Guest Report

[Cynthia]

My review will provide information on Hibiscus Villa, located at New Black Rock Road, Tobago, WI. connected to the Mirage Hotel. From the Mirage websites (scroll to the bottom of the page, and the two villas will be listed Bougainvillea & Hibiscus, we stayed at the four bedroom Hibiscus villa. The villas are rentals to groups or families.

One of the issues I had with the villa site is that there was not adequate pictures or listing of the villas amenities. However the property manager Gillian Connelly was very gracious in answering all my questions and concerns, we were spending Christmas/New Years and we were doing all our cooking/baking, so we had lots of questions regarding amenities. She is truly the best and my family and I have decided that we will always stay at any of the properties she manages.

The Hibiscus Villa is four bedrooms (two upstairs/two downstairs), all with en-suite toilet/bath.
the mattresses are very comfortable, I discovered on my walk through that all the showers in the villa do not have shower curtains, (this is an accident waiting to happen, as the floors are tiled), I raised my concerns about this and was told the issues have been raised before by other guest. During our stay we spread towels in the floor and hung them out to dry every day. Have to be careful of slipping/falling and even flooding. that is the only negative we found at this accommodation. (UPDATE-to the shower curtain issue. The owner (who do not live on the island) responded to my report from another travel website I contribute to, indicated that they are in the process of installing shower curtains.)There is a sitting area between the two upstairs bedroom, with a walk out verandah, with an adjoining enclosed gazebo. Downstairs, kitchen w/counter area and four bar stools, large dining table, with sitting area and TV, (the only TV, in the villa), outside patio with two sets of tables and chairs, and the pool, w/four lounge chairs. Bath/Beach towels are provided, there is a coffee maker, electric stove, microwave, and a two door refrigerator with ice-maker.

The villa is gated and is equipped with an alarm system. Note: with the alarm system the gazebo is not connected to the house, so if the alarm is activated one cannot open the upstairs door to go to the gazebo, or sit outside on the upstairs in the night, (you can't really know what is going on downstairs) as we typically hung out, until 2-3AM we only used the gazebo twice in the night as we did not want to not activate the alarm when it got darker. There was a time activating an alarm or being concern about safety in Tobago was not an important issue, but times have changed. Also there are no street lighting, but the villa is also well equipped with outside surrounding lights on the walls as well mounted lanterns on the front gated area. Occupants are responsible for turning on/off the lights.

(There is unobstructed view of the beach/ocean from any section of the villa. The beach is out the front gate, make a left, down the steps and you're there, it's about three miles of beach, one can walk down to Turtle Beach Hotel, and have access to jet skies rental, or just stay near the villa. Note that on the beach there is a rock formation do not go over the rock formation, bath to the front of it, and it's adequate enough water for adults and especially young children. The water is very clear, we were able to collect shells. Or walk further down the beach for "adult swim" deeper water. There is an outside pipe at the villa that one can rinse off the sand from the beach (and it's very sandy), I would suggest a bucket or some sort of container be kept by the pipe, which can be used to rinse off adequately, as the pipe is very short and cannot accommodated even a toddler.

I did not visit any of the tourist attractions on this visit, other family members went to the Nylon Pool, from the Store bay area, and we all went to the night club Shade, on the Friday night..I was not really impressed the music. I think it should have been a wider variety and also more of the local music, also the DJ kept talking for every song, or only playing four lines and switch to another, I was very bored, maybe he was having an off night. We also went to Sunday school (remember this is not church) it's held at Buccoo Point, and involves steel pan music, soca calypso music, alcohol, totally enjoyed myself.

Reminder to be safe if you/when you go out, you can always ask Gillian regarding transportation. Avoid lonely beaches. I love Tobago and have visited from childhood, and it breaks my heart when I read negative news about it, but unfortunately it's the world we all live in.. We connected with a maxi taxi driver "Mr. Tito" we used him for transportation to the reef, and for all out partying. He picked us up from the villa and either he or his wife returned to pick us up, and our pick up hours from partying on average was 4:30 AM, and never had to wait more than three minutes, love them very fun-loving couple.-"Tito Maxi Taxi Service, (Harold Taylor).