Open Jaw :: On The Town ::

with Suzanne Christie
25MAY09

Grace Bay Turks & Caicos - 12 miles of fine white sand and turquoise waters

The Ribbon Cutting - Jamaican PM Bruce Golding; Turks & Caicos Governor, Gordon Wetherell;
Gordon 'Butch' Stewart;
Sabrina Stewart; Adam Stewart

6 Diamond Award - former New York Governor, George Pataki;
Butch Stewart, The American Academy of Sciences Joe Cinque, Adam Stewart & Kevin Froemming, Unique Vacations

The party scene

Benvenuto Beaches Turks & Caicos Italian Village

The folks at Sandals & Beaches are big thinkers, do’ers and talkers. They talk the talk… and talk and talk, but, they also walk the walk. And, they do have a lot to talk about. The Stewarts are proud of their empire and are far from sitting back and enjoying the fruits of their labour. Having just completed the $125 million Italian Village expansion at Beaches Turks & Caicos, they invited me and hundreds of their closest friends, relatives, business associates and a slew of TV and movie stars* to indulge in their vision of the perfect family vacation and celebrate in style at their official opening party.

The champagne and rum punch flowed and much caviar, conch and Sandal’s signature Beringer wines were consumed. We all tried out the Italian Village’s roomy new 2 bedroom suites which surround the Caribbean’s largest fresh water pool and dutifully checked out the top bunks and trundle beds in the kids’ bedroom. They’re really comfy, but, I still chose to sleep off the nightly parties in the adult’s bedroom king size.

The sprawling resort now comprises 622 guest rooms and the resort’s 1,200 staff provided non-stop hospitality, big smiles and friendly greetings. Any way you crunch those numbers – they’re providing a pretty high staff to guest ratio. And you know that all of this caring and pampering doesn’t just happen, because nothing about Beaches is natural except its location on Grace Bay’s 12 miles of pure white beach and turquoise waters. All of their staff must undergo 120 hours of annual training – and it shows.

Management is obsessed with guests’ comments and how they score their experience. Each guest family is asked to evaluate their vacation based on the the resort’s cleanliness, service levels, operational issues and all are tallied, reported, discussed and acted upon immediately.

The level of service has earned Beaches the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences’ 6 Star Diamond Award for overall quality of the product. And, during the Italian Village opening festivities, Beaches received the 1st “Green” 6 Star Diamond award ever presented by the Academy.

Next on the agenda for Sandals Resorts… Overwater bungalows will be added to both Sandal’s Grande St. Lucian and Montego Bay’s Royal Caribbean. Construction will begin on both projects later this year.

Sandals & Beaches stars are clearly still rising…stay tuned.

*Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Cheryl Hines; Beverly Hills 90201’s Jenny Garth; ‘N Sync & The Singing Bee’s Joey Fatone; Entourage & Beethoven’s Debi Mazar; some guy from Twilight; the awful Bachelor who ditched his 1st choice for his heartbroken 2nd choice (and she actually accepted that because she was there too) and the Hulk - Lou Ferrigno.