I think when people put these reviews on they should specify St James Club or Beach Club as I believe the two are very different expereinces and now I have been, I can seperate the two sets of reviews. We were so worried with some that we considered transferring resorts but so glad we stayed all Inclusive at St James Club as it was excellent.

The resort was fantastic for us and our children and we all really enjoyed it, our children (3 & 7) even rated it the same as or better than Disney!!

On arrival we were greeted with quick, friendly, efficient, happy service which did not change from any of the staff all holiday. We were given room 133 and we had a fantastic view of the beach and we did not hear any noise for the whole two weeks. However, as the beach club is wood not concrete I can see how this may differ but not a problem if staying at St James.

Rooms were cleaned daily and only once had to ask for more towels, so no problems at all.

The food at all the restaurants was fantastic (only did Cocos for two nights)and I can highly recommend the lobster and king scrimp. The house wine and champagne are not the cheap stuff and are very drinkable along with the rum punch, cocktails etc etc
Can recommend the Docksider sitting by the water watching the fish and crabs playing whilst you eat you dinner.

Drinks can also be obtained from the beach cart and two beach bars on the Mamora side and Cocos on the Atlantic side. All of which are widely and readiliy available.

We visited the mamora beach most days as it was great for the children, lots of shade and plenty to do. The sea is warm and clear and you can see a lot of fish including star fish. The beach is very clean and is never packed and you can get a choice of sun beds at whatever time of day you get there.

We also visited the children pool quite a lot and on many occassions were the only people in there.

Can recommend chartering the Ivy boat for the day, details availble from the hotel, as a great day out and very reasonable.

Really have not got a bad word to say about the place as we loved Antingua and St James and will definatly be going back.

We chose to go to St James Club for our first family holiday, and we were not dissapointed. We booked a 2 bed villa for a month which was wonderful. Very big, overlooking Mamora Bay, we were at the top of the hill and could see all the way out to the atlantic ocean.

Beaches:- we tended to spend all our time at the bay beach as our daughter found the waves a bit too much on the Atlantic side. The bay was fantastic , only cloudy a few days, but very safe for little ones, and a gentle breeze that was great. Always managed to find loungers and shade if needed. Drinks buggy came round every couple of hours, but bars are very near.

Pool:- the reef deck (main pool) was lovely as it always had a breeze, on our first couple of weeks there was building noise as this is were they are building the 1 bed villas, but by the end they were on to decorating.
Childrens Pool:- Good for kids as they could stand up and not worry about noise etc. Warm water and sunny. No bar.
Never used the adults pool so cannot review.
Cocos pool, only used once but seemed very nice.

Restuarants:- cannot understand why people complain about the food, we were there for a whole month and found something we liked everyday. Only complaint was kids menu, limited, but our daughter loved the adult food and buffets so we had no problems.

We found with the staff if you were polite and chatted to them they would be friendly in return, we saw so many people being rude and then acting surprised they were given a bit of attitude. We made alot of friends among the staff and our daughter still talks about some of them.

Cleanliness was very good.

I would recommend this resort without hesitation.

