Recommended Villas in Mount Irvine

[James Robinson]

Can anyone please recommend any good villas for couples in the Mount Irvine area. We have previously stayed at Castara Retreats are staying there for another week in September but would also like to spend a week in a villa of comparable quality in Mount Irvine. We have also previously stayed in a very poor villa (in Charlotteville) and wish to avoid that possibility again by getting some recommendations this time.
Any advice/information will be gratefully received.

Cheers - James

[Steve Wooler]

Hi James

With over 100 rental villas, houses and cottages in the Lower Caribbean area, most around Mt.Irvine, its difficult to make a suggestion, particularly as there's a five-fold variation in price.

From the other things you mention, I suspect you might be talking about a cottage, rather than a villa. Its largely a matter of price, but there's no point people suggesting property costing hundreds of dollars a night if you're thinking of something more modest.

Would you care to share details of your bad experience in Charlotteville? Making and receiving recommendation/warnings is a two way process.

[Sharon E]

Heath House is a lovely choice for a couple in Mt Irvine overlooking the golf course or more expensive but for the best views of the sea and the golf course is Solitaire villa. Both can be booked through Villas of Tobago e-mail villas@tstt.nett.tt.

If you want a really superior villa than Romanca is for you, not cheap as is four bedrooms but is stunning it even boasts a stream with fish in running in the house alongside the bedrooms. Ohh if I was rich!

[James Robinson]

Hi Steve, thanks for replying.

We are looking for somewhere for up to about £700 per week. It doesn't have to be exactly at Mount Irvine, just close enough to be a short drive from the golf course (which is why we're not staying 2 weeks at Castara). I think you are probably right in that we are looking for a cottage - we've looked at Heath House which seems pretty good, Bella Cottage (although we're not overly keen on the idea of sharing the pool with a larger cottage), and also Villa Calypso in Grafton, Villas de Espana in Pigeon Point & Sameeha Gardens in Carnbee.

With regards to our stay in Charlotteville, we were booked in for 4 nights in The Charlottevilla, and in the end stayed just one night. We arrived at Charlottevilla at about 2pm to find that the housekeeper had told the previous occupants we were arriving after 7pm and they could stay the afternoon. We then had to call the agency to get the housekeeper to come and clean the villa.

The accomodation when we did get in was dark and smelt of damp. We had to wash all the crockery & cutlery before we felt safe to use it. The mosquito nets over the beds were (poorly) made from old net curtains and left gaps in one or two corners. Finally in the morning we awoke with more mossie bites than any other night in Tobago which made me wonder if it was just flying insects that had shared our bed that night (I don't know where the previous occupants had let the local stray cats sleep). The whole place needed some money and TLC spending on it. If we had stayed the 4 nights we had planned it would definitely ruined our holiday.

Instead we moved to the Speyside Inn for 3 nights which I would recommend - lovely clean room, helpful staff and great breakfasts (pity about the power cuts for 2 of the nights).

On the whole though we loved Tobago which is why we're going back for another 2 weeks.

Cheers - James

Hi James
Would you care to share details of your bad experience in Charlotteville? Making and receiving recommendation/warnings is a two way process.

[Steve Wooler]

Hi James

I'm not personally familiar with any of the properties you mention (in fact we don't even know about/list Bella Cottage or Villas de Espana - where did you come across them?), so can't really comment.

Two that you might want to add to the list. If you want close proximity to the golf course (less than 5-minute walk) then have a look at Grange Cottage. Offering superb and 'homely' standards of living, have a look at Birdsong Villa on the hill behind the Mt.Irvine course. It would be a long walk to the beach, but I visited this property on my last trip and it is really cosy.

Thanks for the run-down on Charlotteville. I guessed it might be Charlottevilla. Your comments tie in with other information I've received.

[James Robinson]

Hi Steve,

We found Bella Cottage & Villa de Espana on Fleewinter.com, seems to have a lot of information on various villas/cottages/apartments.

Cheers - James

[Steve Wooler]

Hi James

Thanks! They are marketing some of the properties on their list under different names to which they are normally known. Why, I wonder? Why does it not surprise me that rates are "on request". I'll say no more. You'll find that all those properties are listed in our accommodation section, with contact details for the owner, or for a reputable rental agency.

[James Robinson]

Hi Steve,
We have now narrowed it down to Ocean Air or Birdsong Villa (if they are available, still waiting to hear), having read the posting on the Ocean Air and the Tobago Plantations golf course. When you say you visited Birdsong Villa, did you stay there or just visit it? Do you know what the quality is like?
Also it is my Wife's birthday while we are out there and I get the impression that maybe Ocean Air is a little more luxurious.
However Birdsong does look rather peacefull.

