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West Caicos Reserve Travel Guide

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Ritz-Carlton West Caicos Hits a Hostage Snag

October 20, 2008 at 9:15 AM | by amandak | 0 Comments

A year ago we were dreaming of finding buried treasure at the Ritz-Carlton West Caicos Reserve, which was meant to be up and running by late 2008--that's any minute now. But news out of the West Caicos makes it sound rather sure that we're going to have to wait a bit longer for our luxury eco-resort stay.

We last week of something as exciting as hostage-taking on the island, somehow related to the Ritz-Carlton development. Turns out that the entire resort project went on hold a few weeks ago when the financing bank became insolvent and the Chinese workers there hadn't been paid since June--so they took their Israeli bosses hostage and demanded their pay.

It's all been sorted out now (and they've been paid, apparently) but it doesn't look good for the Ritz-Carlton West Caicos part of the deal. No word yet on whether building will start again soon but clearly a late 2008 opening is out of the question.

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Ritz-Carlton To Inhabit the Uninhabited: West Caicos Reserve

October 24, 2007 at 9:16 AM | by amandak | 0 Comments

When we started to read about the coming-soon Ritz-Carlton West Caicos Reserve our environmentally conscious radar went up: West Caicos on the western end of the Turks and Caicos archipelago is a virtually uninhabited island. Why spoil it with a fancy hotel? But Ritz-Carlton are very careful to point out that the proposed 75 island villas are part of a very environmentally responsible development that included extensive consultations with an eco-tourism expert.

So then we relaxed and decided it sounded like a wonderful place. West Caicos is apparently the home to the Molasses Reef which is not only one of the world's best diving spots, it's also rumored that Columbus' ship Pinta sank here--that makes us dream of buried treasure.

The Ritz-Carlton development will be at the high end of the luxury scale, centered on the north shore of the island; most of the island will remain "forever" undeveloped, they say. The villas will be built using the varying architectural influences of the Caribbean and in a low-density, low-impact style. At the moment the scheduled opening is late 2008 and we'll let you know when they firm that up--and how much you have to pay to stay on a nearly uninhabited island.

Related Stories:
· Winter Getaway: Turks and Caicos [HotelChatter]
· Turks and Caicos Travel Stories [Jaunted]