myTobago – your questions, review and comment about Tobago

I needed somewhere to stay for a few days before moving onto my first choice accomodation. Although I have been to Tobago many times before, it was my first visit to my beloved Isle in 6 years.

I decided after reviews and also based on location and price, especially after reading Yes Tourism was based there, that it must be very good indeed.

I was picked up at the airport, nice and smooth and directed to reception on arrival where I was greeted by the divine Divine.

I was given my keys and taken to my room, where my luggage was waiting.

I later had to ask for the safe key, which was located and given to me unfettered by key ring, so to keep safe I attached to the room key.

The Good
Friendly staff
Very clean, comfortable rooms
Clean fluffy towels
Free shower gel and liquid soap
Convenient location (if driving)
Restaurant and bar onsite (admittedly I did not eat here)Had one fruit punch, which was ok.
Karaoke (if you're into it)
OK Patio, with a view of the car park


The Bad
All staff from outside Tobago, limited local knowledge/integration

(I asked for a local shop where I could get water, fly spray and cigarettes and was told I would need a car journey and a convoluted journey, in fact there was a nearby shop, five minutes walk away which one had to pass to leave the area and had all three items on my list!)

Staff live onsite and there were some strange boundaries at times.

Location next to a main road, noise of cars speeding outside.

First view is a car park. Whilst to Western eyes, this may not appear strange, by Tobago standards it is... well odd and certainly out of place. It also meant I was woken by car lights turning around in the car park due to the location of my room (#1) which was closest to the road.

Which leads me to security. Sliding gate from street to property is not locked. My room was just a few yards away and the door lock was flimsy to say the least. To add to matters, the curtain was virtually transparent with a very loose weave and even at night time you could see right into my room and my bed. I didn't like this. At all. Especially as a woman travelling alone.

The furniture inside and outside was all plastic, easy to clean, but not pleasurable to sit on, but I suppose it was 2*, it just charged too much for this level of accommodation.

Karaoke in this property is not optional on Fridays, there is no escape, unless you've knocked yourself out with Puncheon rum!

Divine was lovely, as were the other staff, just clearly missing home and their families, which I found really sad and the situation artificial.

There are so many places you can get more bang for your buck and feel like you're actually in the Caribbean, which is why you have paid to get on a plane, no?

Hello Keira,
thank you for your open words. We appreciate all comments, good or bad because they help us to improve our services.
I was pretty busy lately ( getting married, amongst other things ) so I might not have been as focused as usual, but I would like to know if you shared any of your observations with management during your stay.
Let me try to address your 'Bad' points:

Staff is an issue in Tobago as you might have read in other parts of the mytobago forum. I have tried really hard to find enough local staff that understands my concept of customer service and every time I hired somebody local that was not friend or family, I was forced to let them go after a few month. The decision to import labor was a hard and costly one every one of our six filipino staff cost me 1000 USD per year for work permits alone. On top of that I have to house them. The salaries they get is about twice the industry standard. They all have families to feed in Cebu, children to send to school and some of them are building houses at home. But guess what, they are worth every penny and I wouldn't be in the hospitality industry if I could not get the level of service I need to make Bamboo Walk hotel what it is. Yes Tourism's office is in the hotel so if house keeping could not answer your questions why did you not ask us? I don't think it is fair to say that our staff is not integrated and has limited local knowledge, there are quite a few filipinos on the island and many of them are married to locals, the world is a global village anyway, I am half german half togolese myself and therefore I never even thought about it being a problem to hire " foreigners".
Having said that, we have a staff of 20 people, only 6 of them are on temporary work permits and come from the Philippines, all the others are either locals or residents. Is this really a problem?
The furniture is what we can afford at the moment, I would love to have it all in locally carved teak, but we simply cannot afford it right now. Rest assured this place has always been work in progress and I might be able to upgrade in the near future.
Karaoke was actually the idea of my staff and has been a big success in combination with the 50 TTD BBQ. If it was too loud for you, why didn't you ask us to lower the volume? If we have a full house of happy people it is sometimes hard to pull the plug at 11 pm sharp. But it is only once a week and we will always put our in house guests first.
Yes, staff lives onsite at the moment, but we are looking at alternatives at the moment and I do not understand your comment about boundaries.
The road is not a main road so traffic is sparse , but yes, Tobagonians like to drive fast on straight roads, That's why we build a huge wall. If you didn't like room 1 why didn't you ask for another room? If possible, we always try to make our guests comfortable.
Sorry we can't do anything about the car park which has room for only 7 cars.
We never had a single security incident in three years, the hotel is protected by a private security company, remote panic buttons for staff on duty, alarm system ( fire, medic, police), staff on site 24 hrs.
I also plan to install CCTV cameras in the very near future.
As for the curtains we are changing them right now as part of our replacement program, again we could have addressed your concerns if you had communicated the issue to us.
My staff was very bewildered by your comment concerning them missing their families etc. They are all here out of their own free will and we are treating them with respect and like family, your comment about an "artificial" situation have hurt us all. Should I leave Tobago because I was born in Germany and miss it now and then?
Bamboo Walk Hotel is popular because of its cheerful staff so please don't try to paint a picture of depressed homesick employees. This is definitely not us.
I am very sorry that you did not feel to be in the Caribbean, but the Caribbean I know is a melting pot of cultures and people from all over the world, especially Trinidad & Tobago.