myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

We will be first time visitors to Tobago and are planning a trip late August - early September 2004. We are also first time independant travellers. We have reserved accommodation at The Blue Mango, but they don't seem to accept credit card payment. They have asked us to wire or mail the deposit. I have just visited my bank to enquire about wiring the money and they would charge £15 at this end and £7 at the Tobago end for doing this.
Has anybody any experience of making payments to The Blue Mango? Is my bank charging over the odds? Do we pay the charges at the Tobago end? Is it better to mail the money and if so how do you do this?
Any help and advice appreciated.

Hi Julia

Everything you have been told by the Blue Mango is normal, except that the Tobago end charges will usually be levied from the business account this end - and is more likely to be in the region of 6-7 TT$, not £ (about 60p).

UK bank charges for wiring money are high, but the money changes hands very quickly/securely.

"Mailing" the money is simple - either FEDEX some traveller's cheques with a security priority - but this will cost more than bank wire fees - or, since your booking is not until September, post a UK personal cheque made out to the account name they have requested/agreed £ amount.

They will then present the cheque into their Trini account, it will take 42 days to clear but the total cost at this end will be just TT$6, and 0 for you. [Note - although it will take 42 days to credit the Trini account, it will leave your £ account within 7-10 days of arrival here).

Airmail here of a simple letter takes about 5-10 days, make sure you post it by some sort of registered means, and cross the £ cheque.

Hope this helps

Thanks Glyn, that is very helpful. We will go ahead and wire the money (sounds safer and worry time will be shorter!) and only pay the fees for this end.
Now all we need to do is sort out flights and insurance! But this site has given us plenty of information to make this far easier than it would be otherwise.
I phoned Dial A Flight the other evening and was told that there were no charter flights to Tobago in September!!!! Luckily I then phoned Ask The Travel Man, who not only assured me that there were charter flights and that he could get them for us but was also very informative and more than happy to chat about Tobago.
We are already getting far too excited about our Tobago holiday and we've got over 5 months to wait!

Julia

Glad to help. It's a bit of a coincidence but Barry (from Ask the Travel Man) told me by email a while ago that he reckoned he was better than Dial a Flight for Tobago tickets - and you are living proof (in this case anyway!).

All the best
Glyn

Hi
Just an update on what we've done.
After deciding that the form we had to fill in to wire the money was too horribly complicated and just added to our costs, I phoned Colin at The Blue Mango - very helpful and very relaxed. "Just post us a cheque in UK pounds - no problem" In fact I took the opportunity to ask him about a few other things and the general response was "no problem" - oh I can't wait to be there and be as relaxed as he sounds. So we've posted the cheque.
We've also booked the flights, Excel Premiun. We booked them through "Ask The Travel Man" Barry as his price was slightly better than the one quoted by Golden Caribbean. We've also bought our travel insurance. Yipee!

Julia,
It is all"no problem" and "ya welcum" on Tobago.Enjoy!!!
David

Just an update to say that we got an email on Friday from Colin at The Blue Mango that our cheque had arrived. It only took 10 days, I was expecting it to take longer so I hadn't even started worrying about it! He also sent us an aerial picture of Castara. I hope it is OK to post it here? It looks absolutely beautiful.

ask the travel man? who is this, website? email. would love to get a quote for my relocation flight to tobago

His web site is http://www.askthetravelman.com/index.html and his contact details are on the site.