So by now you have seen all the pictures and videos on your timeline of all your friends having a time in Trinidad; and you want that experience too but don’t know where or how to begin planning. Well that was me for years until we decided to go for my friends birthday and I ended up taking the lead on planning. I will do my best to try and convey how I planed our trip.
First thing, picking your crew!
When picking your ‘carnival crew’ make sure everyone is ok with getting minimal sleep the entire time you are in Trinidad. The term ‘Team No Sleep’ was coined for carnival 🙂 The vibes among the crew must be high, cause not only will you be sleep deprived but you will be going from fete to fete (depending on your fete list of course). If no one from your crew is from the Caribbean, do a little research about carnival and the music so you know what to expect; and if you don’t like soca music but want to experience carnival, I suggest you start liking it because it will be playing the entire time, non stop. You can start listening to soca music now and towards the end of the year you can start looking for new releases of the songs that will be playing that year!
Purchasing tickets!
Plane tickets- plane tickets can be purchased as early as now. The earlier you can get your plane ticket the better the price. But if you aren’t ready to purchase your plane ticket now, you can wait, just don’t wait too long. I purchased my plane ticket in July because we started planning a little later on in the year, but I was still able get them at a decent price.
Fete tickets- Fete tickets are usually released around October/November up until the time of the fete if it is not sold out. It would be helpful to get a fete list together along with the release dates so that everyone is aware when they’re released and can get their tickets together. Also make sure you and your crew have their monies ready as tickets can and will sell out within minutes of it being released (it happened to me). Most fete tickets require a committee members approval before you can purchase and you are usually limited to the amount you can purchase. If you have a group more than three it would be easy to designate one or two people to purchase the tickets and venmo them. You don’t want to be chasing people down in the group to buy tickets when they’re released because there will always be one person who didn’t see the message in time and now it’s sold out.
Costumes- Bands usually launch their costumes around July/August, after band launch many people begin purchasing their costumes, and sections can sell out on launch night. So once you know what band you want to play with and what section do not delay in registering because you may go back the next day and it’s sold out. Once you have selected your costume you would need to email a committee member for a registration link, once you have the email link you will have to register within days of receiving or the link will expire. While the costume prices may not be something that you are expecting you don’t have to purchase it in full when you register, you can put a down payment and pay the remainder at costume pickup. I choose to pay in full so that I wouldn’t have to worry about thing to pay when I picked up costume.
Accommodations:
I would recommend you start looking for accommodations very early on, or as soon as you know you’re going to Trinidad Carnival. The quicker you secure accommodations the better locations you have to choose from and the better the price. Waiting too long to secure accommodations could result in you staying far away and paying a lot more than you wanted to. During carnival, hotels get booked up quickly and are double the price. If a hotel won’t work for your group, there are people who rent out their homes and rooms, and sometimes this works out to be cheaper than hotels. We decided to rent a house because it worked out to be slightly cheaper than getting two or three hotel rooms.
Getting around in Trinidad- We pre-arranged for drivers, they knew our pick up and drop off times for the airport and all the fetes we would attend. They were always on time and we didn’t have to worry about who would pick us up and what time they would arrive because they were there. If you don’t want to arrange to have drivers and you want to figure it out fete by fete, Trinidad does have ride share but I am not sure how reliable that service is. I preferred to pre-arrange the drivers because it was easier and we were able to pay for it in advance; we didn’t have to wonder what the cost would have been or if we were getting ripped off due to high demand or traffic. The drivers we used were very reliable, friendly and safe, and if you are thinking about arranging for drivers send me a message.
Packing List:
Before I began to pack I reached out to a friend who is a veteran at Trinidad carnival for tips on what to pack and how to prepare, however I was not ready for the message she was about to send. When I received the message it seemed like a book, and I found myself scrolling endlessly through the message. I started to get a little worried as my departure date was nearing and I wasn’t sure if I had everything I needed. Gel insoles, padded socks, allergy medicine and snacks. She advised to pack by the days, laying out fete outfits to after fete outfits, Epsom salt to soak, and so much more. A slight overwhelming feeling came over me as I read and reread and thought ‘this seems excessive’. So I sent her list to my group and thought it was better to be prepared then unprepared and looking for a store for the items we did not bring. Collectively we worked together and had just about everything that was on her list.
So I think I covered it all, I hope my preparation helped shed some light or gave you a good starting point.
Leave a comment and let me know if this was helpful or if you have gone, what things you did to prepare; or If you want to use the people we used.
Thank you for visiting 🙂
Takiyah Travels 