 |
| This is us in Brazil at the Cristo Redentor. |
And now we’re on to part 2 of things you should know before you start planning your own Trinidad Carnival experience. To recap, we’re writing this from the point of view of us being pretty self-sufficient travelers. We’ve successfully planned our own trips to Hong Kong, Brazil, India, Dubai and many other destinations. However, partaking in the Trinidad Carnival parade and being on the island during this amazing festival brings its own set of challenges. Let’s go through a few more and not surprisingly (or perhaps surprisingly to you) most of them have to do with the costume buying process:
Now, you might be thinking, how hard can it be to get a costume? Well, allow us tell you:
- Getting a costume can be *ahem* challenging. Depending on which mas band you’re interested in being with, your accessibility to get a costume can be very limited to non-existent. Allow us to explain. Some mas bands are extremely difficult to get into unless you have a “hook up” of some sort. Add the difficulty of getting the costume section that you want and not the one that’s given to you and it can all make you wonder, “Am I paying money for this service, or what?” We take this challenge completely away for our clients. We order your costume for you; just select what section you’d like to be in and it’s done!
- Mas camp drama. Think it’ll only take a little time to collect your costume when you get to Trinidad? Think again. Be prepared to spend at least a few hours in line collecting your costume. If you’re coming to Trinidad on Carnival Friday or Saturday (before Carnival), then we recommend that you double that waiting time. The lines will be epic and tensions will be high at the mas camp. Again, we take the guess work out of this by collecting our clients’ costumes on their behalf and delivering it to the hotel.
- Costume not fitting? Uh oh, more costume drama. Let’s say something isn’t fitting right. Should be an easy swap, right? Wrong. You might not even be able to get another size at your chosen mas camp, so be sure to ask about this in advance when ordering. AND be prepared for another long wait to get the correct size if you can switch it out. To help with this, we provide our clients with a personalized costume fitting session where you try on your costume. If anything doesn’t fit, then we work with the mas costume provider to get you a size that does.
 |
| UTC fooling around with 1 of our ever reliable drivers! |
Transportation issues
Again, you might be thinking, so what? Let’s break it down for you…
- Over 70,000 people travel to the little island of Trinidad to experience Carnival every year. There are hundreds of parties that happen during the week before the Carnival parade, with at least 10-20 happening on the same night. In regard to the taxi drivers for hire, there are many who do not work nights. So, do you think there are enough taxi drivers who work nights in Trinidad to accommodate all of these people? Sadly, no. We’ve heard many stories of people being stranded after a fete because their transportation stood them up. Reliable transportation is at a premium in Trinidad during carnival time.
- In addition, getting your transportation to be on time can be another issue. We’ve heard of people missing an entire fete because they were waiting on their taxi driver to pick them up. And depending on where you’re staying on the island (mostly if you’re staying far east or central Trinidad), it gets even worse.
To learn more, click here.
As always…
Til de next lime,
Esha and Tarik
P.S.: Our 2017 experience is over 70% sold out! Don't get left behind...click here to reserve your spot today. Feel free to leave us a comment below about your Trinidad Carnival challenges; it might just help someone out :)
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your comment! We appreciate your feedback.