As part of our dive shop operations we coordinate dive trips for our students on a regular basis. We go on fact finding tours prior to going because I would hate to take or send customers to somewhere that turns out to be not what it seems. I want to personally experience places I suggest. That said, here is the rundown of what we have found at Turquoise Bay Resort:
(Background info - Stay of 12 days, three people, two rooms, rented a 4 door/4WD truck. We aren't the kind of people who want to be waited on hand and foot. Got the rooms at around $40 per night on SkyAuction. All three are divers but aren't the type to dive constantly. Had been in contact with onsite dive shop prior to going)
Resort Location: We rented our truck through Avis at the airport. Driving around the island is extremely easy and laid back. The resort is on the main road and is about 45 minutes away from the airport. We arrived about 1pm. Front desk staff gave us keys to the two rooms which were initially in the two story building which houses many rooms. This building is closest to the dive shop and we suspect we were initially placed there at suggestion of the shop. We opted to request rooms in the other buildings which are liked quad-plex bungalows. We ended up with rooms 11/12, farthest out which was nice. Rooms have a small patio with nice view of ocean and beach. Very quiet location.
Rooms: The rooms are clean but decor is highly unusual. 11 has a faux wallpaper zebra skin on the wall. 12 has a similar zebra skin adornment as well as a basket of long sticks in the corner. Both rooms have strange masks on the walls. If I saw only the rooms in pictures I'd say they were in Kenya. 12 has a resident lizard who was nice and made cool clicking sounds at night.
Staff/Service/Food: Staff here is generally rude and condescending. I speak a bit of Spanish and can generally get around. I like to practice and attempt to only speak Spanish when I am in a Spanish speaking countries. I've always been typically well received when I do this, especially in Panama. Staff here did not seem to appreciate it at all which I found rude.
After our arrival we went to the "bar" in the restaurant. They had to find a guy in the back to man it for us. We got two beers and asked how much they cost. He didnt know and had to ask the front desk. At that point we noticed there is no cash register or actual bartender. The bar may as well be painted on the wall as it is for decoration only and has no functionality.
A few days into our stay two of us went to the restaurant to eat breakfast outside. One of the staff comes out with menus which had 5 types of juice. One of us ask for grapefruit juice (on the menu) and he says they only have orange or some other type. She says, Ok, is there any tea? In a very condescending manner he repeats, there is only orange juice or the other type of juice. Very well...He returns with drinks and she asks for cereal and I ask for a ham omelet. He returns to tell me there is no ham and asks if sausage is ok. Yep, no problem. Food comes out. He brings a box of cereal to her and a bowl of hot milk. If the milk being hot wasn't odd enough, it wasn't real milk but was from powdered. Worse yet, it wasn't mixed well so it was chunky. The "sausage" omelet was actually a chopped up hot dog with egg wrapped around it. That was all that was on the plate and nothing else in it like vegetables of cheese. We did not eat there again after the service and bad food. If they can't get breakfast right I'd hate to see dinner...
Whatever you do, do not try to get a mixed alcoholic drink here. Rum and coke is served as flat coke with no rum in it. Rum punch is served as a fruity drink reminiscent of watered down Robitussin with no rum. (This seems to be more of a local custom though as opposed to just at the resort.)
Beach: The beach is fairly large with tons of chairs, two places where hammocks are some days put out, some days not. Several little hut like things provide shade. There are constantly workers raking seaweed and other foliage out of the water. They rake them into many small piles over the course of the day, then pick them up with wheelbarrows. One thing to be aware of is to be sure to take sandals with you to the beach as it is not soft sand. There is a volleyball court which would be akin to playing volleyball in a paved parking lot. This is not a beach to walk barefoot on and I'd be especially careful if I had children.
Karaoke Night: I had heard tuesday was karaoke night. Now I don't personally engage in karaoke but have found it can be entertaining to watch depending on one's blood alcohol level at the time. In the room around 8pm the phone rings. Front desk staff has called to inform us karaoke is about to start. Cool. I walk down the path and find on the patio about a dozen ex-pats averaging 50-60 years old mingling and preparing for what I can tell is not going to be what I thought it was. I don't bother with even going and talking to them because I have a feeling this is going to be singing along to Frank Sinatra or something. I wouldn't want to ruin the night of a group of people by commenting on what I would describe as being to a certain degree a level of pretentiousness. I return to my room to hang out on the patio. Music starts. "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. REALLY glad I didn't stick around. The spectacle lasted about two hours until they blew a breaker and knocked out electricity to the entire resort.
