Ocean Point Resort & Spa

The hotel arranged a transfer from the airport which was $50US for four people for a ten minute journey - I would advise if you do stay here to just get a taxi at the airport as it would be cheaper. When I first arrived at the hotel I was excited by it's intimate setting right on the beach. It was a little tired but charming with it's large pool, small beach and the pirate themed bar looking over the sea. Our room was basic but functional. There was two small water bottles in the room on arrival and you are asked to refill these yourself at reception as they are not replaced. I did have an incident with the hairdryer in my room which caught fire but this was quickly replaced and I was given a bottle of sparkling wine as an apology which was a nice touch. The shower was not good and frequently there was a shortage of hot water. If I was to describe the overall feeling of this hotel I was would say it is severely held back by a lack of investment, everything is done on a shoestring and that is where the problems stem from. There is a major shortage of staff throughout the hotel. The one restaurant generally has good food but the staff are run off their feet, do long hours and most seem to work everyday, There are very limited options at the restaurant with choice between two starters and two mains at lunch and two starters, a pasta or soup and two mains at dinner. Frequently the choice was between a fish dish and a meat dish so if you don't eat one or the other there is no choice. I am not sure what vegetarians do, I assume there must be a veggie option not on the menu. Outside meal times there is no food available except for cookies behind the bar. We found out towards the end of the week that there are wraps behind the bar but this is not advertised so we didn't know and never tried one., The bar is very poor. There is normally only one bar man present, Vincent or Junior, to cover both the bar itself, pour drinks for the restaurant and also run backwards and forwards to replenish stock or glasses. There is sometimes someone helping clear dirty glasses but if there was something else happening in the kitchen the barman was left on his own. There were times when there was no bar staff present at all during the day and it was up to the customer to find someone from the restaurant to come out to serve which they were clearly not happy about which was awkward. THERE IS NO BAR MENU! The options available are very limited. There was a major shortage of stock - frequently there was no strawberry, mango or pina colada mix. During the week I was there was never any mint for mojitos, no sugar syrup for a lime daiquiri or a caparina, there was no tequila for a margarita . On the last day a bottle of tequila turned up but now there was no triple sec all of a sudden. There is one beer tap which they had a lot of problems with (I think the pipes needed cleaned). I sighted a bottle of beer on one occasion but when asked was told there was none left. Another strange thing which I clocked after a few days is there is some kind of tampering going on with the rum bottles. The better rum, English Harbour, is always kept as four bottles on the top shelf, when they run out they are returned to the kitchen and brought back full - it is clear they are being refilled with either watered down rum, a cheaper brand or both. One afternoon when the barman was missing a waitress from the kitchen asked if I could get down a bottle for her, I purposely reached to the back one and pulled the lid off myself, there was no seal on any of the bottles. When we talked to other guests about this no-one was surprised. There is no bar service on the beach or at the pool area. The Italian owners are present during most meal times but it felt like there was no-one managing this place properly. The hotel is isolated and taxi's on the island are pretty expensive. Do not believe the official rates published by the authorities as we were charged a lot more. A taxi to St John's (7/8km away) is $50US return, sharing taxi's with other guests doesn't help as they charge per person. A lick of paint, some TLC at the pool, Some more staff, better training and proper standards of service like a varied kitchen menu and an actual bar menu as well as stock to back it up and this could be a great little place. Whatever is going on with the rum bottles is dodgy and makes me think there is likely other slight of hand going on behind the scenes. With all that in mind and it's isolated location I could not recommend staying at this hotel. Read less

