Villa Courland - Review

[Simon]

We stayed at Courland villa for 12 days courtesey of Villas of Tobago - for my comments on this company see a seperate posting that I will shortly write.

Courland villa is located about half a kilometre from the sea just beyond Turlte Beach. It is in a beautiful tropical woodland setting, surrounded by trees and lush vegetation on three sides, at the rear it is overseen by another villa, but there is ample and good screening. The area is abundant in bird and wildlife - you are woken in the morning by bird song and go to sleep at night to the sound of the whistler frog. At night you are given a magical fairy light display in the nearby trees courtesey of the local fireflies.

Courland is advertised as having four bedrooms in the main house and a fifth annexe bedroom next to the pool. This room is small, dark and next to a room which houses the pool filtration plant - not to be recommended. The pool itself is of a good size, has Roman steps, quite deep in the centre, but beginning to show wear and tear with 2 or 3 tiles coming loose and a few stains in the bottom, apart from the odd insect and leaf the pool is kept quite clean. Sun loungers around the pool are cracked and old - we have been told that new ones have been ordered.

The main house has four large air conditioned bedrooms all en suite, the master bedroom having superb rural views. All bedrooms are clean with good beds, although some are a little hard. the main lounge is very large and tastefully furnished with a spiral staircase that leads to a first floor internal balcony. There is a multi channelled tv (much to my dismay and my children's delight!). The kitchen is very spacious, although some equipment is rather long in the tooth, all necessary utensils are provided.
There is also a basement which houses table tennis. Generally the whole house has a very pleasant look with a good state of decorative order and is to be recommended.

Brenda, the housekeeper, is also an excellant cook!!

My main concern is for security for valuables, not for personal safety. An electronic safe is provided but the code cannot be set to your own number, the housekeeper provides a code, which then places her in an awkward position, we were told that this was because so many guests lost their codes, but were aware that the managing company had a master code should people get themseves into problems! Whilst there a international phone card went missing (it was not in the safe) which lead us to start making our own security arrangements for some valuables and passports etc. On our last evening whilst away at a restaurant the house was burgled through a forced door. A small amount of cash and some limited valuables were stolen. The burgular alarm had been disabled, according to the housekeeper, on the instructions of the managing company because it had become a nuisance, something of which the villa owner was not aware.

I would go back to this beautiful villa anytime - as long as the security was improved and would recommend anybody to receive assurance that this had been done. But note this is strictly a four bedroom villa with a fifth room available to someone that likes sleeping in a box! We thoroughly enjoyed our stay here and were at the least grateful that the villa was burgled at the end of the holiday rather than the beginning - the police informed us that this was the first theft in the area for 2 years, so don't be put off!!