COMO Parrot Cay

Let me start off by saying that as a 27 year old gal in NYC in 1998, I could not wait until the day I could afford to venture off to the incomparable Parrot Cay where Jerry and Jessica Seinfeld honeymooned! OMG!! This had to be the epitome of luxury this side of the Maldives! The first time we were blessed enough to dip a toe into the magical waters of Turks and Caicos was several years later in spring of 2006. This was the first season that the Amanyara opened. We were led to an amazingly stunning room with a private sand area. Unfortunately, we found ourselves with the gloom and rain all day every day. This made the food all that much more important. It was really bad. But that’s on me. I should’ve known better than to book vacation at a place within the first month of its opening. I’m so sure that 17 years after the fact, they have their food and beverage area dialed in! Anyhoo, we left on day 4 and hopped over to my ultimate fantasy destination, Parrot Cay. The beach was beyond stunning! Outside of the Maldives, I don’t think I’ve ever seen water and sand like this in my entire life, and we are very well traveled. The food, was so delicious. I am not joking when I say that I can still recall the lobster curry, we dined on. It was was food perfection. We only stayed for 1 night and 2 days at Parrot Cay and the weather still wasn’t great but we still enjoyed the sand, a bit of ocean and the yummy dining. Fast forward to 2023, when we could really afford to do it up right! At this point we had the pleasure of taking both of our grown boys with one fiancé and one long term girlfriend. Life couldn’t get better than this, right? RIGHT! Here are my reviews. 1. Transportation from the airport - on the way here our flight was cancelled and rescheduled for the next day arriving 2 hours earlier at 4 pm. We updated the hotel to our new arrival day/time. They confirmed our new arrival time with us via email. After we landed and went through Immigration, the car wasn’t there to pick us up. We waited and finally called the hotel to check. They said he should be there and eventually he did come. After getting our luggage into the car he said “I’m so sorry. They told me your arrival was at 6pm.” It was if we had arrived as scheduled the day before but this wasn’t his fault. The hotel then called my husband cell phone to see if we found the driver yet. We said we had and then the hotel said “oh he was there on time but left because the airport people told him to leave.” My husband explained to them that the driver already told us that Parrot Cay gave him the wrong time. It wasn’t a great start that they were lying to us already for absolutely no reason. Mistakes are made in life. It was not a biggie. They should’ve owned up to it. He drove us to the boat, and the boat ride was very pretty. 2. The Island Beach Villa - let me start off by saying that the space, was truly great! There were many outdoor areas and none of us hated on the indoor areas either. It has a very decent sized living room, which is not necessarily the norm. The master was a kind of separate room and the other two bedrooms were equally decent with nice sized bathrooms and adequate if not better than closet spaces. Whew! You know, with two grown children with partners, it’s not the best when things are not even Steven. But these rooms absolutely were! The Master (I know we are not allowed to say this word anymore which is completely fair, but I don’t know what else to call it so please forgive me. Also, that is what still they call it at this resort.) was a separate ish room that had a bit more of a living area than the other rooms as well as a much larger bathroom and closet area. Sounds great right? It was until it wasn’t. We realize that, although we had the extra large bedroom, it was really hot. We asked for maintenance to check out the AC and were told the by engineer that the a/c unit was too small for the Master bedroom and it would never cool it off. I applaud him for his honesty. But really, it was uncomfortably hot. They brought us a fan. It was better than nothing? When evening rolled around and we attempted to turn on the hot water in the bathtub, it turned orange, not rusty like we have all seen before in other countries, but literally bright orange. We actually didn’t complain