Guest Report

4-bedroom villa at Tobago Plantations (listing)
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Drew Ordi

Guest Report

Post by Drew Ordi »

My family along with relatives and friends stayed here on September 3 (3 nights) and had a horrible and frightening experience.

To summarize, a burglar broke into this villa at 2:45am (first night) which my wife discovered. We chased the robber away but he left with my wife's handbag containing several hundred dollars, credit cards and our passports.
We dialed the emergency number (their version of 911) and no one answered. The resort security took 1.5 hrs to arrive at our villa (we had to drive to the guard booth and found the guard asleep and both barriers up). The police took another 1 hr to arrive. My wife and I suffered cuts and bruises.

The property manager (Mr Abraham) was extremely unhelpful. Upon further checks of the villa security, we later discovered many other security vulnerabilities such as:
House alarm does not advise the villa guard when set off (Abraham told us it did).
Numerous locks were not working.
Weak security on windows and other points of entrance.
No information on emergency numbers to call

We subsequently found out that this villa was a victim of a robbery in the past as well as other villas within the resort with some more violent than our experience. Mr Abraham has misled us on a number of information regarding the villa and the resort.
My wife, infant and I took the next available flight out of Tobago due to the security and personal violation.

Our holiday became a nightmare as a result of this. We spent the rest of our vacation scrambling to get replacement passports to get home.

We will never go back to this villa, resort, island and I personally wouldn't go back to the country.

The owner should personally visit this house of horror and overhaul its entire security system and process and fire the property manager.

My advice is DO NOT STAY HERE if you value your safety!
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Steve Wooler
myTobago Editor & Chief Anorak
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Re: Guest Report

Post by Steve Wooler »

The owner of Villa Sans Souci has asked me to post the following response to Drew Ordi's report:
This client is trying to destroy the reputation of the resort and the island due to his own negligence and apparently is objective is to be compensated. However we thank him for his remark; Nice place!

Be careful how he is distorting the facts... Please read below attentively. We are sorry for the incident but one must also admit that because of their comportment the incident could have been avoided.

1) They are trying to give the impression that the alarm systems did not function or does not work. THAT IS NOT TRUE. THEY DID NOT HAVE THE ALARM SYSTEMS ACTIVATED (ON). I my self would not stay im my own villa if the alarm systems did not function and I stay each year to renovate. I would be arriving as usual in Tobago on the 19th Oct 2012.

The alarm system in Villa Sans-Souci was put in during its construction in 2002 and is triggered off by any window or door being opened or tampered with when set. The alarm is to be set when you go to bed or leaving the villa for obvious security reasons.

2) He is trying to give the impression that the thief inflected the cuts and bruises. NOT TRUE. His wife got cut while running through the driveway behind the thief on a stone.

3) His family his from TRINIDAD, ( citizens of Trinidad & Tobago ). Petty Crime exists worldwide. This apparently was a petty thief looking for cash. but this could have been avoided if they had put the alarm systems on which would have been heard by the security on the compound. This alarm system makes so much noise it would wake up a neighborhood.

4) The loss of money and passports could have been also avoided. Once again they did not use the safes. There are 2 safes in Villa Sans-Souci.

So I understand that he wants to inform the public. Yes I agreed inform but do not distort or mislead.

Unfortunate situations occur worldwide and we must always remember where ever we travel or even in my own home town in my own home I try to keep alert to what can happen and I live in Switzerland Europe which is considered safe but incidents as above do also occur unfortunately. I AM ALSO A CITIZEN OF TRINIDAD & TOBAGO.

We would definitely use this experience to continue to implement further security measures to ensure our guests safety.
Steve Wooler
myTobago.info - the definitive Visitor Guide to Tobago
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