St. James's Club, Antigua

I just returned from this hotel and here are my takes on it: Please know before reading this review that I truly love The Caribbean and have travelled extensively around it. I"m also not an overly critical person but I do value good service and a well run hotel property. The positives are the activities/drinks that are available: Sailing, Pickle Ball, Tennis, Kids Club, PaddleBoarding, Gym to name a few. Here are the negatives: The pools are dirty and not cleaned. There was algae build up on the sides and lots of dirt on the bottom. Straws, and toys, from the night before lined the bottom. I like to swim laps every morning so this was quite disappointing to me. There are two beaches to swim at but the one beach is overridden with sea grass and not pleasant to swim at or even to walk on. This is due to the piles of sea grass on the beach and floating in the water. They try to shovel it up each morning but there is just too much of it. As for the rooms: These are cleaned every two days and you get 2 towels to last you between the cleans. The in room "mini bars" are completely empty and you are not even given water bottles in your room. There is "NO" room service or food available in the rooms. I had to have maintenance come 3 times - once to have my broken safe opened and twice to have my AC fixed. It's tiring to constantly have to ask them to fix things while on vacation. My travelling companion likened our stay to "being at school - where you were always on guard with your teachers". Not an idyllic way to spend your vacation time. The staff here are generally unfriendly and quite unprofessional - save for a few gems that they need to promote and recognize. They're certainly more interested in fellow staff interactions then with any of the guests needs. I'm not sure where the general manager was, but he/she needs to be more available and perhaps make themselves present around the hotel. The blame for untrained staff lands on them. As for the food: The positive is the coffee bar where you can get a coffee made to order. The coffee bar also has a few small items available to eat: Banana bread and cookies that are grab and go. This is the only place to get anything to eat without having to sit down to eat. The coffee bars downside is that it often has an "on break sign" during the morning. You are required to wait for the attendant to return. Again, where is management on this? It's not rocket science to have a backup attendant during the hours from 6 am- noon when most people will be coming to get coffee. Re Food: Every meal requires you to sit down and wait for service except of course for the buffets which are mass produced and offer cheap fairings. I opted to pay the upcharge of $75 USD to go to the Piccolo Italian restaurant one evening. The waitress came to take my order and both the items I ordered from the menu were "unavailable". I asked for The Lobster and the Beet carpaccio and was told they were sold out. The tables around me had them but I had somehow missed the opportunity. I went to the front desk the next day to inquire about this and was told I could get a 10 percent refund off my dinner bill. So insulting, but I genuinely smiled and walked away nicely pondering yet another Management issue..... As for the other restaurants: The menus sound wonderful until you order your appetizer. Let's say you decide to order The Shrimp cocktail as your appetizer: ..well be prepared because it consists of 1 lonely shrimp and a little sauce!!! I kid you not....The portion sizes are small and the offerings are to make the hotel money not to please the guests. My final thoughts are about my departure: My departure notes were incorrect, as was my pick up time. I had to spend my last vacation time correcting this and ensuring that my pre booked private transfer was aware of the right and correct time for our departure. When it came time to leave I was forced to pull my luggage up a big hill in 90 degree weather. Please consider this if you have any health issues as the incline is quite steep. Please also note: There is no late check out and the front desk is NOT amenable to any requests for this. In summary: Until the non existent management staff turns over and the hotel makes some significant and notably positive guest experience revisions, I suggest you spend your hard earned travel dollars elsewhere. The cons far outweigh the pros when thinking about a vacation at The St. James Club Antigua. Read less

