Stayed at the Jolly Beach from 15 Dec 06 to 5 Jan 07. Booked with Virgin - flew BMI out of Manchester. Flight okay - only flew economy - no better/no worse than any other.

We are 36 and 46 years old and have travelled to North, South & East Dominican Republic (8 times) staying in 3*, 4* and 5* accomodation, Bahamas Paradise Island (Riu) 4*, Barbados 3+*, Cozumel 4+*, Playcar Mexcio (Riu) 4*.

Have been away for Christmas and New Year in DR for the last 4 years so thought we'd spend a little bit more money for the time of year and head to Antigua.

Had read the reviews and thought we knew what to expect of a 3+* accomodation in Antigua - had to be as good as 3* North Coast DR surely !! Certainly cost a lot more money.

We are the type of people who believe you make you're own holiday - you take what you're given and make the best from it. We have stayed in 3 and 5 star accomodation All Inc. and have had great holidays in both - we couldn't do that at the Jolly Beach.

In summary, this hotel, in our opinion, had one fundamental problem, it didn't cater for all of it's guests needs, only for those with young children, of which there were not that many !!

The daytime was fine - beach was just perfect - even the hawkers on the beach were good fun !! Plenty of trips to choose from to get out and about and see the rest of the island.

The evening's in the hotel where a wash-out and after trying very hard - there was nothing we could do to change that !! ...... and if you think the management of the resort are bothered - we spoke to them (don't usually feel the need to do this) - think again - they are not interested in whether the guests are enjoying themselves. If you go to bed early because of boredom - fine by them. I guess it costs the hotel a lot less money in staffing and drinks.

We spoke to many of the staff at the hotel and they know there are fundamental issues at this hotel but the management won't listen to them either. It's a shame becuase this hotel could be a four star instead of a three star if they just spent a little more money in the right areas and listened to what the guests would like.

Would go back to Antigua in a shot, beautiful island and great people - but unfortunely not to the Jolly Beach unless they have a change of ownership. Whilst it remains under the present ownership, which we were told by a member of staff, is a financial institution - in our opinion it will just get worse.

All in all - we paid a lot of money to come visit this hotel and feel we could have spent a lot less and got better value for money in the DR, or spent the same amount of money and got better value for money in Mexico, Barbados or Bahamas.

We have booked 3 weeks at the Riu Ocho Rios in Jamaica next Christmas and New Year - won't let our experience at Jolly Beach put us off !!
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Airport - 1 hour 50 mins in very crowded airport terminal to clear imigration - taking approx 10 mins per family (don't know why because they only actually asked one question (when are your leaving) and look at pre completed forms before stamping docuemntation). No Air Conditioning , one toilet and no facilities to buy cold drinks during this time - kids were fainting !!

Luggage: all over the floor and mixed with other flights making it very difficult to find when you finally got through immigration.

Customs: spent a further 15 minutes queueing here.

Finally got outside - airport grounds are beautiful. Virgin Rep got a taxi to Jolly Beach - Taxi Driver was great - never stopped talking the whole way there - really informative and really friendly -started to feel a whole lot better.

Check-in at the hotel went smoothly and reception staff where very friendly - as transfers are by taxi no big queues when you get to the hotel.

Rooms - We booked a standard room and it was a expected adequate for our needs - great size bed, everything worked - found a place to store eveything eventually (wouldn't want to guess what the Supersaver rooms are like !!). Nice view from the balcony. Could see the sea whilst lieing in bed. Bit on the small side - just meant you needed to be tidy.

Bathroom - Very small sink area and shower cubicle was tiny, however the water pressure and hot water was great for the whole of our stay. Plug in sink didn't work - rang Maintenance - came and replaced within the hour. Light stopped working - again rang maintenance and it was working when we came back to the room - Great service

House-keeping - Room was tied and clean towels left every day but one (in 21 day stay), sheets where change regularly. Good service.

Restaurants - Hemispheres Buffet - good breakfasts, easier to help yourself to drinks rather than wait for service (which we prefer anyway).

Lunch menu reasonably varied.

Evening meal - not enough choice and very hard to put a meal together most nights. Very disappointing. Overall the quality of the food was good though.

