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The mystery of a stress-free family holiday in the Caribbean? The butler did it
Butler service may not come cheap, but it’ll make the world of difference when travelling with kids
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Your support makes all the difference.You’ve probably heard the old adage about family holidays. If you’re taking the kids with you, it’s not a vacation – it’s a work trip.
Forget all those visions of lounging by the pool, holding a paperback in one hand and a cocktail in the other. The reality of traveling with children – whether they’re toddlers or tweens – is that it’s very easy for your blissful, relaxing vacation to very quickly turn into a series of chores and errands, like an extension of your everyday crazy, only with extra sunscreen.
Yes, taking the children on holiday is amazing. It’s rewarding, it’s enriching, and it brings your family closer together. But let’s be honest: it’s also about as relaxing as taking a Tube ride during rush hour.
But there’s one resort that thinks it doesn’t have to be this way, where it’s possible to have a family holiday that doesn’t leave you so exhausted you feel like you need another one. All that’s required is accepting a little help. Or a lot of help. Or, well, just as much help as you need, delivered to you by the sort of professional aide who has been helping busy families maintain their hectic schedules and keep everything running smoothly since the Middle Ages.
We’re talking about a butler.
Not one of those manservants dressed in white gloves and a tuxedo, mind you. If you’re thinking of Jeeves from the PG Wodehouse books or the guy who helps Bruce Wayne get down to the Batcave, you’ve got the wrong idea—at least as far as Beaches Turks & Caicos is concerned.
The vision of a butler at this glorious enclave in the Caribbean is something closer to a chaperone, tour guide, personal concierge, therapist and vacation planner, all rolled into one. The butlers here don’t spend the day waiting on you hand and foot. What they do is help you navigate your way around every single attraction or diversion that this sprawling all-inclusive resort has to offer. Which is lucky, because what it has to offer is pretty much everything.
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We’re talking 20 different restaurants, offering cuisine from almost every corner of the globe. Then there are the 12 bars and six outdoor pools – which includes some bars actually inside the pools. Not to mention the water park, spa, gym, and a kids club staffed by the cast of Sesame Street.
Simply figuring out how to get from one of these places to another is the sort of challenge that could easily eat up half your holiday – especially if your little ones aren’t the sort of kids who will happily ignore those three giant water slides on your left while they patiently wait for you to work out how to get to the French bistro you booked for lunch.
With a butler, there’s no getting lost. There are no questions about where you’re going or what’s for dinner. You tell them exactly what you would like to do, and they make sure it happens – exactly the way you drew it up.
Breakfast on the beach at nine o’clock, followed by two hours at the water park, lunch at Le Petit Chateau, a glass-bottom boat tour in the afternoon, a bath back at the room, dinner at Barefoot By The Sea as the sun sets, and then a live show at the theatre? If that’s what you want to do, that is what you will do. The butlers make your reservations, pick you up when it’s time to go, escort you from one activity to the next, and generally leave you with nothing to worry about.
Even better, they know all the hacks that can alleviate those anxieties or pressures or pain points that are part of the joy of traveling with young children. One kid won’t eat anything that hasn’t been deep fried and smothered with ketchup? No worries, your butler can bring you food from one restaurant even as you’re sitting at a table somewhere completely different – and hopefully much fancier.
Plan to spend a day at the water park? You’ll want a poolside cabana for that. The fact that they are offered first come, first served isn’t a problem with a butler on your side – they’ll be there at five o’clock in the morning, reserving you the prime spot, and leaving you a cooler stocked with water, soda, juice and beer, to boot.
If it sounds a little extravagant, you’re not wrong. And there’s no getting away from the fact that it doesn’t come cheap. But when you’re already paying a small fortune to take your family on the holiday of a lifetime, this guarantees that your vision for the trip meets reality.
Travel essentials
A seven-night, all-inclusive stay at Beaches Turks and Caicos Resort Villages and Spa in a Seaside Two Bedroom Luxury Butler Villa Suite costs from £8,725 per adult and £809 per child. Price is based on two adults and two children aged between 2-11 sharing a room. Price includes all-inclusive accommodation, butler service and 24-hour room service, return economy class flights with Virgin Atlantic from London Heathrow and resort transfers.
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