We're just back from 12 days in Antigua and we had a fantastic holiday. Ocean Point is lovely little hotel right by the sea and has the potential to be a fantastic place to stay if a little more effort/organisation was made. I'm a UK-based travel agent and I let the owner know this during the early part of my stay, he asked if I'd speak with the management to offer feedback/suggestions etc, but they never came to speak to me, but that's perfectly fine, I was on holiday after all. So, to my stay itself. It's a short 10 minute transfer from the airport (15USD from the taxi stall outside arrivals). You wash your hands on entry to reception and get your temperature checked (the only time this happens during your stay, though) before being allowed to enter reception for check-in. CHECK-IN : check-in was very smooth, you're given the wifi password and you're invited to check-in online, your passports are briefly taken from you and when returned you're taken out to the verandah where a member of staff points to where the pool, bar and restaurant is. Another member of staff takes your luggage to your room for you. All good here. ROOM : We stayed on the top (3rd) level and had a view of the pool and sea, the room was fairly basic, but functional. There was a large (unstocked bar 2 x 500ml water) fridge in the room and a small bathroom with WC, shower and hairdryer. Rooms were cleaned every day and towels replaced. Rooms are fairly dated and could probably do with some upgrading. POOL : the pool was very large and was kept pretty clean. They could probably do with more beds around the pool area, as when the hotel is busy, all beds had gone before 9am. Often beds were reserved with towels by people who gone to the beach or out shopping etc ,but had saved themselves a bed for later. That's quite frustrating, but seems to happen everywhere nowadays. There was a guy who ensured the whole pool area was nice and tidy at the start of each day and somebody came around regularly to clear away used drinks cups etc. BAR : Vincent was the main bar man, who seemed to be on duty most of the time, whilst Junior also worked in the evenings. These guys were great at their jobs, but were severely restricted by having too much to do. There was usually just one person behind the bar, so getting served was often a lengthy process, made worse at meal times by the restaurant waitresses bringing drinks orders to the bar for diners and expecting Vincent to pretty much give them priority. Another issue at the bar was the daily running out of stock. We had a lovely mojito on our first afternoon, but apparently we got the last of the mint, so couldn't get another. The bar then had no mint and hence no mojitos for the next 11 days of our stay. Every afternoon by 4pm, you could pretty much guarantee there was no coconut cream (for Pina Colada) or mango/strawberry (for Daiquiris) and the bar man found this just as frustrating as we did as he tried to juggle serving the bar, serving the waitresses, restocking the bar and collecting empties from the tables. Just to repeat, Vincent was fantastic, but needed extra help and more stock. RESTAURANT : The food at Ocean Point was really, really good, but unlike the bar, the service was very patchy. Some days it was good, some days it bordered on terrible. Breakfast was the same everyday, a choice of a cooked breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage, tomato, plantain, toast) or a continental breakfast. The continental consisted of five elements.. 1. a bowl of fruit salad accompanied by passion fruit and dragon fruit 2. a yogurt 3. a bowl of cereal with granola 4. some biscuits and a cupcake 5. a plate of salami and cheese with toast Getting all five elements of the continental was hit and miss, somedays you'd get 2 to 4 and have to chase up the others. Some days you got all five brought together to the table and there was no consistency at all, which pretty much sums up the whole restaurant service. Lunch was a choice of two starters (usually salads) and a choice of two mains. Dessert was always vanilla ice cream or rum/raisin ice cream. Dinner was a choice of four starters (one was always a soup) and two mains again followed by a choice of two (usually cake-based) desserts. All the food we had was really good, but we'd expected more of an Italian influence, yet Italian main dishes were very rarely seen, but I did have a great Chicken lasagne starter cooked by one of the young trainee chefs. Whilst it was a lack of stock that lets the bar down, it's the serve that lets the restaurant down. There's a general lack of urgency to deal with clients and staff are more than happy to shout/argue with each other in front of diners. The chief waitress appears to be a lady called Debbie, who is an absolute credit to the hotel, she was brilliant and did her best to keep things on an even keel. You could certainly tell the difference when she wasn't around! Aside from playing the daily continental breakfast lottery, there were several times we were just left sitting at a table without being offered a drink or having plates cleared away. One day we were informed that they had no table for us and we were to sit in the bar until called and they forgot about us. Another time, they brought my meal out and said my wife's was on its way, but it never arrived. I'd finished mine to stop it going cold and it was after I'd eaten that they finally brought hers out. There were plenty of staff around, but a seeming lack of organisation, nobody seemed to know what the others were doing, nobody seemed to know what had ordered and who hadn't, instead of having one server looking after you the whole time you were there, someone would bring the menu, someone else brought water, someone asked if you wanted drinks from the bar, then someone came to take your order, someone brought your food etc etc. If one server looked after a section of tables the whole process would be far more efficient. In short great food, poor service, unless you got lucky and Debbie or Tayauna was looking after you. If you've reached the end of this lengthy review, well done! Hopefully, it gives a balanced view of my stay. All the issues we encountered could be solved at no cost to the hotel, it just needs more organisation/attention to detail. Read less

Cute Mediterranean style low rise hotel on the beach and close to the airport. Two little beaches on the property with good swimming and a great pool which was huge. Pretty common areas with lots of flowers and friendly staff. My room was on the ground floor and was a little dark but that didn't matter as it kept it cool. Looked out over the pool and gardens which was great. Restaurant is great with a different menu each night and the beach bar looks out over the water so it's a great place to have a cocktail in the evening. There is only one restaurant and bar and not much else nearby. It was a lovely venue and the team is great - special shout out to Tara for helping to sort my booking. I was only there for 4 days and I'd reached my max. But it's a lovely venue and super island. Read less

