My husband and I spent 10 days at St James club in May 2007.
Having visited several other Caribbean islands in the past couple of years and really loving them, I have to say that it just gets better and better, and in Antigua The St James Club leaves no stone unturned.
There isn’t really much I can add to reviewers before me.
Firstly let me get the only gripe out of the way.
The staff generally throughout the resort were very obliging, friendly and extremely cheerful…But a couple of times the front desk staff were ‘off’ and seemed to be difficult. I won’t go into the wherefores but we did request a couple of things and were told repeatedly to come back and see them at a later time, when we did they acted as though they have never seen you before! eventually we got bored with this and as it wasn’t anything major we knocked it on the head and got on with our holiday on this stunning resort. Had it been urgent it would have been a different story. However the rest of the staff throughout made up for the odd 1 or 2.
Our coffee peculator stopped working and when we phoned housekeeping we had a new one within 20 minutes. The maid often forgot a bath mat, or face towels, but you only had to ask and she would bring whatever it was. The TV had over a hundred channels!!
On this note I would like to thank Prince (Guest relations, love him so much!) and Stacey (reception) for their willingness to be helpful, and friendly.
The buggy drivers who take you anywhere around the resort, whenever you want. Great guys.
The Room we had Hibiscus 103, was huge, extremely clean, well serviced, very very comfortable with 2 huge beds, Sea view on the ground floor, no complaints there. A huge bathroom with 2 wash basins and a hairdryer. Excellent Air conditioning and a ceiling fan. A Coffee percolator in the room with adequate tea, coffee and all the bits.
It was newly refurbished, absolutely spotless. the shower was (compared to other islands we have visited), exactly like being at home, a Fabulous shower, we never had any problems with water pressure, it was always hot and always flowing… We had a power cut a couple of times for a few minutes. Prince phoned our room to apologize that the water pressure was low and would be fixed shortly, but we had already showered and it didn’t concern us.
Beaches - There is everything you could ever want, calm water on mamora bay, slightly rougher on Coco’s Beach but it wasn’t ever a problem even though I am not a strong swimmer, But, there were notices in reception to be aware of jellyfish, they were on both beaches, and put me off going in the water, but who can you blame? Although a lot of people weren’t as prissy as me and it didn’t stop them going in the water. My husband one of them, couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about!
There is a buggy which comes to your loungers on either beach and serves you with drinks in case you can’t make the trip to the nearest bar just a few meters away.

There are 3 restaurant choices with All inclusive, The Docksider, Coco’s, and The Rainbow Garden. there is a fourth restaurant Piccolo Mondo which was not included in AI, but you could eat there at a supplement of $35us per person.

There is also a beach grill on Mamora beach if you just want a burger or hotdog, also with drinks, and available all day.
We were All Inclusive and honestly, we couldn’t fault the food.

At the Docksider, Condace IS the Maitre’d’ and she is THE boss, she really looked after us and if you ask for a table at the edge overlooking the water, that’s what you will get, her staff are fabulous, Alexa (my new best friend) sang Happy Birthday to me single handed and made my day!

The Docksider is wonderful, spectacular setting!! Real WOW factor!
Mostly the food in all restaurants is A’la’carte.
You choose which restaurant you want to dine in at breakfast, and book it with the reception sourpuss, Marah…
The ‘Today and Tomorrow’s’ menu’s are displayed in the foyer in the morning.

We only had 1 buffet dinner while we were there, when there was a choice of restaurants we would generally go for the A’la’carte where possible, but the buffet we did have was wonderful.
Thanks to all the staff at all the restaurants, they shine!
We were given menu’s occasionally with prices on and believe me All Inclusive is definitely the way to do this. We were horrified by the prices. All in US dollars. There is a tax on top, plus a service charge, then a tip.

We considered going to eat at Piccolo Mondo on my birthday, people said the food was very good. But the food we ate at all the other restaurants was excellent, and as you alternate eating at different restaurants throughout the ten days, we never got bored. And I would have missed Alexa singing for me.

There is breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner.
We found after the fabulous breakfast at either Coco’s or the Rainbow Garden we didn’t ‘do’ lunch. Too much food. Breakfast consisted of everything you could want, there is an egg chef, who cooks the eggs to order. In the Rainbow Garden you ask the waitress for toast if you want it. At Coco’s you have a toaster to do your own.

Afternoon tea is at the Rainbow Garden every afternoon from 4pm - 5pm. Dainty little sandwiches and scones, cakes tea and coffee. Great if like us you didn’t lunch.

The Docksider and Coco’s alternate by closing a couple of nights and you eat in whichever is open or The Rainbow Garden, which is never a problem. They are all candlelit with table linens, very well done and very elegant. There IS a dress code, gents must wear collars, and long trousers, some were sent away for wearing cropped or short pants, so be warned!
It’s very romantic eating by candlelight so it really is nice to dress up a little bit. The standards at this resort are very high, so you don’t mind making the effort and most people did.
The Casino was closed while we were there, but the bar was open.
Cannot really comment on evening entertainment, we were up at 6am, busy day on the beaches and in bed by 9pm, so we didn’t really stay awake long enough.

By the way drinks are anything you want, but we only learned on the last day that they serve a champagne by the glass included in AI, and it was lovely, We are going back just for that!

Ample sunbeds and ample tikki huts, plenty of shade on both beaches. We didn’t see one broken sun lounger or tikki hut which needed repairing. People as a rule behaved and didn’t put towels on beds, so you could turn up at any time on either beach and be sure to find somewhere to sit, with or without shade, it was also very spacious.
The guests at this resort are extremely ‘nice’ and people chatted. But we all kept to own space mostly, even the groups of people were really ‘nice‘.

A few weddings took place while we were there, all very beautiful to watch.

We hired a car for the last 4 days because you can have too much lying on a beach and doing nothing, so we ventured out and found more wonderful beaches and went swimming in the one’s we did find, Long Bay, and Turners Beach, so, so beautiful and very clean, I have never seen such pristine Public beaches as this on any other Caribbean island.
All inviting you in for a swim.

We visited Shirley heights and shopped in St John’s, lunched various beach bars, all fabulous.
After being All Inclusive for 5 days we had a snack in a beach bar on Turners Beach and it came to EC$16 - but my husband gave him what he thought the guy had said EC$60, (Money what is that?) But the guy said no - it’s 16 and gave him the rest back, my husband felt stupid and thanked him for being honest!
That sums up our experience of Antigua.
Enjoy this resort if you do go, they really have put a lot into it.
Look out for the mongoose/mongeese???/mongooses??? Living on the resort, they are really cute.

This is our review, things I haven’t covered have already been said before. Anything you want to know we will be happy to answer if we can. Just ask.

Bernadette and Paul