Hi Jonathan
Malc C’s reply basically says it all.
It is impossible to give definitive advice on the best methods of planning and booking any trip. What’s right for one person may be totally wrong for the next.
Travel agents can take the hassle out of things and save a lot of work, but only if you use a good travel agent with personal knowledge of your chosen destination. In my experience, all the larger ‘national’ firms simply employ young kids who simply read from brochures. They couldn’t even locate the vast majority of destinations they handle on a map. On the other hand, the smaller private travel agents can be really excellent. I know a couple of really, really good travel agents in Essex, but sadly they’re don’t have specific specialist knowledge of Tobago.
Most travel agents only handle package tours to Tobago. There may be travel agents with specialist personal knowledge of the island, but I don’t know of them and I doubt whether there are any local to you in Belfast. So, unless you’re happy to go to one or other of the half-dozen hotels featured in the main brochures, you’re stuck.
The alternative is to use
myTobago.info to research your holiday. Remember, EVERY source of holiday accommodation is listed at
http://www.myTobago.info/accommodation.php . If they’re not listed, they must be very, very new. The listings provide links to each establishment’s website for more detailed “sales’ information.
Having chosen your destinations, you have two basic choices. Contact them direct and make a booking, or use a local (Tobago) reservation agent. Malc C suggested
http://www.yes-tourism.com and I would certainly endorse his view. Although YT only feature a relatively small list of properties on their web, my understanding is that they can place reservations with almost every reputable accommodation source on the island.
You can book flights directly with the airline, through your local travel agent or through a service like dialaflight.co.uk, as mentioned by Malc and Helen. I’m not familiar with dialaflight but just had a look at their service. It seemed a useful way of checking options, but I was disappointed to see that it did not come up with any options for Monarch. This is a charter flight and I believe that dialaflight receive only a very small allocation of seats. Even when I specifically selected the "charter flight" option it said there were no flights, even though I established that seats were available on Monarch. My best bet would be to book direct with the main charter, Golden Caribbean. See our Tobago/Getting There/Air Travel section for more details.
Your best bet for hiring cars on Tobago is again with Yes Tourism – so they can handle all your accommodation and car rental side. As regards travel insurance, there are lots of options, including your normal insurance broker, your bank and the Internet. As a matter of interest, it would be interesting to hear from some insurance experts with general advice with regard to this subject.
