Coral Gardens Resort is located steps (literally) from a wonderful protected area that you and your family can easily enjoy lazy days exploring via snorkel. The condominium style resort is perfect for a small or large family vacation. And, is about a 20 minute easy walk from the IGA (note - cab it back if you have lots of groceries!).

We stayed in the White House which is most interesting in its architecture. Steps away from both the pool and the beach. Also spent a few days in a fourth floor ocean view one bedroom. Both had good housekeeping and modern amenities.

For those who don't want to cook, the Somewhere Cafe restaurant is located on-site and we highly recommend the fish tacos and the burgers! The music is fantastic as well.

Located on Grace Bay, you have miles of icing sugar sand, with not a sea urchin in site. The beach's surf was relatively calm, even with a nor-easter. As a result, it is very swimming-friendly as well with little undertow.

We rented a car for a single day of a week-long trip. Were able to visit Long Bay, Malcolm Beach, da Conch Shack, Silly Bay, and Chalk Island. Each are what postcard photos are made from, and each are an adventure in their own right! However, if you want to wander from Grace Bay, you might consider a bicycle rental because distances are not far. We would also recommend for groceries, the Grocery Gourmet located near the Regent. Wonderful produce selection and prices are very similar to the IGA.

Speaking of groceries, we declared food products at customs on our way into Providenciales without incident. As a result, we saved by bringing in frozen meats, perogies, and cereal products. Sounds funny, but you may not be laughing when you see the prices overall for groceries on an island where virtually everything must be brought in!

Another restaurant to try as a family is the Tiki Hut. Friendly service, a resident heron, and excellent ribs.

As a family-friendly vacation, this was high on our list as the kids can spend hours just making sandcastles. Very cool to see the manta rays swimming nearshore at night. By day, you will likely see turtles, parrot fish, and barracuda.

A big thank you to Leeanne, Matthew, and Jerome. Each made the booking and the stay welcoming and easy. Matthew can easily advise you on diving and all things "water" - a great conversation is to be had!

Definitely a good way to introduce yourself to Provo.

We stayed in a 1 bedroom/1.5 bath condo at Coral Gardens #4302 from 12/27/11 to 1/3/12 and we were very pleased with our choice. We booked through VRBO (#334836) and working with Jill, the owner, was a pleasure. We had never used VRBO before but will certainly do so again.

Certainly, Turks and Caicos is not a cheap place to visit and by choosing to go during the most expensive week of the year, we definitely paid more than we wanted to. However, we left feeling very happy and satisfied with our condo, with the Coral Gardens staff and with Grace Bay/Provo! Coral Gardens is not a luxury property but Jill's condo was very well appointed. The kitchen had everything you need on vacation including a dishwasher, blender, coffee maker and a very nice stainless steel fridge. There were also plenty of plates, silverware and utensils, plastic containers and pots and pans. It's a small thing, but we appreciated that there was even some coffee, sugar, sweeteners and salt and pepper in the cabinet.

Both the living room and bedroom had flat screen TVs, both bathrooms were updated and and in general, the condo was kept up very nicely. We'd suggest a new couch as the owner's next investment but the current one was certainly acceptable. The terrace, where we ate our breakfasts and lunches had a great sea view straight on and when you looked to the right. The only negative was that the eyesore abandoned Toscana building was next door to the left.

The Coral Gardens property is clean and well kept, though the two small pools feel a little outdated. No matter, as we were there for the beach! The beach in front of Coral Gardens is short, and as it was the holiday week, it was a little crowded – but Jerome, the fantastic beach attendant, made sure we got loungers under a palapa every day. The snorkeling is fantastic right in front of the hotel and at times, there were so many fish surrounding us that we felt like we were swimming in an aquarium! Frankly, we like people around when we are swimming/snorkeling, as we are not the best swimmers and also, swimming in a deserted beach, freaks us out a bit. (I think we saw Jaws too many times when we were kids.)

