Guest Report

[Christopher Barran]

A wonderful experience.

Sorry for the delay in putting up this report. I had planned on doing it as soon as I got back to "real life" in order to spread the good news about Villa Tosca as soon as possible. Not sure where to begin really. First of our stay at Tosca was excellent.
Location, Tosca is located in Sanctuary Villa Estate which is about 10 minutes drive from the airport.
The location in my view is excellent. You are away from the bustle that is Store Bay but still within easy access if need be. I really think the location to be ideal, the best of both worlds. Tosca serves as a good base to explore the other parts of the island.
Located at the bottom of the hill from Tosca are an ATM (godsend), and a small supermarket which will save you a longer run to say Pennysavers if you need anything.

The Villa...
We got to the villa on a Saturday morning after a good stint in traffic (caused by the throngs of people in and store bay due to the Great Race weekend) and we were very pleased when we stepped inside. The description of the Villa from the website pretty much matched what we found.
The villa is laid out in a very pleasing fashion. The kitchen was nice, the dining and living room likewise and the bedrooms were fantastic. While the dining and living room area may seem a bit cramped at times the rest of the villa is very spacious.
We especially enjoyed the verandah, and think that’s it really an added bonus that there are birds and lizards of all shapes and sizes that one can see without stepping out of the villa.
The plunge pool was enjoyed by all, nice when you want to relax after a “hard day” relaxing at the beach or if you prefer to turn turtle and never leave the villa at all during the day. This in itself is quite possible because the villa is so comfortable.

“The staff”
We arrived on a Saturday and thus if memory served correctly didn’t see Katherine until Monday morning. She is very sweet and pleasant and the kids loved her. I didn’t meet Curtis myself as I was running after two toddlers near constantly. Which brings up another point, I was worried that the villa would not be kid safe/friendly but alas we had no such problems. The gate at the bottom of the steps leading up to the second floor was something we appreciated as it served to stop our little adventurous one.
We also appreciated that the owners called us on Saturday night (the first night of our stay) to enquire as to if everything was ok.

The Car
One of the best things about Villa Tosca is the use of the car. It does save a lot of hassle, and you get an “all in one” holiday. We got the car with petrol in the tank and it was quite clean. We made good use of it, and while not 4x4 we had no problems on the drives we took.

The one fault that we can think of after our stay would be the finicky shower controls in the bathroom of the bedroom located on the ground floor. And that wasn’t really a major problem at all.

Recommendations
Just a little bit on what we think would be worth your while:
Drive to the upper Caribbean coast, all the way to Charlotteville if you can. If not, Englishman’s Bay is quite worthy a destination. Then the return drive through the rain forest
A day spent at Arnos Vale, excellent snorkeling and the added convenience of use of the hotel’s facilities.
Canoe Bay, quite underrated but excellent especially for children.

So to sum it up in one word: Excellent.
The only problem now, is that having stayed at Villa Tosca can’t think of visiting Tobago and staying anyplace else!

P.s. we were a party of six, three adults, and three children ranging from one up to eight.