Turks and Caicos with the kids!

Here’s a little background before I dive into our Turks and Caicos trip. Our youngest daughter, Weezie was born 3 weeks before the Covid US shutdown. To me… this was surprisingly good timing because going from 1 kid to 2 is rough. Well, it was rough for me. Being stuck at home with a toddler and baby made me go a little stir crazy but hey, at least I got the baby on a schedule. She was sleeping through the night by 11 weeks. Praise. The. Lord. So she starts sleeping through the night which means the return of my insomnia….. What do I do when I can’t sleep? One word. Google. I start googling a beach vacation.

I landed on Turks and Caicos because it has a nonstop flight from DFW, gorgeous calm water and I had never been. With fingers crossed there would be a vaccine, we booked our flights and hotel in September 2020. Yes… I’m crazy and book trips far in advance because I always have to have something in the future (I’m the person that starts planning the next adventure on the flight home.) I’m going to share with you WHY you should take the kids to Turks and Caicos!

I knew I wanted to stay on the famous Grace Bay Beach and landed on Grace Bay Club. Since our kids are little, I didn’t feel like I could justify staying at a place that is only geared towards families. Grace Bay Club was a great fit for us because they have honeymooners and families. When I booked the reservation, they had a promotion to be upgraded to the next tier room. I called and confirmed I would be upgraded the day I made the reservation. And… As a crazy nut, I confirmed this multiple times prior to departing on our trip. We originally booked the 1 bedroom suite villa and were upgraded to the 2 bedroom suite villa. Game. Changer. The 2 bedroom suite villa is double the size of our first house at 2238 sq ft.  Also each guest at the hotel has their own personal concierge. I texted him for questions or to make reservations throughout our stay.

              Our kids at home do not share a room. In fact, they don’t even share the same floor. We were nervous about having them in the same room but it worked out! Weezie was in a crib while Margaret was in a full-sized bed. We pushed the bed against the wall and put pillows all around her. She never once got out of bed during nap or morning time. We brought a monitor and a sound machine. It was hilarious watching them wake up and talking to each other! Okay so back to the resort…..

              Breakfast was included in our package and the restaurant, The Grill, was just a short walk from our room. It has a beautiful view of the beach. It was a standard breakfast for a resort, buffet style with a ton of options. (They also had gluten free items, almond butter, etc. for those with food allergies.)  There was an option for a custom omelet that I got everyday. They gave me local hot sauce and wowsa it was hot. I learned my lesson the first day and only put a little bit on my omelet the remainder of our trip.  The nice thing about breakfast buffets is then you can get 1000 different options for your kids! I grabbed some of the boxed cheerios and fruit loops for snacks the last day.

              After breakfast we hit up the beach. The beach is only a few steps from The Grill. There is a desk right by the beach where you can get Grace Bay Club employees to set up chairs or a beach cabana for you. They are first come first serve. We got the beach cabana the first day but ended up in the chairs the rest of the time since it is closer to the ocean. They also have free toys for you to grab so we got the girls sand buckets and tools to play with (this was a nice perk since I had planned on purchasing these items when we got there.) The sand is so white and pretty and the water is a crystal blue color. When you see this beach, you will think of sports illustrated swimsuit catalog for a reason since they have used Grace Bay Beach for their location.   The water is extremely calm; perfect for our young girls who can’t swim. In early May, the temperature of the water was perfect.

Around 10am we would go to the kids pool for the girls snack time. They have a swim up bar with stools that we went to. Every. Single. Day. They had the best pina coladas I have ever had. The bartender was sweet and gave the girls fruit. We also had snacks from home that we brought with us. Margaret loved playing in the pool. She even got her hair braided by one of the locals one day at the pool. I never knew my daughter would get into the Caribbean spirit and get her hair braided but after seeing older girls getting their hair done, she had to get it.

After we went to the “snack pool” as 3-year-old Margaret called it, we would head back to the beach for a bit. Then we would hit up lunch. We went to a few different places for lunch:

After lunch, the girls and Craig went down for their naps. This gave me FREEDOM. My husband calls me the energizer bunny because I am go go go on trips. Grace Bay Club has a set of bicycles so I was able to bike around the area. A few of the places I found some goodies at were: Art Provo, Anna’s Art Gallery, Alverna’s Craft Market and Wine Establishment.

Craig actually went to the Wine Establishment each time. It is walking distance from our resort and the owner is from France. The wine was so delicious we went 3 times. In my defense the girls went down at 7/7:30pm every night which gave us plenty of time to relax and enjoy the view with a glass of wine.

Once everyone was up from their naps, we would relax and listen to music on our porch. We would give them more than the normal 1 snack for them to not be cranky during dinner. When we are home, the girls typically eat at 5/5:15pm.  I found that most places do not open until at least 6pm for dinner. There was one place that did open at 5:30. Here is where we went:

• Infiniti Restaurant & Raw Bar: The upscale restaurant at Grace Bay Club. It has a beautiful view of the beach, live music and delicious food. We ended up eating here the first and last night. Margaret was super excited to be in Turks and Caicos so we ended up letting her run back and forth to the beach while we had dinner. Our table was steps away from the beach. I had the wood fired jumbo salt prawns the first night and it was amazing. Craig was jealous and ended up ordering it our second time here. I had the miso black cod our last night and it was great, but I would give the gold star to the prawns.
• Coco Bistro: An upscale restaurant walking distance away from Grace Bay Club. It was about a 10-15 minute walk. We loved it so much we went here twice. RESERVATIONS ARE REQUIRED. I booked our reservations weeks in advance. I had a feeling we were going to love it and I was right! They also open at 5:30 which was a huge perk! I don’t think you can order wrong here. We loved everything we tried! Some of the items we ordered were: The Island Style Ahi Tuna Poke, Pepper Crusted Rare Tuna, Blackened Mahi-mahi. Coco Bistro had my favorite cocktail of the trip. I typically try to branch out, but I got the Caribbean Champagne Sunset twice. By the way if you want the less formal option for dinner or you forget to make reservations, Coco Bistro has a sister restaurant outside called Cocovan.
• Caicos Café– a casual restaurant walking distance to Grace Bay Club. They open at 6pm but they ended up letting us sit there early. It was good but didn’t knock my socks off like Coco Bistro.

A few things about our trip…

• Grace Bay Club arranged a private car transfer for us to and from the airport. We brought our travel car seats and installed them for each transfer. Because of this, we stuck with places that were walking distance. From reading previous reviews, if you want to travel around Turks and Caicos, rent a car. Taxi cabs are expensive.  
• You will need a TCI Assured Travel Authorization to board your flight to Turks and Caicos. In addition to this free document, you will need a negative covid-19 pcr test 3 days prior to travel (children under 10 are exempt), insurance, and a completed online health screening questionnaire.
• In order to board the flight back home, we had to take a pcr test in Turks and Caicos within 3 days of travel. If you stay at Grace Bay Club, they will provide you a test for free and the testing facility is at the resort.  Unfortunately, the test is required for anyone 2 and over, so Margaret had to take the test. She was a rockstar and didn’t cry.

We had a wonderful stay in Turks and Caicos. They have a lot of options for places to stay on the beautiful Grace Bay Beach. After walking up and down the beach with the kiddos, I can honestly say that we booked the perfect resort for us. Craig was originally not thrilled with our choice since he loves boutique resorts. But once we got there he was sold. Grace Bay Club felt like a small resort since it is spread out on the beach and not a huge multi-level structure. Grace Bay Club spoiled us over and over again. I was ready to book it again for next year and even got them to grant me the same offer in advance. But…. We aren’t ready to repeat the trip just yet. There are still so many places to take the girls.