myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

Steve,

I've noticed that you've removed the link for hotel websites and e.mail. I'm having trouble with the Naturalist link. Is this just a temporary blip?

Paul Tallett,

We are now going to be going to Tobago with our 3 kids aged 18/16/9 and thought the Naturalist might be worth a look as you speak so highly of it for your family. It's only got a few apartments so is it too late for us to book for early April 06 (just before Easter) or will they have been booked up by now? If it is booked any other kid friendly (well at least other kids to hang out with) places to stay in Castara? We've set our heart on Castara but may have to re-think now the brood are tagging along!!!

Thanks in advance, guys.

Kayla
xxxxx

Yearning for Tobago all the more as I'd be their now if we hadn't had to cancel.

Hi Kayla
Although my wife and I will be returning to the Naturalist without any young children on April 8 next year (but will take our grandchildren some time in the future) I would say it is a great place to take them.
It is not for those who want things to be arranged for them but has the feel of holidays that I took with my family when I was in my teens but without the long evenings spent in caravans as it poured with rain.
It really is a place where the more you put in ie getting to know the locals the more you will get out of it.
The guys in their teens could have some good times at Cascreole which is a meeting point for a lot of people and if they enjoy fishing both the beach and the trips you can take out with the local fisherman.
We have been lucky enough like yourself to visit many places in the world but I have never been to anywhere I enjoyed more than Castara.
Regards

Hi Kayla

Sorry - my fingers working must have been working at a different speed to my brain. I've fixed that problem, so you will now be able to get the Naturalist website.

Just as a matter of interest, I've changed the system on website addresses and email addresses for several reasons. Firstly, it makes it more difficult for other sites to 'harvest' our listings. The new system works exactly as before for human readers, but has mechanisms to block automated crawlers and robots. Many search engines also penalise or ignore sites that they think have been expressly set up to list links to other websites. These changes ensure that we aren't treated as one of these 'link farms' which are now considered a kiss of death in search engine optimisation terms. Finally, the changes prevent automated spam robots from 'harvesting' the email addresses of businesses on Tobago from our pages and then blitzing them with spam.

Emails sent from our site are clearly identifiable to the recipient. It will hopefully mean you get a faster/better response becuase there's no doubt that businesses on Tobago are increasingly conscious of the influence of views and opinions expressed by the public on myTobago. For that reason, I would strongly recommend all readers to use the system to email any accommodation (shortly to be extended to all other email addresses) rather than to send manual emails or use submission forms on the accommodation's own site. The more they realise that myTobago is the source of enquiries, the more seriously they will take your comments and those of others.

Leading on from this, if you don't get replies to messages sent through our pages, please report it to me. We shall remove contact details from properties that aren't serious enough about their business to respond in a reasonable manner. Although the system 'counts' the number of enquiries sent to each property, we have no record of your email (although a copy automatically goes to yourself when you send it) so equally would have no knowledge of it being replied to. However, I certainly shall follow up if businesses listed here do ot reply to readers.

amen to that steve BUT:
always remember that TSTT can be a email eating little beast... so sometimes it would be great to send a second request before reporting them, us, all the TSTT slaves....
even when you try to be fast, you can't answer the mails that never reach you...
hoping for understanding holiday makers
steph&ali

Fear not, Steph!

I'm well aware of the vagaries of TSTT, so always make allowances. In fact during the last two weeks I have telephoned two different guesthouses on the island after two reports that one was not replying and after email enquiries were returned as undeliverable to the second.

In every case, my first action would be to try and contact the establishment myself to see if we've got a wrong address. In practise that's one of the main reasons for the new system. Instead of checking for dead addresses by sending out a newsletter once a year, I'm getting constant monitoring. Any sent to a wrong address bounce back to me, so I can immediadetly check to see what's wrong. With an average of 20 email enquiries a day going out through the system (we don't keep copies, but each property has a counter showing the number of email enquiries sent) we are effectively running a constant monitor to make sure that all lines of communication are working.

good to know that you are always on top of the situation, steve