Turks & Caicos Vacation

It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon and there isn’t a cloud in sight…that’s probably because I am typing this as I’m currently mid-air flying home from an amazing trip to Providenciales – Turks and Caicos.

I have never actually booked a vacation whereby I wasn’t pressured with the last minute chaos/rush of having to pack everything since I usually book flights as close as possible to my last day of work in an effort to maximize vacation time. This year’s “winter” vacation (turned Spring vacation when we realized we simply had too much going on in the winter months) to T&C was a new/better experience in terms of planning. We left on a Sunday and returned on a Sunday followed by a stat holiday on the Monday – PERFECT for packing and cleaning the house before we needed to leave and even better for being able to properly unpack and wash everything before heading back to work on Tuesday.

Anyways, onto the trip at hand. I would rate this one a 9 out of 10! It was phenomenal. I may never return to an all inclusive ever again. Primarily because we hardly ever drink. At an all inclusive, we may have about 2 – 3 drinks throughout the course of the week – even that feels like a bit of a stretch. More importantly, THE FOOD…for me, being on vacation isn’t a ticket to binge. It isn’t healthy, it makes me feel sick and it’s simply not something that makes me feel good by any means. I don’t believe that Turks has many all inclusive places (maybe a few), but the majority of the resorts come complete with a kitchen and local IGA grocery store. To be able to buy and cook our own food was invaluable! There wasn’t a single time throughout the trip where either one of us felt uneasy or sick. We were able to adhere to our regular schedules of eating every 2.5 – 3 hours (alternating meal, snack, meal, snack etc.).  We were a bit limited because we didn’t book a suite with a full sized fridge or an oven, but we made it work nonetheless. Some examples of what was on our menu:

• Homemade Oat Bars
• Oatmeal
• Protein Powder
• VegeGreens
• Eggs
• Fruit
• Cottage Cheese
• Sweet Potatoes/Yams
• Skim Milk
• Gatorade’s (the low calorie ones)
• Turkey
• Bread (Some white bagels [a girl’s gotta have some cheats] and whole wheat toast)
• Some Philadelphia Cheese Spread (with chives)
• Popcorn

Here is a sample of our typical/easy breakfast:

We only went out for dinner twice. One was more of a “light snack/dinner” and the other was succulent delicious blackened Mahi Mahi with a curry style sauce – to die for.

Now on to the location – Turks is incredible. We went there for our Honeymoon (The Regent Palms), so it was nice to go back (The Alexandra). Every day was sunny and glorious. I believe the temperature had hit 29C by 9 am. Most days felt like 37C and had that biting heat – LOVE THAT.

As for the cons, I would have to say that the only negative about Turks is that the people aren’t the friendliest. I’m not meaning to generalize because we did meet a few of super awesome people, but I would have to say the majority were not very friendly. [Tip for the future traveler…When you’re departing from the Turks and an airport staff member asks you to do something – DO NOT question what they said if you didn't understand them or if you didn't hear them. Take your best guess at what they said and do it. I say this out of experience. I was once asked to unroll my yoga pants, but I didn't hear the lady so I responded with “sorry, pardon me? I didn't hear you”…then I got yelled at.] The staff at the resort didn’t even ask how our stay was upon check out (not that they really needed to, but it’s a common courtesy). The food and all gifts are outrageously overpriced, but that’s the case for almost all touristy areas, so I won’t harp on that. Those are about the only negative things I would have to say and I am VERY picky when it comes to my vacations.

Maybe I’ll do a future post on vacation workout tips – thoughts? For now, I’ll leave you with some more pictures of the beach and some different mix ‘n match bikinis – if you have any questions about the T&C, feel free to leave it in the comments below. Also, I’d LOVE to hear what your all time favourite vacation hot spot is and why is it your #1?

xxxo