about this, so I can’t blame anyone other than the hotel for not checking everything in the Villa to see if things all worked well before the new guests arrived. There were many large holes in all of the backings on the shades in the master thus having the sun stream through every day. I actually took some photos of this. Every night as we slept, it really was uncomfortably hot. We didn’t love the fact that there was no information in the rooms on anything Parrot Cay related ie activities, or spa treatments. Normally most resorts and hotels nowadays have iPads to give you all of the information regarding all going-ons. We would have been thrilled with a paper pamphlet. 3. The water sports we tried to book a snorkel trip the day we arrived here as when we were asked beforehand when we booked our stay if we should take the time at that point to book anything in advance? We were told that everything was very easy to book on site and that possibly only the diving could be an issue so we didn’t worry too much about it. Well, clearly this is untrue in June. Low season? I don’t know. I have a lot of New York friends that go to the Caribbean in June. We literally have several Santa Barbara friends that just came back from Saint Barths and there were no issues as far as things to do went. Anyhow, exactly what my husband didn’t want to do on vacation was have to deal with crap. Well, he did. Clearly he could not book anything water sport related through the hotel, so he found the Big Blue collective website that does the diving and snorkeling in Turks and he called them directly. Long story short, we were able to go diving the next day for $8000 for six people instead of waiting for the three that the hotel told us was the quickest possible time they could arrange. Although they didn’t go to the dive spots, we wanted to, we all had a great day. They were pros and it showed. It took until day four to figure out that if we wanted to hang by the hotels main beach and pool, we should reserve lounge chairs by the pool by 11 AM. So while I was completely contented in my lounge chair, looking at the gorgeous ocean, drinking a delicious pina colada (when in Rome…), my husband was desperate to go snorkeling. He walked over to the water sports desk. There was a motorized sport boat that the activities director arrived in. My husband asked if they could take us snorkeling. He said no that they couldn’t do it on that boat but there is a little catamaran that comes with a driver who could take us straight out to the ocean wall which was at least 3 football fields away and would have been quite the swim. We went at 1130am on a catamaran that barely fit the 4 of us and a “driver”. They took us out to the snorkel spot, not without issue. It was not an easy trip. The driver asked my husband to lean out of the boat and grab tight to hold onto the red buoy in order to stop the boat. Then before my husband could lean out, the boat drove right over it. The mainland speedboat had to come and help us out before we even got there. It was a cute reef where we saw some parrot fish and other small but colorful varieties of fish. After around 15-20 minutes we got back into the little catamaran. The driver started to try to take us back. He was having a very challenging time and after a few minutes my husband joked “should we swim back?” The guy said we would be fighting a strong current and that it would take about an hour and a half. Needless to say, none of us jumped in. After another 15 minutes as we started to drift out further, he mentioned that it looked like the catamaran may flip. At this point, my son’s girlfriend went into full panic attack mode. He made some jokes about worrying about sharks. We said we are not at all afraid of sharks, as we are proficient divers. We are, however, worried about the current. Then we asked him to radio the guy on his walkie-talkie and he said that he dropped it into the water and it no longer worked. It must’ve been very cheap because it was a waterproofed walkie-talkie. We all waited for the guy at the activities desk to notice that we were very far, had been gone too long by now, out and come and save us. After around 20 minutes of, that not happening, he turned to us and said seriously that we actually would probably have to swim. I don’t think I