We spent a week at the Coco Palm to attend our friends wedding. The accommodation is OK but seriously in need of redecorating - the rooms are looking tired and dated. The hotel is in a lovely position with a nice beach and good lagoon which is great for swimming. However the whole place is completely ruined by the terrible service - the female staff are rude and unhelpful and actually make you feel most unwelcome. The men are not much better but at least they are civil occasionally. The wedding party consisted of 10 people staying for the week who wouldn't normally have stayed there and the management actually charged the groom extra to stay in a room separate from his wife the night before the big day, and they spent a lot of money at the hotel on the event. Certainly wouldn't stay there again - the service was awful and spoiled the holiday for all of us.

From driving up the main driveway through the amazing gardens of this beautiful hotel, we just knew that this holiday was going to be something to remember.

The welcome to the hotel with a rum punch and effusive greetings and best wishes for you to enjoy your stay is genuine and heartfelt. All of the staff, without exception, are friendly and helpful (typical of the islanders in fact).

Looking out from the Reception area you see a beautiful lagoon, wave free and teeming with tropical fish - a snorkellers dream!

The accommodation is good and is complemented by very effective air conditioning - a must!

If you are on a diet this is a place to be avoided. The food is amazing - it deserves a Michelin Star at least (very possibly two!).

We met many people who were returning for 5th, 6th and 7th visits and in one case their 18th visit - i think this says it all!

Coco Reef Hotel in Tobago was a fantastic hotel for service, cleanliness but best of all the food! The food was like eating in the best restaurant every night! Superb! Breakfast, lunch & dinner all equally brilliant!
Not sure about the need for formal dressing for dinner every night, but they did offer a less formal option in another part of the hotel. Very expensive though, and catering for mainly middle-aged or older clientelle.
Would recommend if you have the cash to spare for a little luxury (eg maid service 2 - 3 times daily!), included in cost.

Without a doubt, this is the best hotel on Tobago. That said, the competition leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall my boyfriend and I had a fabulous one-week holiday at the Coco Reef resort and spa (although I think they should lose Spa from the title as it really doesn’t consist of much).

On arrival, the staff were exceptionally friendly and welcoming which was pleasant after a long flight from London. We walked through reception, down the stairs on the beach as the sun was setting and it was beautiful. The hotel and beach are very clean and the sea is crystal clear (you can expect to see all sorts of fish in the lagoon there).

That said, there are a number of things about the hotel that could easily be improved and would make their guests stay much better

There are a massive number of sea gulls which sit on the rocks surrounding the lagoon and they make a huge amount of noise. It may have been worse when I was there because it was mating season, but the noise from them makes lying on the beach not a very peaceful experience. The noise from the gulls is so loud that you can even hear them in the bedrooms. Being the caribbean, there are a lot of birds everywhere, and the small ones can prove a hassle in the openair breakfast room.
The food in Tobago isn’t as good as you might expect. We looked hard for nice restaurants to eat in, but decided that the two restaurants at the hotel were the best. A word of warning though: DON’T MISS DINNER. We arrived back at the hotel at around 11.30pm after a trip to watch turtles and all the restaurants in the area were closed, as were all the shops. There was absolutely nowhere to get any food – there isn’t even a vending machine in the hotel and the staff were unwilling to even rustle up a piece of toast. As there was never any food in our mini-bar, we just had to go without food.
Check the towels in your bathroom as there was a couple of occassions when it was obvious that the cleaning staff had reused dirty towels that we had left on the floor, and just folded them back up and placed them on the towel rack.
The evening entertainment was unnessecarily loud and could be heard very clearly in all the rooms.
A couple of things to make sure you don't miss:

1. a gentleman called Peter who runs the snorkelling trips from the hotel lagoon was EXCELLENT. he is not cheap but it is totally worth it. he knows so much about the sealife that even as experienced snorkellers, we had a lot to learn and see.

2. a cocktail on the terrace while the sun is setting over the sea.



All in all a lovely place to stay