The queueing to get in is untrue - there are empty tables and guests queueing for up to 15 minutes to be seated at them because they don't have enough staff to get them cleared - the staff they do have, although very friendly, don't have alot about them when it comes to speed and efficiency.

Indian Restaurant - Excellent Service (especially from Maureen). Small Menu but enough choice. Food was excellent.

Lydia's - Excellant ambience - great location. Brilliant bar (just what was needed in the hotel elsewhere. Small menu and extortionate rates for T Bone Steak (which is really all I bokked the restaurant for). This was supposed to be supplemented but they still charged 30US. (The steakhouse on the harbour at Jolly Beach only charged 70EC for a full T Bone Seak Meal !!).

Only went once for that reason, prefered to go to the Harbour and pay less there.

Italian - didn't bother - figured we'd probably get turned away 'cos we had the wrong style of dress, shirt or shoes on, even when dressed up !!

Daytime Entertainment - There was entertainment, however the kids seemed to have their entertainment and then they joined in the Adults entertainment - making it impossible for adults to have a good game or football, cricket, rugby, baseball, pool volleyball etc.

Need to keep the kids seperate in a Kids Club and let the adults enjoy some of the activities too!!

Pool Bar - didn't use too often as the soft drinks during the day where help yourself, which is a really good idea. Whenever we did use the bar the staff seemed friendly enough and the service was pretty quick.

Pool Grill - The usual grill foods - sometimes well cooked - sometimes very under cooked - you needed to check before you ate. When the hotel was particularly busy expect to get in line at leats 15 minutes.

Pool: Great looking pool but we didn't use it as we are beach people - and with a beach like that why bother with the pool !

Evening Entertainment - Deplorable - never witnessed anything like it (and unfortunately as the only bar in the whole hotel open on an evening was the entertainment area - you just couldn't get away from it - and believe me we tried).

It was the same thing every evening - singers who, outside of Antigua, wouldn't have got away with calling themselves singers (except Junior- who was pretty good but only got up once), local choirs who couldn't sing - but they did do there best and occasionally a show by the entertainment staff - who again did their best, however this was just not good enough.

I know we where there for 21 nights - but we didn't want to stay in the hotel on an evening after 5 nights.

By the beginnning of the second week we where going off the complex to Dog Watch bar on the harbour and spending a couple of hours there each night just to get away from the entertainment and terrible bar area.

We also went in the Casino and Sports Bar just to be able to sit and relax at a bar with background music and adult conversation. Unfortunately this cost money - which after having paid for quite an expensive all inclusive holiday - was a little annoying as we only wanted a quieter - more adult bar to sit at the hotel in an evening with like minded people for good conversation. Having spoken to a lot of the guests many of them felt this way (and on some evenings half of the hotel guests could be found in Dogwatch or the Casino) - most ended up going to bed early every evening.

The staff in an evening at the Hemisphere's Bar were the only good thing about the nights - especially Dwaine and Janice - they were brilliant !!

Chrismas Eve and New Years Eve - No Gala Meal's - couldn't believe it.

The hotel made absolutely no effort to make these evening's any different in the restaurant from any other night other than decorations on the table and hats for the guests on New Year's Eve - the entertainment team spent a lot of time on the decoration's that day - so any credit should be given to them.

As I mentioned we have been away at this time of year for 5 years now and this is the only hotel with no Gala Meal's - even the 3 star's in DR make an extreme effort with the Entertainment and Meals on Christmas and New Year Eve - and in my opinion have always done a really good job of it .

The main objective of the Hotel Management at Jolly Beach on New Years Eve was to sell guests a bottle of mediocre champagne at 70US per bottle (which you could buy for half the price at the supermarket on the harbour) very dissapointing !!

If you blinked you missed the fireworks which the staff and management had been telling us about the up to 3 days prior to the event !