Positive: beautiful grounds, average food, very nice views and lots to do. negative: needs lots of updating, lots of hills to walk. Rooms needs lots of updating, our first room toilet overflowed, it smelled and we got moved after complaining. The manager did act fast and was very nice, but it def should never have been an issue and last thing I wanted to deal with, had to repack with 2 toddlers. We got moved to new room, that smelled horrible, was old rusted. I know you are not in the room a lot but at least you want it decent, I didn’t even want my kids without shoes on in the room as their feet would get black. Food was ok, not many options . Even things listed on buffet menu were not always there. I was told to ask, asked if kids can have French fries and chicken nuggets. Was informed they will do fries but not chicken nuggets as there is chicken already out (no my 3 year old doesn’t want sweet and sour chicken). Some staff are very nice and some look miserable, towels don’t get changed daily so have to reuse wet dirty towels from day before. Antigua is beautiful, grounds are stunning and if they put in work in resort and restaurants would be a great place. We will not be returning there. Read less

The location is absolutely stunning, the holiday was great. I would suggest the star rating be dropped. The hotel was lovely if not a bit tired. The beaches amazing. The major thing that let this place down was the staff. Only 2 of the staff we met were lovely. All other staff unfortunately gave the impression they didn’t want to be there, we felt like an inconvenience. We went with people who had been to the resort many times and they felt like they had to apologise to us about how things were and said previously it has been amazing. We still had a lovely time. If the staff smiled more it would be a start. Amy in the restaurants was amazing unfortunately I can’t remember the other lady’s name ( she was part of the activity team) Read less

St James club resort met all expectations a minor couple of tweaks but overall would recommend. Positives: The rooms are lovely, really big comfortable bed, we had a beautiful view over coco beach. Room was very clean on arrival, nice to have a big bathroom with a double sink, nice to have a bath as well. Balcony was a good size as well. We mainly ate in Docksider which has lovely views over the beach (Mamora) good options for breakfast lunch and dinner. Had one meal (lunch) at 11-11 which was really lovely and we wished we had gone there sooner. The staff are honestly so friendly nothing was too much trouble. Although this is a big resort never felt cramped as all spaced out. The mamora beach is so so pretty with two bars nearby too. The on site cafe was really nice could pick up ice coffee to take away and snacks too. You can use all of the non motorised water sports this meant you can even use the snorkels and flippers and take them off site. The sailing cats as well. There is on site car hire which is really organised and the guy who runs it is just lovely! Taxis on site and so easy to organise. On site gym and full shower etc meant we could have a final beach day and fully freshen up before journey home. The on site tour operator was great and organised a helicopter flight over to the volcano on monserrat which is a must do! Couple of minor things to improve/note Reception staff are friendly on arrival but a lot of information to take in, in terms of restaurants etc ok you can do the greeting meeting but not big on those if I’m honest. It was a shame on the few occasions we asked to get cash there was none available with lack of atms on the island and the big cash preference this wasn’t great and made for an awkward moment with one taxi driver who was very understanding! Found reception staff a little hit and miss a few very friendly and a couple not so much! Unable to get any food other than cakes at any time after 11pm. Some of the nicer bars do close quite early like the one by the main pool it might be nice to have a few more options as in general the atmosphere is on the quieter side post 10/11pm. There is an on site bar/club which is inside but found the vibe a little funny somehow as quite empty so preferred to go out. We sadly weren’t overly impressed with Picolo mondo it’s really pretty but food we didn’t feel was worth the surcharge. Coco beach is pretty but full of seaweed so didn’t really go on there and sadly as we overlooked that often woken quite early to sound of tractors clearing seaweed. One last thing the gift shop is just a complete and utter rip off about four times price! All in all we loved our stay and good far outweighed the bad we would definitely return. Make sure to go up to Shirley heights especially on the Sunday night which is busier. Go over to English harbour for drinks, go to half moon bay and go for food at beach bums! Read less

Antigua is beautiful and the hotel had so much potential but it let itself down with the unhelpful and at times rude staff! The buffet had a good selection of themed nights and the food was good but at the 11-eleven restaurant we had to wait an hour and a half for a table as we were a group of 8 and they struggled to accommodate this number of people! The other restaurants were only open on particular nights and the booking system was flawed! Activities were advertised but never happened! Read less