Read the full review here: wallpaperandwine.com We were staying at Ocean Point Resort & Spa in the Hodges Bay area. We had chosen this hotel for a few reasons: It was adult only, it was close to the airport, it was “cheap”, it was all inclusive, they could arrange our return tests and it looked pretty. It’s a 3 star resort and it shows, it’s not shiny or swanky, but it is clean and very welcoming. Ocean Point is owned by Italians and has a very Medditearnean feel, at times you didn’t know if you were in Sorrento or Antigua. The hotel had arranged a taxi service to pick us up from the airport, and due to my bloated post flight belly an airport attendant presumed I was “expecting” and fast tracked us through immagration, so we had collected our luggage and were out the other side within 30 minutes of landing. Not great for my self esteem considering I was going to spend the next week in a bikini, but also if my pot belly got us out of the airport sooner, result. On arrival at the hotel we had our temperature checked, had to check in online and wash/sanitise our hands. Once we were all checked in we were shown to our room with the obligatory arrivals rum punch. Warning, that shizz is lethal. It tastes like juice, is sweet and cold and your body is going through a state of shock as it’s about 30 degrees (celcius) so you down your first one (and second and third) but wow it has some seriously strong rum in it. We whipped on our swimming gear and legged it to the beach, carried on drinking rum and had to go to bed a few hours later as we royally over did it and both passed out. Go hard or go home hey? Antigua is 5 hours behind, so by the time we went to bed at 6pm we had been awake and drinking for 16 hours straight… The rest of the week passed in a blur of pool, beach, swimming, drinking, eating and sleeping. I’ve never slept so much on a holiday, I think the complete change of pace was much harder to adjust to after having spent only 4 nights away from the house in the past 450 days, to suddenly be half way across the world was hard to get used to. Obviously we got over the jet lag and hit our stride a couple of days before we had to go home! The room: I was annoyed for approximately 0.3 seconds as we had paid extra to BA for what they described as “an ocean view room that opens up directly onto the beach”. So I thought we would be on the ground floor, and the room would, as described, open onto the beach. In fact we were on the third floor with beach and pool views. So, not as described but when your three rum punches down, and sat on the balcony which looks out onto the Caribbean Sea it’s very hard to stay annoyed for long. We had an end room which had a window overlooking the pool and balcony doors overlooking the beach. The bed was big and comfortable, an actual king size mattress rather than two smaller beds rammed together. There was a TV which we didn’t turn on, a dressing table, a safe, a gigantic fridge, air con and lots of clothes storage. The bathroom didn’t have a window and had a really loud fan but the shower was fine, if not luxurious. There were two small bottles of water in the fridge, and shampoo, conditioner, body wash, shower cap and body lotion in the bathroom. There isn’t a kettle in the room, which is quite annoying. There is a coffee machine in the lobby which is free to use, but quite inconvenient. The Pool: The pool is huge, and from the looks of some recent decking/seating area used to be even bigger. It’s not filthy but it’s not sparkling clean, quite a few missing tiles, botched repairs etc. It also seemed to attract hermit crabby things, as we saw a few of them getting in (they are the size of my little finger nail). But the water is cool and there are plenty of really comfortable sun loungers! It’s no deeper than five feet, and there are some areas where it’s two foot, so perfect for wallowing. Food & Drink - The food is *random* Continued on wallpaperandwine.com Read less

We have just spent 12 nights in this lovely resort. All staff are super professional, smiling and happy to assist you at all times. The owner Elena definitely leads by example, which is followed by an outstanding General Manager Franklin. From staff I need to mention Nick from reception, who will always find a solution should you have any questions or queries. If you fancy a massage, Belinda is very experienced, thankfully fixed my damaged tennis shoulder. The girls in the restaurant will make your day, even if it would rain, Debbie, Kerry, Deisy and Junior or Vincent from the bar will mix you up whatever drink you are after.I have chosen to mention these wonderful people by name as I believe that people make places not the other way around. The Karaoke or DJ nights and live music were unforgettable. The food wasn’t just food, it was an experience, that attention to detail and taste, there is only one word for it “phenomenal”. Huge thank you to the kitchen staff and also to their Italian chef Mauro. We would go back just for the food. If you are after relax, you will definitely find it by either the pool or beach area. You will of course do excursions outside of the hotel (I recommend visiting Dickenson Bay) but at the end of the day, when you return back to your hotel, it will be like returning home, as that’s the impression and feeling this resort will give you. Every single person in this hotel, from the maintenance staff to the owner, is a professional and lovely person. We not only recommend this hotel but will definitely return. Thank you Ocean Point :-) Milan and Angelica Read less