Other amenities: There is a pool but I was only in it once. I prefer play in the ocean when it is available. It was comfortable and very clean which was surprising because it is fresh water with no chlorine, something I'd not experienced before. Kayaks are available to use and they are free. There are some cool mangroves to go through a short distance away. Two jet skis are available to rent if that's your kind of thing. Apparently only one works. Cost to rent them was $60/half hour, $110/hr. I can think of better things to do with my money, especially when it breaks down to $2US/minute. Jeez...
Other interesting facts:
-Wireless internet is available but intermittent. It will drop a lot but when it does work it is blazing fast
-The phones in both rooms will ring once or twice every now and then at all times of day and night. 11 was worse about it than 12. They will ring even when disconnected. In addition, 11 can't make international calls. When connected to an operator they cannot hear you. Not sure if we tried in 12. You'll have to use a phone on a pole outside the front desk.
-There is NO bar on the beach it seems. There is a small thing that looks like it COULD be with three coolers (but nothing else). No one mans it and the four beach workers spend a lot of their time around it.
-For us the place was generally dead. At any given time there were only two to four other people staying. This may be part of the reason service was terrible. There were just too few people for them to care.
-Electricity goes out every now and then but only briefly. Not a problem, but not sure why it was happening.
-We got rooms with new(er) air conditioners that were GREAT!
-Tuesday or Wednesday midday a cruise ship group arrived. Suddenly there were about 70 or so people on the beach. They walked around like zombies and it was kind of bizarre. The most unusual thing I saw was one of the groundskeeping staff (who also carries your bag when you arrive to your room AND does armed night patrols) using fingernail clippers on some guy's foot because he had stepped on something. At first I thought the guy was giving him a pedicure. If the guy who requested resort staff to dig a sliver of something out of his foot is reading this: you qualify for the reward of most pretentious turd on the face of the Earth. Srsly.
Overall: I would certainly not return to this resort or suggest it to anyone. I don't like being waited on and I hate places like that, but at the least I expect staff to be generally nice and smile. The whole time staff made it obvious it was another day at work, they weren't happy about it, and guests were just the pain in the ass to make their day suck even worse. I'd expect that if I acted like I was expecting to be at a Sandals resort (which I would never go to), but I'm real down to Earth.
(Background info - Stay of 12 days, three people, two rooms, rented a 4 door/4WD truck. We aren't the kind of people who want to be waited on hand and foot. Got the rooms at around $40 per night on SkyAuction. All three are divers but aren't the type to dive constantly. Had been in contact with onsite dive shop prior to going)
Resort Location: We rented our truck through Avis at the airport. Driving around the island is extremely easy and laid back. The resort is on the main road and is about 45 minutes away from the airport. We arrived about 1pm. Front desk staff gave us keys to the two rooms which were initially in the two story building which houses many rooms. This building is closest to the dive shop and we suspect we were initially placed there at suggestion of the shop. We opted to request rooms in the other buildings which are liked quad-plex bungalows. We ended up with rooms 11/12, farthest out which was nice. Rooms have a small patio with nice view of ocean and beach. Very quiet location.
Rooms: The rooms are clean but decor is highly unusual. 11 has a faux wallpaper zebra skin on the wall. 12 has a similar zebra skin adornment as well as a basket of long sticks in the corner. Both rooms have strange masks on the walls. If I saw only the rooms in pictures I'd say they were in Kenya. 12 has a resident lizard who was nice and made cool clicking sounds at night.
Staff/Service/Food: Staff here is generally rude and condescending. I speak a bit of Spanish and can generally get around. I like to practice and attempt to only speak Spanish when I am in a Spanish speaking countries. I've always been typically well received when I do this, especially in Panama. Staff here did not seem to appreciate it at all which I found rude.
After our arrival we went to the "bar" in the restaurant. They had to find a guy in the back to man it for us. We got two beers and asked how much they cost. He didnt know and had to ask the front desk. At that point we noticed there is no cash register or actual bartender. The bar may as well be painted on the wall as it is for decoration only and has no functionality.
