Cocobay

We had 10 nights here in march, but only just getting to do my review! We thoroughly enjoyed our stay. We stayed in cottage Nevis 2, which was at top of hill therefore giving excellent views across the bay to church valley beach. The room had a separate seating area as you came in front door. We didn’t really use this though as there was no air con in there and you couldn’t really leave doors open as the little birdies would come in to steal the sugar! You the walked past the plunge pool to get to the bedroom. There are 2 sunloungers on the deck by the pool and it was so relaxing to sit and watch over the bay. Our huge bed was extremely comfortable. The wardrobe was behind the bed, it would have been nice to have some more hanging space and drawers. The bathroom was massive with two sinks, shower gel, shampoo and conditioner. There is also a hairdryer which is fine if you have short hair as I do, but if you have long hair you may want to take your own as you could be trying to dry your hair for hours! All meals, breakfast lunch and dinner are served a la carte, and the menu has 2 or 3 choices per the 3 courses. Everyday the breakfast has a special of the day as well as normal menu. There are cereals and pastries, fruit and yoghurts and cooked eggs & bacon etc. The food is excellent quality and very well presented. The menus were not always to our taste but after a quick conversation with Jermaine we were assured that we could ask for something else, nothing was too much trouble. We mostly enjoyed having toasted sandwiches at lunch instead of 3 courses. The hotel has 2 pools both have service from the bar. If you want a bed by the main pool you have to be pretty quick in the mornings, but the beach beds are easier to get throughout the day. The beach is lovely and also has bar service which is a bit hit & miss. There are 2 other beaches which you can walk to they are also beautiful. There is also a great coffee shop which doubles as a souvenir shop. You can get various home baked cakes and cookies here. There is a lovely area out the back where you can sit and drink your coffee whilst looking out over the bay. To sum up, the staff are amazing,friendly and helpful. I would not class the resort as luxury and it could definitely do with a spruce up in places. However it is comfortable and clean, and situated in well maintained gardens overlooking a beautiful beach. We would come back. Read less

We spend April 11-18 at Cocobay and truly enjoyed it. The one thing that truly sets this resort apart is the customer service. Every person from the groundskeepers to housekeeping to the front desk, beach staff, bartenders, waiters and water sports staff bend over backwards to be kind and outgoing. Not once can I think of any employee there failing to say hello. We stayed in the Nevis building as part of the Silver Sand package. Upon arrival we got a full tour of the premises and of our room. The rooms are air-conditioned by a split system and we had our set at 16 degrees C (about 60 degrees F) and it was all it could do to keep the room cool. The rooms are older but incredibly comfortable. Ours sat atop a hill so we had a great view. The room came with a lovely front veranda with some chairs, a hammock and our own plunge pool which I highly recommend. We also booked a romance package which included a massage, “exclusive dinner” and in room sushi boat dining one afternoon. The sushi boat got dropped into the pool and took some damage but was still good. The cliff side dinner was a bust due to rain. We were rescheduled one night and the following night left hanging without anyone telling us was was going on for more than 35 minutes waiting for our table that never happened. We decided to just have our dinner at the restaurant which was still good but lacked the ambiance. We spent most of our time on the property. Breakfast daily was pretty much the same options daily with one “special” each day. I spoke with another couple wh had been there five years and and told tales of a breakfast buffet with omelette station and pancake station which certainly sounded better. For lunch we either at at the main restaurant to had a panini from the lower pool or on the beach. The lower pool is lesser known than the main pool and is route to the beach. The young lady behind the bar there is an amazing drink maker and panini chef and once we found her lunch at the restaurant faded into the distance. The beach staff was very attentive about bringing drinks and lunch if you’d like. We did the nightly dinner at the restaurant with the exception of one night eating at Sheer Rocks which was well worth it It’s a separate venue but they can make reservations for you at the front desk. My wife had just undergone neck surgery about 6 weeks prior to our trip so we didn’t book any excursions but some of the friends we made along the way booked boat trips, private island tours and personal watercraft through the hotel that were very personalized and for which they were highly complimentary. I wish there had been an option to book a room with television but we made do without. There was barely enough in room internet to stream from our home satellite network and DVR. As is typical of all inclusive hotels the bar’s liquor and wine is made up of brands you’ve never heard of with the exception of the odd bottle of Jim Beam. Any time we wanted a little more in the drinks it was freely given. Overall we’d give it a 9 out of 10, falling short only on the room AC (which I could never imagine keeping up the cool in the hotter months) and the limited menu at breakfast. It is supposed to be adults only be we saw a few kids less than 10 roaming around - which was weird. Some employees who really stood out were Jermaine and Denise at the restaurant; Denise, Mel S, D’Wanica and Shenika at the restaurant wait staff, Jess at the front desk; Mr. Gore who is everywhere and finally at the lower pool and beach “Miss V (I can’t recall her whole name) behind the bar and both of the guys on the beach, Kirk and J (whose who name I cannot recall) who never left you needed another drink. Read less