need to mention that none of us were in the mood to swim for an hour and a half fighting against the current to get back to the beach. Luckily, after another 10 minutes, the activities guy finally looked up from his phone (yes, we could see him from afar but he could not hear us) and noticed we were very far out and he came on the speedboat, which they should’ve sent us on in the first place, to come and get us. As we were getting out of the boat to get back onto the beach, the guy told us to make sure we signed the bill and he was not laughing at the joke we thought he was making. Needless to say, that signature did not happen. They charged us anyway. 4. The butler - and can I truthfully say that he was a super sweet guy! He truly wanted to please but was clearly never trained. And was not at all someone that screamed I was a butler for 6 years here at COMO and many more years before I came here in Bali. We were never shown how anything in the room works, but considering as there were not even phone chargers or plug ins for 10k a night, it wasn’t a hard room to figure out. 5. the spa- has the Balensian guy called Netra who (I kid you not!) gave me the best massage I have had in my entire life. I’m 57 years old have had a few thousand. I don’t know if they let you, but if ANYONE EVER wants to get a massage and you’re in Turks and Caicos, it would be very worth your while to go for the day (again if you’re allowed) to parrot cay spa to bask in his superior skills! Although I’m easy going in every other area (you wouldn’t know it from this review but if ya speak to any single person that knows me, they’d agree!), I have never in my life had a massage that fixed me 100%! Also, shout out to the lady in charge who took the time to explain to us everything the spa had to offer and show us every room. She was even okay with, and it’s probably cause no one else was there but still, the men and women in our group seeing each others locker rooms/ hot tub/steam areas. They served also amazing ginger/lemon tea! Clearly the spa is not an issue form COMO parrot Cay! My husbands massage was not great but not terrible. He hates elbows and I got none because my guy was so strong! 6. The food - meh is the kindest word I can use. Literally still with the lobster carry in my mind, I was devastated the first night we ate out. Mind you the head chef is from Singapore and his executive chef’s from Bhutan, so why they have Italian night, I can’t even fathom. The food for sure was sub par. And the cocktails, not good. They did have some decent wines by the glass. lunch the next day was truly fine. The jerk chicken wrap was some thing I ended up ordering on another day for lunch. Thinking back to our lobster curry and the other food we had the last time we stayed, we didn’t really understand why the food had gone so downhill. I guess this was all since COMO had taken it over. Obviously, COMO doesn’t prioritize their food. Having said this, maybe it’s completely different when you come in January. This is definitely a New York crowd kinda place and I cannot imagine this group would be happy with this food. Maybe the New Yorkers here in June only think about the beauty of the ocean. Lastly, I’ve got a funny after story for you that kind of explains a lot. My older son lost his favorite pair of Ray-Ban’s the last day we were away. He was sure he left them in the room. None of us found them. We traveled home and they did not turn up. 3 months later, we received an email from the Butler we had saying that he found my sons sunglasses in the Villa. One thing this very obviously means to us is that other than a general cleaning after we left, no one ever went through anything in that room at all to make sure they were in working order again for the next guest. Perhaps they had no guests in between, I suppose they should’ve worked on getting a bigger air-conditioning unit for the Master. When you have a large villa as part of your hotel that you rent out but not very often, it is imperative that you go from room to room and turn on every single water faucet, shower head, feel the water temperature and look at the water color to make sure it’s all okay, check every outlet, flush every toilet, turn on all fans and a/c units, pool heater, refrigerator, etc. this must be taught hospitality, 101?

