Day 5 (November 14, 2021):

We knew this short trip would pass quickly, and did it ever! We planned to squeeze the most out of our last morning, so we were at the resort’s restaurant at exactly 7:30AM when it opened. By 8:30 we were in the ocean - the first of four “last dips” in the Caribbean and the pool. 

The hotel extended our check-out by an hour, to noon, which worked out perfectly. We left the parking lot at 12 on the nose, stopped at the IGA for sandwiches, gassed up and returned the rental, and got the Hertz shuttle to the terminal, arriving there at 12:40, only to join the insane security line-up for the smorgasbord of afternoon departures to North America. 

Our Westjet flight left on time at 2:35. We will have three hours’ connection time in Toronto and should arrive at home by 2AM. It’ll be a short sleep before heading to work. But it was all worth it - even the Covid testing and plethora of online form submissions to the USA, Turks and Caicos and Canada. This was a 10/10 November getaway for us. 

Thanks for tuning in! Happy trails. 

And this is how we looked at the start of our last morning in paradise, after three days of ‘AHHHHH’!



A calm, quiet morning for our last few hours on the beach.

Talk about ingenious:  This floating playground passed by as we were lounging. If I was 10 years old, I’d be all over that. Mind you, even in my 50s, I was tempted. 🤪

It’s always comforting when you go abroad and see signs of Canada in the most unexpected places, such as this very Canadian parasail!

There is no vacation moment more sad than the last few minutes on the beach or in the pool, prior to heading out. It was hard to leave this! 🥴

We thoroughly enjoyed the Royal West Indies Resort: manicured grounds, spotlessly clean and an all-round comfortable place to spend a few days.

At this point in the blog, this sign near the airport should have read, “Thanks for visiting”, as opposed to “Welcome to…”

And in case you are wondering whether travel has rebounded in the Turks and Caicos, the jam-packed departures area tells the tale. Flights to JFK, Newark,  Fort Lauderdale, Toronto, Charlotte and Atlanta were all leaving within a hour or so of each other. Thank goodness for T and C’s requirement that everyone must be fully vaccinated in order to enter the country, as well as Canada’s and the USA’s requirement for negative Covid test results pre-departure. Both requirements gave us much comfort in this packed departure hall. 

Heading out across the sizzling hot tarmac in Providenciales to our Westjet Boeing 737-700. A very full flight with few empty seats. But bingo — one of them is in our row. The ol’ trick of selecting an aisle and a window in hopes that the undesirable middle seat might not be assigned, paid off again! There’s nothing like having a row to yourselves on a fairly full four-hour flight, especially during a pandemic. 🤣

JetBlue, United, Air Canada and Westjet tail-fins, all part of the busy line-up of North America-bound jets at Providenciales’ airport. 

This shows our take-off point — Providenciales’ airport is marked “PLS”. The island containing the airport is called Providenciales Island but actually represents only a small portion of Turks and Caicos. The bulk of the country comprises the larger islands to the right of Providenciales Island, which are only sparsely inhabited, mostly because no bridges connect the islands. The Westjet flight map above shows how the islands are surrounded by a thin reef to the north and a huge shallow area to the south, giving the water that famous turquoise hue. Beyond that, the dark blue shows the deep drop-off to the depths of the Atlantic. 

And one last photo from the plane of that amazing turquoise view.