This was our 3rd visit to our beloved Cocobay, & our 6th to Antigua. Having been absent for several years due to Covid we were really looking forward to it. However this time we were disappointed from the start. Having written to the hotel to express a wish to have a good view of 'the Sleeping Indian' hills which border Valley Church Bay we were shown to a room where the view was obscured by overgrown shrubbery. With immaculately tended gardens elsewhere this is something which the management has obviously overlooked. It was however attended to upon our request within a few days, but why was our request so unheeded? The resort has an enviable position with stunning beaches and views & friendly staff (up to a point, but more of that later). However the rooms are only wooden shacks with corrugated iron roofs, so bear in mind that if it rains hard in the night the sound is deafening. We like the rusticity of it as opposed to the more standardised hotels. However the 'bathroom', which had had a face lift of a coat of paint since our last stay, is really only a wet room as there is no room for a screen around the shower. Bear in mind that you need to shut doors & windows as soon as the sun goes down, around 6.30pm, to keep the mosquitoes out (I recommend you take a can of fly spray, I got 13 on the first night!) The rooms facing Valley Church Bay largely have a plunge pool alongside, several have had them added since our last visit, for which you are charged an additional £1,000 per week. Ours was in need of attention as it had several patches where the paint had come off (see photos). If you opt for a garden view room you will be on the other side of the hill (largely), where the government of Antigua have an established water osmosis plant which makes a constant noise when it is in use, day & night. I mentioned that the staff are very friendly, but I had occasion to ask at reception if anyone could get me some glue as one of my sandals had broken early on in the holiday. I was given a resounding NO! Not a 'we'll see what we can do to help'. Not good guest relations. However, our biggest disappointment was the food. OK we are self confessed 'foodies', but so are a lot of people. There is no option to half board or B&B so that you can eat out at the many good restaurants the island has to offer. Indeed Sheer Rocks restaurant is right underneath Cocobay's own restaurant, but is quite expensive at about £80 a head without wine, so unless you are prepared to pay the full board (all inclusive) and still pay to eat out there is no alternative. The quality of the food & drink has deteriorated. The menus very clearly watch the 'bottom line' and the portions are small. OK it is a 4 course evening meal & you will not starve, but the food was of poor quality, albeit prettily presented. A shrimp salad course consisted of 5 shrimp (I do mean the tiny ones!), a prawn salad was graced with ONE king prawn cut into tiny pieces! You can pay an extra $28 for 6 butterflied king prawns or a New York strip loin steak but they are the only alternatives. There were very few Caribbean dishes on offer (about 2: a rum based beef casserole in the evening and a chop-up (green veg) for breakfast), as the menus were mostly influenced by pan-Asian/Japanese. In addition, the breakfast & lunch time buffet has been done away with since Covid which meant that we were trapped for 1 hour minimum for breakfast & lunch & 1 1/2 hours at evening meals because of the painfully slow service. Also the lunch buffet meant that fish & meat was freshly cooked in front of you, not served dried out from waiting under a heat lamp as was the case for our evening meals. I have to mention here the Cajun Crab Cake which I made the mistake of ordering. It tasted of neither crab nor cajun spices, but was a mush of something brown, mostly carbohydrate & flavourless. I noticed others leaving theirs also. As for the deserts, they were mostly something & nothing & generally of cake origin. Tiramisu is a favourite of mine so I was disappointed to find the sponge was rubbery & wasn't soaked in either coffee or liqueur, but a lime cheesecake was very nice. Other than that there is always ice cream on offer, but whoever heard of putting grapenuts in icecream????? Maybe someone thought grapenuts were a fruit, not a breakfast cereal akin to Albran! The wines too were hugely disappointing as they were of a poorer quality than they used to be (my husband used to have a wine business so he does know). Again you can purchase outrageously overpriced wine if you so choose. I was particularly disappointed with the lower quality sparkling wine as it was something I enjoyed on previous visits. Yes, it is French in origin (according to the labels) & euphemistically called Champagne by the staff. It's pretty tasteless. If you can't afford to offer something halfway decent (as they do at the St. James' Club) drop it & serve Prosecco instead. The labelled spirits on offer are all the least expensive ones in the local supermarket at Jolly Harbour. Sadly I have to say that, despite it's good points: position, nice grounds, beaches, comfy beds & fluffy towels, it did not live up to our expectations from our previous visits and I would venture to suggest that it is now only a 3* establishment from its previous 4* and with all the advantages it has it has the ability to achieve far more. Read less