My significant other and I chose JBR for 4 days of R&R from Dec 27 to 30 2006. In addition to the beach, a big reason for staying at JBR was the purported selling point of 5 restaurants. For completeness, it should be advertised as well that "certain conditions apply". Note the following with their restaurants:
1) of the 5, only 1 offers 3 daily meals and that's the main buffet style dining hall;
2) 1 is a beach grill that closes at 5;
3) Of the other 3, which are the main attractions, only 2 are open per night. And only for dinner (Lydia's seafood has a brunch on sundays);
4) Reservations are required for each of these 3 restaurants which are done each day between 9.30 & 12 and 2.30 & 4 by phone or by visiting Utsav restaurant. Only 2 nights can be booked at a time;
5) if adult males don't pack dress pants, a collared shirt and dress shoes, they won't be allowed into the Italian restaurant, Bocciolo's. Even though you may have on dressy dark denim and all else required, you won't get in - this dress code is bogus when you consider that Bocciolo's noisy ambience and seating and serving arrangements are akin to a TGI's. The rigidity of the staff here and their inability to apply discretion soured our visit to JBR and left us feeling that we didn't get value for money. It seemed that the staff are employing all means possible to reduce the clientele they would have to serve thereby reducing the work they would have to do!!

I never book an hotel without checking Trip Adviser first. After reading the reviews you have to weight up everyones personal choices and see if you are willing to chance any of their problems occurring again during your holiday. As we only had a week we thought we'd risk the bad food and go to the Jolly Beach!!

Here are our thoughts!

Restaurants - I would not give any of them house room, OK I am spoilt as my Husband is a chef and sometimes I feel like Phoebe in Friends when she is dating the Environmental Health Officer but on this occassion Hubby was right - sorry probably only Friends fans will get that one!!
The Indian and the Italian are awful they are trying too hard and not getting anything right - we didn't even bother with Lydias good sea food is not hard to find in our own country!!

Yes there is a dress code - isn't it nice to get on the glad rags and make an effort, sadly not everyone did . The night we were in the Italian anything went and no one was bothering so why have a dresscode and not stick to it. And to make things worse our meal was shared with the family at the next table taking turn with a young child who I think would have preferred to be in bed. Would he have been taken our at 10pm in this country I wonder. Instead of trying to have posh nosh why not think about having an adults only restaurant where you can go to the salad bar without climbing over baby buggies.

The food in the main buffet restaurant was disgusting. Nuff said.

We all know about the slow pace of the West Indies but the Coconut Grill is a joke - who wants to spend 40 minutes standing in a queue for a half cooked burger. The laugh was there were three of them behind the grill and the right hand didn't know what the left hand was doing. Mind you it is a lovely way to meet folk you have so long to wait your whole life story could be told. One poor woman was asked to bring her children to the Grill as she she had asked for 4 meals, ( her, her Hubby and two children) and prove to the chef (I use the title loosely) that she had kids and was not giving the meals to the beach vendors.

Room - Basic but clean, leaking air con, Polly our cleaner said they all do that! Walls are so thin we could hear the guy in the next room doing the loo during the night - Joy!!. The up graded rooms are beautiful.

View - Died and gone to heaven!! The sea is breathtaking the colour is magical

Staff - Stand offish especially the women who have a very stuck up manner. The girls at reception are so up themselves it is actually quite funny to watch them looking down their noses at customers who are asking for there help. Not so when it is your turn tho!!

Entertainment - Chronic unless you want to listen to songs that the verse seems to go on for 20 minutes one that you have no idea what they are singing about, or hows about a steel band, or listen to some other holiday maker singing ......X Factor not!!

The Secret - If you do thing this review is not fair and have a wander off to the Jolly Beach, heres two things to remeber. If you go into St Johns ask to go to Hemmingways, food is great. Also if you have a wander across to the Jolly Harbour which is lovely have a wander round the supermarket the deli counter is gorgeous. OK that maybe sounds too much home from home, but if you have kids who want to choice an ice cream instead of the one choice of pistachio in the hotel, what a way to get a gold star. By the way they also have Walkers crisps!!

Anyway Happy Holiday - we would go back but would take a time share. I'm not going to mention the state of the airport I'll leave you to find that one out by yourself

This was an amazing resort, the food was out of this world, the staff were excellent and the whole experience was excellent value for money.

the resort is beautiful, well maintained and in an excellent location. The rooms are basic but comfortable and have all the necessary amenities.

We could have no complaints and would recommend this to anyone looking for an all inclusive holiday with real value for money!!