Many thanks once again!!

[Steve Wooler]

Hi James

No, I haven’t stayed at Birdsong Villa. I met the owners, the Goddards, while having a drink with some neighbours and was persuaded to come and visit their villa the following day. I spent about an hour there.

Birdsong is an ‘old’ villa, in the sense that’s it been there for 20-30 years. It’s in excellent maintenance condition, but is very much more a ‘home’ than a rental villa. In fact I understand it was the family’s holiday home. The Goddards are Trinidadian but have spent an increasing amount of time on Tobago. In fact, they now spend an increasing amount of the year staying in the flat beneath the villa. The house is very much furnished and decorated as a ‘home’ and this is particularly noticeable in terms of the large amount of books and family photos, etc., around. My only reservation about the property would be the old-style air-conditioning units which I suspect will be very noisy by modern standards.

Birdsong and Ocean Air are chalk and cheese. If I was ranking them on a hotel star system, I would probably have to put Birdsong at 3*+ and Ocean Air at 5*. Although a condominium rather than a detached villa or house, Ocean Air is the more spacious of the two. It is beautifully furnished and decorated without having the antiseptic look and feel of so many rentals. If you’re looking for ‘luxury’, then it’s got to be Ocean Air.

Birdsong is a detached villa in its own grounds. Yes, it is very quiet and peaceful. Funnily enough, however, I couldn’t say that it was a lot more peaceful than Ocean Air. The development that Ocean Air is situated on is so quiet and peaceful that you almost get the impression that nobody lives there. It’s totally surrounded by the greens of the golf course, but provides lovely sea views and is just a 3-4 minute walk from the beach (dodging those golf balls of course). Yes, you’ve got a shared pool, but we found the pools so quiet that this wasn’t a problem to us.

Frankly, I’m astonished that Ocean Air doesn’t get more mention in our forum. I think the fact that it’s an apartment, rather than a detached villa might mean that many visitors fail to consider it. When using our accommodation search facility, its better to tick all the self-catering options (apartments/cottages/villas) and limit the list by entering a minimum and/or maximum price rather than to simply focus on ‘villas’. There are a number of really excellent accommodation options that get missed because of this. Seagrape Villa and the other duplex (semi-detached) villas at the Inn On The Bay also get missed because of this. Our definition of ‘villa’ is that it must be a detached property standing in its own grounds and not shared with anyone else (Birdsong is a borderline case. If the owners move there permanently, then I would have to classify it as an apartment).

Anyway, the point is that Ocean Air IS an apartment, rather than a detached villa, but in terms of facilities and standard of accommodation, it’s up there with the best. It also has the advantage of being on a very secure private ‘compound’ with 24-hour security.

Hope this helps.

[Rob Van Loo]

Hi James,

I would like to recommend you Hibiscus villa & appartment. It is very near the golfcourse: you are actually looking at it from the pool. you can also see the bucco reef.
We stayed there for 2 weeks in februari and had a fantastic and relaxing time.

The building and garden are very beautiful while the setting is exclusive.
It is situated high up on a hill in a luxurious secluded area.

You can see more via this link:
http://www.caribean.de/en/hibiscus.html

For the best price you should contact the owner (Clinton) himself: clintonsamuel@yahoo.com.

Send him my best regards if you do.

Good luck and have a nice stay!!

Best regards,

Rob

[James Robinson]

Thanks for everybody's suggestions, based on the review (and the lure of discounted green fees) we've decided to book Ocean Air at the Tobago Plantations.

Cheers - James

[James Robinson]

Rather late in posting as we returned from Tobago in September but I'd just like to thanks Steve for recommending Ocean Air and Sally, the owner, for making Ocean Air such a great place to stay for our first week.
The apartment was was superbly decorated, clean, well stocked with food for our first day(s), and was everything that you need after you get off a long flight from the UK (including a complimentary pick-up from the hotel).

Its a bit of a shame that this part of the island doesn't have the beaches of the quality on the Carribean side but as we had a car (and the apartment has a pool) this wasn't a problem. Also, it makes for a great place to start a two-centre holiday as we did.

The apartment is superb for the Tobago Plantations golf course with golfers on the 13th & 14th fairways (I think) passing a couple of hundred yards away from your balcony (although it was too hot to play as much as we'd planned - what a hardship!).

Also I must recommend the Coral Reef Restaurant at the Hilton (which is only a few minutes walk away), it served the finest food we had in Tobago, great for a special occasion or a last night.

Thanks again - James