we stayed there from feb.03- feb 10 ,2007
over all it was nice but i will break it down for you.
THE HOTEL &GROUNDS; very beautiful and lush
THE BEACHES;we had 2 - on the atlantic side very rough and a ton of seaweed, and on mamora bay side very calm with a bit of seaweed, also crabs ,stingrays , puffer fish and a varieity of other fish you can clearly see in the water VERY CLOSE TO SHORE TOO.!!!!!
ROOMS'; all rooms face the water at this resort, so if you want to be closer to the water from your room ,you can upgrade to premium room like we did ,so we were pretty close.
POOLS: there are 4 pools at this resort the adult pool being the most beautiful ,coco's pool nice with a view, kids pool nice ,then the reef deck pool -most popular at the time we went had contruction going on near it they are expanding the resort so can get a little loud at times.i would suggest a room away from there and not close to an ice machine, there were a few people who had that and were not that happy
FOOD: if you go ....go all-inclusive. it is extremely expensive if you don't. example.... morning brunch is $22.00 us plus 20.5 % tax plus tip plus service charge. that does not include coffee/tea -$5.00 or toast- $ 5.00 . found the food to be ok -not the greatest , not the worst,can be repetitive.
NOTE; all-inclusive guests may be offended when they find not all things are available to them, some things have a surcharge which states on the menu, good wines are sold by the bottle not the glass which means SURCHARGE!!!!!!
SERVICE; is a hit or miss depending on the day , some days its ok and other days really bad.
ALTHOUGH; front desk and lobby staff always very happy to help you out .
MAID SERVICE; slow and rooms are basically clean , i had a hard time getting over the fact that always when they are done in the bathroom there were always little curly hairs that did not belong to us on the floors etc....
CASINO; on the resort A JOKE ..DON'T BOTHER
TV IN THE ROOM ..4 CHANNELS ONLY
NIGHTLY ENTERTAINMENT ... laughable , really nothing to do after dinner
THIS RESORT IS FOR SEINORS AND HONEYMOONERS (people who like to spent most of the time in there room)
although there were families there maybe good for them too.

Arrived at the St James Beach Club for a ten day holiday/birthday on Wednesday 3rd January to celebrate my wife's 50th. Nice welcome at the Beach Club Hut and was quickly sorted with room keys and porter and a very nice rum punch. The room on the beach was excellent, it looked straight out onto the sand and the sea was 25 metres away. Air con, rum stocked fridge and massive bed, TV and furniture made it very welcoming.
The only problem with the room is the floors between you and the people above, the family above had small children who woke us every morning around 6;00am, no their fault but spoiled the holiday until they left after a week.
Room service was good, although you were never sure when they were coming, early on the holiday it was mornings, by the time we left it was late afternoon, which was a pain if you were showering and changing. Every morning they cleared the seaweed off the shore so that you could go in the sea but it was spoiled by this build up of weed throughout the day. The people who drove the drinks buggy were either fantastic and pulled up right by you or hid behind bushes hoping you wouldn't see them, very frustrating.
The front desk was fairly good at the main building, and the guest services were fine, a bottle of Champange appeared on my wifes birthday which I thought was a great gesture until I saw a charge of $50 on my final bill.
The restaurants were excellent, Coco's was run very well, the service and food was very good and there was plenty of variety, the wooden facades and the view to the sea was fantastic and we dined there everytime we could but occassionally it was closed.
The other two restaurants, one was like a green school room with no atmoshere and Docksider was beautiful but the food was not as good as Coco's. Both of these are in the main hotel complex, Coco's is at the other end of the complex pass the Beach Club.
Some people upgraded to the main hotel part others downgraded to the Beach club rooms, we stayed put because we liked the views and despite the noise.
Virgin had some of the crews staying there, most were well behaveds but one particular crew was a bit noisy on the beach and sometimes reminded me of Ibiza when I closed my eyes....
Virgin looked after us on the plane, we 'upgraded' for £1000 two doors next to an exit, in fact they were adjacent to a loo and began to get smelly near the end outbound flight, not worth the monery and I certainly found the normal seat more than adequate going back. Movies were modern, service was good, they did work hard on the aircraft.

Overall I would say it was a good holiday, not great, the resort is good not great, seaweed on the breezier beach spoiled the one beach and the other was very nice but was to hot for us. This beach had all the water sports and was very popular with friends of ours.

In the carribean I only have a comparison with Barbados and the Tamarind Cove hotel and I would return to Tamarind anytime as the whole place was excellent although £1000 more.

Worth a visit to see around the Island and the developement of the stadium for the cricket world cup, English Harbour is picturesque and Nelons Dockyard a history lesson as were the plantation sites and slavery that happened a couple of hunfdred years ago. If you have booked you will have fun but we will not be returning to St James club as we have to other places.