Finally, we were pretty self sufficient, but whenever we had a question, the Coral Gardens office staff, especially Rochelle, was very helpful.We really needed a relaxing vacation, so we decided to just enjoy the beach and not rent a car and explore the island(s) this trip. In anticipation of this, we did bring down some non perishable food (cereal, granola bars, tuna, mayo, mustard, crackers and cookies) and bought a bottle of gin at the kennedy airport duty free for $23, so we could have our afternoon G & T's on the deck. We saw the same bottle in the Provo IGA for $39.99. We ate all our breakfasts and lunches on the terrace but went out to some very nice dinners via taxi. (Dr. Love was our driver and he was fantastic!). We had great meals at Mango Reef (order the scallop app. and the french style lobster!), Hemmingways (Conch Chowder is the best), Da Conch Shack (lots of great conch dishes and you can't beat the location!). Also, Somewhere, located right at Coral Gardens was a great, little beach bar/restaurant.

Next trip, we’ll do some exploring!

Just got back from a holiday trip to Turks and Caicos - stayed at coral gardens #4202. I must say I was REALLY disappointed.  
The decor was probably gorgeous ten years ago, but not today. The furniture is worn and dated, the walls are filthy and in desperate need of paint, and the bedroom linens are worn. The worst is the kitchen.  There are exactly 4 dinner plates, 3 mismatched forks and 2 mismatched spoons. No wine opener, but thankfully my husband and I are seasoned travelers and brought our own. Now -  all of this would not be a problem if I were staying in a discounted location. However at over $600 a night - I expected A LOT more. 
Also, there is NO beach there. It's a very thin strip of sand that only allows for a maximum of  two rows of chairs with folks on the front row frequently getting saturated by the waves.  AND - since they dont have enough chairs to accommodate all of the guests - you have to get up very early to secure a chair. If not - you are SOOL.  
I do want to point out some positives.  The beach staff are great.  The location is great.  Having Somebody's Cafe with the live music on site is great. And most importantly- the snorkeling is AWESOME.  Within a few meters of the beach is the reef with an amazing variety of fish. It truly is awesome and almost made up for the crappy and very expensive accommodations.  
Last thing - and sorry to end on a negative - but while Turks & Caicos is very pretty- it is unbelievably expensive. We are talking $78 for a case of Bud light, $19 for a 6 pack of corona, and $43 for a case of local beer. $6 for a gallon of milk,$9 for a box of cereal ...  Take what you would normally pay for something and times it by 4 or 5.   And this is at the main IGA grocery. If you come - spend the money on an additional piece of luggage and pack it full of food. You cannot each lunch here for under $70 - even at local places.  Speaking of which - conch salad at da conch shack is the best.  And perfect location right on the beach. Skip the ribs at the tiki hut - they're no different then what you'd find in the states. 

We recently stayed in an oceanfront grand suite (1102) for 6 nights, booked through VRBO. Our entire stay went smoothly without a glitch, right from the reservation process to check out. Suite 1102 is a spacious (~2000 sq ft) first floor unit by the pool, and steps to the ocean and the snorkelling reef. My husband and son went snorkelling several times a day and saw many fish. Units that were higher up may have had slightly better views, but the convenience of this unit can't be beat. It had retractable doors, and we could watch the kids in the pool from our living room just a few feet away. Jerome ensured that beach chairs were always available, and was helpful. Housekeeping kept the suite clean, they mopped the floors in addition to changing sheets and towels. We had breakfast in our suite everyday. Not having to dress up and troop out with the kids first thing in the morning freed up more time for doing other fun stuff. Before our arrival, we emailed Matthew the manager to stock up the kitchen with groceries and he did an excellent job. Our stay was much better than at many other fancier resorts that we stayed in in the past because of the superior service provided by Matthew Williams and his crew. One evening we ordered in pizza for the kids and used a babysitter, she was great. Somewhere cafe was good for when we did not want to leave the resort. This particular unit had a fairly extensive collection of good books for lazing around. The bathrooms are dated, but this seemed minor to us in the overall scheme of things. I took a walk on Grace Bay towards some of the bigger resorts, and they appeared so crowded - I was glad we stayed at the Coral Gardens.