in the other wing but she’s insisted they move her! I think she was moved into a basic room instead.
They provided cocktails and some very nice canapés

Tobago day 7 – Hummingbirds

Tuesday 26th November

How the time flies when you’re on holiday. This is our last day and we’ve still got some exploring to do.

We talked to reception to see about getting a taxi to the Eco Adventure Tropical Gardens & Nature Reserve at Plymouth. It was nowhere near as grand as it sounds but was only 30 TT$ admission and has the most amazing humming birds (the taxi was 160TT$).

You walk up the drive to a private house, where the owner meets you and takes the modest admission fee. He then shows you round to a veranda where they have 5 or 6 humming bird feeders set up. We sat there for about 25 minutes watching these amazing little birds flitting about including a very rare albino, which I managed to catch on the video and posted on Vimeo. It’s listed as ‘Tobago Hummingbirds’ https://vimeo.com/80620601

They also put out some fruit and bananas to attract other birds too like a pair of barred antshrike and various tanagers.

After we’d seen enough hummingbirds, we walked around the grounds accompanied by one of their dogs but didn’t see many other birds.

The taxi driver took us to Fort James before going back to the hotel. It is more of a cannon emplacement than a walled-in fort but it was still interesting. It reminded me very much of Fishguard Fort back home in Pembrokeshire, with 4 or 5 cannons pointing at the sea and a solitary magazine building. A guy was selling some carved bamboo souvenirs for 40TT$, which Mrs TT couldn’t resist. Sorry Mr taxi driver, that was your tip….

We were talking to the taxi driver about restaurants on the way back and before he driver dropped us off at the hotel he showed us the Karriwak Resort & Restaurant. It was fantastic and not somewhere we’d have found on our own. It was down a little drive next to the bar/shop that sold the awful wine.

They have a daily-set, fixed-price, four-course menu. We had tasty pigeon pea soup, a delicious grapefruit and cucumber salad, sesame coated fish (there was a chicken option) and cake with ice cream to finish. Mrs TT had a vegetarian bean and couscous alternative for her main course. My meal was 210TT$, the veggie option was 200TT$. A bottle of Pino Grigio was 195TT$.

I understand that Friday and Saturday nights are buffet nights with their own band playing, which would have been great if we’d known about it. It looks like a good place to stay too but no you’d need to use the public beach at Store Bay.

Tobago day 8 – Home

Wednesday 27th November – Our last day!

It’s a shame to leave but we’ve seen and done all we want to and it’ll be good to get home.

We need to check out by 12 noon and are being picked up from the hotel at 3:30pm. That gives us all day on the beach and time for lunch out somewhere.

All too soon we’re handing our room key over and looking for somewhere to eat. We’re down to our last 100 Tobago dollars so we don’t want anything too fancy. We walked down to the main road and turned right towards the sea as we’d been told there was another fort down there. Unfortunately Fort Milford was closed but looked very much like Fort James had. We retraced our steps and went back through Store Bay and round to the Coco Cafe, which was shut but the curry house opposite (above the Curve bar) was open.

Mrs TT had a veggie Roti for 30TT$, which was a chapatti type wrap filled with yummy ingredients. I, on the other hand, made the biggest dining mistake of the week. I went for the crab with dumplings at 50TT$. It sounds great, but don’t be fooled by all the reviews and touristy websites waffle about this being a Tobago speciality – it’s hideous and inedible!
It consisted of several tasteless gelatinous ‘pancakes’ covered in a flavoursome but disgusting looking sauce topped with two hairy halved land-crabs that were absolutely impossible to break open….

Crab with dumplings – yeuk!

Back at the hotel, we settled in to wait for our transfer. Eric came by and said goodbye with a kiss for Mrs TT and a jolly handshake for me. Then we headed for the airport and another long wait.

An overnight flight back to the UK wasn’t the most pleasant as neither of us got much sleep and we still had the prospect of a 6 hour drive home. The crew had been at the Coco Reef with us all week so it was strange to see them all back in their uniforms. If that was their normal off-season work pattern, I can imagine it could get very tedious.

The food and in-flight entertainment were good again and the flight passed reasonably quickly.

Before long we were back at Gatwick and heading for the car park and on to home. We swapped driving a couple of times when tiredness started to set in. 36 hours after checking out and we were home wondering if it had been a dream.