This hotel is sensational! When we travel, we compare every 5 star hotel to Como because they set the bar so high. It’s worth every penny and may have ruined other hotels for us haha. Our first trip was in Spring 2022 and we loved it so much we came back in Nov. The grounds are breathtaking. The staff is warm and welcoming. The breakfast is wonderful with so many choices and we were blown away by how good dinner was each night. The spa is lovely and open to all guests whether you are getting a treatment or not. Even the gym has a beautiful view. The beach bar has to be the best in the Caribbean with incredible drinks and views. The bar/pool food menu is also outstanding. The rooms are spacious and comfortable as are the bathrooms. I really can’t say a bad thing about it. If you are looking for a Caribbean escape from the real world, this is it. We can’t wait to come back!

It’s hard to write an overall review without specifics, our favourite part aside from the beauty of the room/pool area was the service. We stayed in a 2 bedroom villa 1011 which comes with the luxury of having 2 butlers at your disposal, Kamal and Thinley were so thoughtful professional and helpful. They anticipated our needs and the ones of our 3 kids. Our breakfast was always impeccable and ready even before we arrived. They were so attentive to details. I’ve never seen my children cry so much when they left a resort. The property is beautiful, calm and private, we loved the room itself, the pool and the beaches are to dream of. Beware of sandflies in august- my husband has been beaten a lot… they don’t tell you until it’s too late… It’s a shame they don’t have a lot in house, most things are outsourced; it’s hard to go snorkelling or diving compared to Maldives, boat excursion, snorkelling which makes it less accessible and very expensive. Luckily they have a few water equipment like canoeing or small catamaran for kids to use and have a great staff member Rohan who has been so loving with our kids. He has been taking them fishing too and spending time explaining things to them. He was awesome. Kids club, the staff is super knowledgeable and good at what they do. You should see their arts and crafts a lot of talent there!!! , they have a good space, and interesting activities I would say up to 8/9 yr old. Kids loved going there every day. We stayed 2 weeks in total!! The food is good, not excellent, good varied choice but i would say there is room for improvement, especially with fish and seafood, having buffet option available at times. There is a lack of sushi option as well for lunch or dinner. Only 2 restaurants which is restrictive after 2 weeks. Tennis courts are there but there was no in house teacher which was disappointing . We couldn’t play when we wanted due to that. Cycles are not provided for kids only for adults m as there is a little bit too much traffic (trucks/ cars) in the property this was also disappointing. Spa is great. The como massages are the best, beautiful spa there. Good amount of Pilate and yoga possibilities. I would highly recommend. Thank you Kamal and Thinley for such a special time.

The resort is spectacular, private, and offers a level of luxury of outstanding value. Although the cost is a bit pricey, the exceptional replenishment service in your room and the peacefulness of the hotel are great value for your money: You never fight for an umbrella or a chair at the beach or at the pool. If your budget allows for a two-bedroom villa, you will also discover the greatness of the como butler service. The service is on a scale unparalleled by anything we have encountered in other hotels. Honourable mention to our butler Ardi who has taught us the meaning of anticipatory service. After a few days, he knew exactly what we wanted without even asking. We did not know that such a a term existed in the hotel industry. If you are fed up with commercial hotels, Como is your best option in Turks and Caicos.

The staff, property, rooms, and food was exceptional. It was near the off season so the resort itself was quite. It was truly a magical place. One negative feedback was the guys that work at the boat house were a bit rude and didn’t seem to want to be bothered.

A beautiful secluded peaceful escape which we thoroughly enjoyed. The pristine beach, wonderful food and simple but stylish accommodation as well as wonderful personal service (Shirley the guest relations manager made us feel at home in particular) was fabulous!

Property is dated. Amenities are limited. Dining options are good not great. Grounds are not impeccably maintained. Service is pleasant. Overall the resort is overrated.

This is the most luxurious and relaxing place to stay! If you want to do a lot of nothing this is the spot

Don’t arrive on a Friday afternoon! The majority of the custom agents leave at 3 o’clock on Fridays. It took us about 90 minutes of waiting in line to get through customs. You can buy a pass 4 days in advance that will allow you to go through faster. I would check with the hotel for information. It takes about 90 minutes to get to the hotel. The 30 minute boat ride was enjoyable and easy. Once we reached the island, we boarded a large golf cart type of vehicle for a 15 minute drive to the hotel. Overall the food choices were wonderful. Harry went out of his way to make sure we had any and everything we wanted at the beach. I recommend taking advantage of some of the exercise classes such as the yoga one. Both the class and setting were worth the effort. Do not miss having a massage. My husband and I had the deep tissue massage. Which was amazing. What makes this hotel outstanding is the privacy at the beach. The beach and isolation are fantastic. The pools are warm and inviting. Biking around the island was fun. On top of the posted taxes and service charges per day there was an additional unexpected almost $100.00 charge a night that no one could properly explain. We have stayed in many 5 star hotels around the world. This was the most expensive and not the nicest. We enjoyed our stay but probably won't be back. To many other nice places to go.

Amazing location, property and culinary experience. Some of the best staff we have ever had.