A few days into our stay two of us went to the restaurant to eat breakfast outside. One of the staff comes out with menus which had 5 types of juice. One of us ask for grapefruit juice (on the menu) and he says they only have orange or some other type. She says, Ok, is there any tea? In a very condescending manner he repeats, there is only orange juice or the other type of juice. Very well...He returns with drinks and she asks for cereal and I ask for a ham omelet. He returns to tell me there is no ham and asks if sausage is ok. Yep, no problem. Food comes out. He brings a box of cereal to her and a bowl of hot milk. If the milk being hot wasn't odd enough, it wasn't real milk but was from powdered. Worse yet, it wasn't mixed well so it was chunky. The "sausage" omelet was actually a chopped up hot dog with egg wrapped around it. That was all that was on the plate and nothing else in it like vegetables of cheese. We did not eat there again after the service and bad food. If they can't get breakfast right I'd hate to see dinner...
Whatever you do, do not try to get a mixed alcoholic drink here. Rum and coke is served as flat coke with no rum in it. Rum punch is served as a fruity drink reminiscent of watered down Robitussin with no rum. (This seems to be more of a local custom though as opposed to just at the resort.)
Beach: The beach is fairly large with tons of chairs, two places where hammocks are some days put out, some days not. Several little hut like things provide shade. There are constantly workers raking seaweed and other foliage out of the water. They rake them into many small piles over the course of the day, then pick them up with wheelbarrows. One thing to be aware of is to be sure to take sandals with you to the beach as it is not soft sand. There is a volleyball court which would be akin to playing volleyball in a paved parking lot. This is not a beach to walk barefoot on and I'd be especially careful if I had children.
Karaoke Night: I had heard tuesday was karaoke night. Now I don't personally engage in karaoke but have found it can be entertaining to watch depending on one's blood alcohol level at the time. In the room around 8pm the phone rings. Front desk staff has called to inform us karaoke is about to start. Cool. I walk down the path and find on the patio about a dozen ex-pats averaging 50-60 years old mingling and preparing for what I can tell is not going to be what I thought it was. I don't bother with even going and talking to them because I have a feeling this is going to be singing along to Frank Sinatra or something. I wouldn't want to ruin the night of a group of people by commenting on what I would describe as being to a certain degree a level of pretentiousness. I return to my room to hang out on the patio. Music starts. "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong. REALLY glad I didn't stick around. The spectacle lasted about two hours until they blew a breaker and knocked out electricity to the entire resort.
Other amenities: There is a pool but I was only in it once. I prefer play in the ocean when it is available. It was comfortable and very clean which was surprising because it is fresh water with no chlorine, something I'd not experienced before. Kayaks are available to use and they are free. There are some cool mangroves to go through a short distance away. Two jet skis are available to rent if that's your kind of thing. Apparently only one works. Cost to rent them was $60/half hour, $110/hr. I can think of better things to do with my money, especially when it breaks down to $2US/minute. Jeez...
Other interesting facts:
-Wireless internet is available but intermittent. It will drop a lot but when it does work it is blazing fast
-The phones in both rooms will ring once or twice every now and then at all times of day and night. 11 was worse about it than 12. They will ring even when disconnected. In addition, 11 can't make international calls. When connected to an operator they cannot hear you. Not sure if we tried in 12. You'll have to use a phone on a pole outside the front desk.
-There is NO bar on the beach it seems. There is a small thing that looks like it COULD be with three coolers (but nothing else). No one mans it and the four beach workers spend a lot of their time around it.
-For us the place was generally dead. At any given time there were only two to four other people staying. This may be part of the reason service was terrible. There were just too few people for them to care.
-Electricity goes out every now and then but only briefly. Not a problem, but not sure why it was happening.
-We got rooms with new(er) air conditioners that were GREAT!
-Tuesday or Wednesday midday a cruise ship group arrived. Suddenly there were about 70 or so people on the beach. They walked around like zombies and it was kind of bizarre. The most unusual thing I saw was one of the groundskeeping staff (who also carries your bag when you arrive to your room AND does armed night patrols) using fingernail clippers on some guy's foot because he had stepped on something. At first I thought the guy was giving him a pedicure. If the guy who requested resort staff to dig a sliver of something out of his foot is reading this: you qualify for the reward of most pretentious turd on the face of the Earth. Srsly.
Overall: I would certainly not return to this resort or suggest it to anyone. I don't like being waited on and I hate places like that, but at the least I expect staff to be generally nice and smile. The whole time staff made it obvious it was another day at work, they weren't happy about it, and guests were just the pain in the ass to make their day suck even worse. I'd expect that if I acted like I was expecting to be at a Sandals resort (which I would never go to), but I'm real down to Earth.
