Guest Report

[Sue Kirby]

REVIEW OF THE REX TURTLE BEACH TOBAGO

Last year I arrived at the Rex Turtle beach hotel worried as to what I might find after reading very negative reviews but we found the hotel staff friendly and helpful, rooms clean etc. and we had such a great time we rebooked again for this year taking with us my daughter, son and his partner, this is my review for this year

We arrived at the hotel at about 3pm where we were greeted with drinks, a young lady asked our names and then informed us our rooms were not ready yet and to take a seat and wait no explanation was given, after we had sat there for an hour I asked if we could check in and get our bands so that we could get a drink from the bar, the reply to this was no you must wait and that we could not use the bar. We finally got our room at 4.30pm my daughters was ready at 5.00 pm and my son got his room at 6pm! even after the cleaners had told us the room was ready at 5.30pm, but this was to be the standard of reception apart from Soyini and Ester, most of the other members of staff were offhand to say the least, especially one of the young men on duty in the evenings of our first week I do not know his name as like a lot of other staff members he did not wear a name badge.

When we did get in to our room the bedside light was missing, the door lock was broken, you had to lock it with a key, and the fridge had not been stocked. We reported the lock and asked if we could have a small side light for reading we are still waiting even after reporting that the door had been left unlocked by the cleaning staff on 4 occasions. When we attended the repeaters cocktail party the housekeeping manager asked if everything was ok we explained about the lock etc. and were assured it would be sorted and that we would get our fruit and rum which was not there on our arrival! The next day nothing was done, and we had to ask twice about the fridge being restocked on our 2nd week as housekeeping said it had been done, and the reason we did not receive our fruit and rum again because housekeeping said we had had it! You could also go a couple of days without hand towels and the cleaner we had the first weekend banged so hard on the door at 8.30am it must have shook the foundations, not just our room but 3 along from us had still not been cleaned by 2.30pm I was also rang at 4.30 by housekeeping wanting to clean the room and they were surprised when I said it had been already done.
The dining room staff apart from a couple were very down in the mouth one of the supervisors would totally ignore you when you said good morning or thank you, the drinks waiter arrived as you were finishing your main course. One evening my son was sent out of the dinning room because he had a ¾ length pair of linen trousers on very smart but not to the dress code, I have no problem with this he should have worn his long trousers, what I do object to is they did not send out the 3 middle-aged men in the dinning room wearing ¾ length shorts! Rule for one rule for all, age should not come in to it, or who is on duty at the time.
To be honest it got that we did not want to go into the dinning room so we went out a couple of times, room service is another joke, on your welcome letter it say that room service is between 7.30am -10.00pm but when we tried to order at 4pm as we had been out all day we were told we could not order until 6.30pm, the same with the charges, the menu in the information book says one price 40tt I think, but the letter says 20tt per tray.
Trying to get drinks at the bar in the evening was like pulling teeth with only one bar man on duty and the bar was always running out of ingredients, all the bar staff made the same drinks in different way this leads to a lot of waste (and could also account for the long wait in the dining room.) also when ordering frozen drinks do not expect to get one as for some reason the ice is always half melted.
Also be careful of the coconut trees just starting our 2nd week we were down on the beach my son had just moved his chair when a coconut landed where he had been sat! we took it to be a one off thing, but reported it to reception who said they would get some one to over to take a look, 3 hours later the second coconut just missed my daughter, smashing straight through the Sun shade on the beach!! we were then informed by one of the locals that quite a few of the coconuts in the tree were ripe and there was a good chance they would also come down along with a dead branch needless to say we moved! And again reported it to reception it took 4 days for someone to sort it out, but they carried on letting people sit there with no warning.
Morale of most of the staff is very low we were told due to poor wages, but I am sure if they smiled and made you feel welcome instead of an inconvienace they would get a lot more tips.
Staff around the world are guided by supervisors and managers no matter where you work