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As there is no thread on this destination and Virgin and BA now fly there 2/3 times a week, I thought it was time to create one. We travelled on BA via 2 Barclays Upgrade vouchers. BA flights to Providenciales Island (Provo), TCI, operate as an extension to the Nassau flights, alternating with Grand Cayman. It does mean a near 12 hour flight with 90/120 minutes on the tarmac at Nassau, each way. Virgin do similar with Montego Bay. We had CW on the way out and CS on the inbound, which, I am led to believe is more common on this route from T3. Provo is the most developed of the TCS islands which isn’t saying much as it’s quite undeveloped. The main resort area is along Grace Bay, about 20 mins from the airport. There are many US and Canadian flights to Provo, so it’s quite a busy little airport with no air bridges and the larger 787/777 planes having to park quite a way from the terminal with no buses used, so a bit of a walk in the sun, which was very welcome coming from a cold and damp UK! Grace Bay, apparently, has been voted the world’s best beach. It’s a nice beach but the world’s best, we didn’t think so. There’s not much to see on Provo. we hired a car for one day and saw all of it in under a day. The beaches and sea are the main attractions. We stayed at Club Med which has the best location on Grace Bay. We’re not usually into large, AI resort style hotels, but Club Med was good value, had some good included activities such as tennis and snorkelling, which we used a lot. The food was pretty decent too. The room was large enough, comfortable and clean. Not luxurious but was fine for us. We spent one week on Provo and one week on Grand Turk which was a 30min internal flight on a little 20 seater Beechcraft plane with Caicos Express. Inter Caribbean also fly there from Provo but there are fewer flights and they seemed less reliable. Grand Turk was a world away from the resorts of Provo. No chains or large resorts at all, a very small hotels and AirBNBs. We stayed at the Osprey Beach Hotel, a small hotel in Cockburn Town, the capital of TCI. It was nothing fancy, but clean, comfortable and right on the beach. It was 10 steps from our room to the beach. There’s not a lot to do on Grand Turk if you don’t like diving, which is excellent. Snorkelling from the beach is also pretty good. I used Blue Water Divers who pick up from the beach by the hotel. A ten minute boat ride brings you to great dive sites, mostly ‘wall’ dives. There’s also a good restaurant at the hotel. The island isn’t laid back, it’s horizontal! Everyone we came across was very friendly, this includes the local dogs, called potcake dogs that roan freely. Some are nominally ‘owned’. They often joined us in the shade on the beach and were no trouble. There are also ‘feral’ donkeys, all very friendly too. We explored the island on a golf cart and saw everything in a few house including the lighthouse and museum, which were both interesting. The island is a popular stop on 4/5 night cruises from places like Miami. On cruise ship days, the island gets a lot busier for a few hours but the cruise passengers tend to stick to set itineraries. It does mean there are more excursions available but they usually depart from the cruise terminal area at the south of the island. We loved the chilled out vibe of the place, the friendly locals, unspoilt beaches and the good local food at independent restaurants. They use the USD, US 100v but drive on the left! TCI is a British Crown Dependency a few hundred miles north of Hispanola island (Haiti/Dominican Republic).
We’re there in June with Virgin. Thanks for the info.
It does look idyllic, but recent reports of horrendous levels of violent crime put me off, e.g.
A former colleague of mine heads up the serious crime task force there!
It does look idyllic, but recent reports of horrendous levels of violent crime put me off, e.g.
A former colleague of mine heads up the serious crime task force there!
Yes, we saw this article from last year. It refers to 2022, so hopefully your ex-colleague has sorted it all out now 🙂 No sign of any issues when we went. One other thing. No lounge, at present, at Provo airport but a nice little bar on the balcony upstairs with a runway view.
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