We were in Tobago from 9 May - 23 May, and had a fantastic time. We stayed at the Blue Haven for the first week, and also for one night at the end of the second week.
On the whole, we really liked the Blue Haven, and I've given it a 'very good' in the poll. Things we liked were:
The beach, it's beautiful! It's a really lovely, enclosed little bay. The sea was quite rough the first week, and the waves quite strong, although they had calmed down by the end of the second (although of course the hotel can't control them!).
The pool - there's never anyone in it! (possibly due to the previous point)
The beach bar - nice food for lunch
The rooms - we also stayed in room 20 (someone else on here had too), very nice view, great room. Not only that, but from looking in the brochures, it's the same room as in the photos. That has NEVER happened to me before
The staff - great, friendly bunch. Especially the head waiter, the staff on reception, and the barman (thanks for the nightlife tips!)
The wind - what a fantastic breeze! It was 31 / 32 degrees when we were there, and quite humid on the Carribbean side - lucky we had our balcony to go back to, with a nice refreshing breeze.
Flexibility / helpfullness - all the staff were extremely helpful. One particular point of note was on our return visit, which was our last night. On the day of departure we asked if it was OK to keep the room during the day, so we could have a shower, etc. before going to catch our Virgin flight, which left at 9:00pm. "No problem" was the answer, and we checked out of the hotel at around 6.30pm. Great stuff - I'm sure they wouldn't be able to do this for everyone if the hotel was full, but they weren't, so they did
I'd also say there are a few things that could be improved, most of them aren't really complaints or bad experiences, just things that we thought would help Blue Haven. Again, just our opinion. We thought that the hotel lacked a bit of atmosphere, and was extremely quiet at times. I have no problem with quiet, but when you're the only people in the bar most nights, you start to think the hotel could be losing out a little on potential business. Maybe this is a conscious decision, to keep it quiet, and maybe that suits a lot of people, but we just found it a little stale. Suggestions:
Use of balcony space - Make more of the great space outside the reception / bar - do it up a little bit, put some more lights out there, organise music, events, etc. and open it up to the general public. This is begging to have something done with it.
Bar - Liven the bar up a bit, install a proper music system, and generally make it more appealing. Maybe a happy hour?
Restaurant - food was good quality most of the time, although one meal we didn't think much of at all. It really is a 'hotel' restaurant, not a 'restaurant' restaurant if you see what I mean. With only a choice of 3 main courses (which change daily), meat, fish, vegetarian, it doesn't really compete with the 'pure' restaurants on the island (or, in my opinion, with the restaurant at Blue Waters, which offered greater variety and more authentic local style food). If you're staying at the Blue Haven, unless you're prepared to drive or get a taxi in the evening to go out, there's very little other choice of places to eat (one other hotel just behind it). If it were me, I'd try to expand the restaurant offering, and encourage non-residents to come along. But maybe that's not the hotel's direction.
Anyhow, just my 2ps worth!
