We stayed at this resort from January 23 to February 6, 2008

The Grand Pineapple Beach Club has a beautiful setting on the north coast of Antigua with many planted palm trees and other tropical and semitropical vegetation on the resort grounds. There is a small,lovely white sand beach, which extends from this property east for several 100 yards giving the tourist the opportunity to take short 5-10 minute walks from one end of the beach to the other. The airport terminal has been enlarged since our last visit to Antigua in January 1973. The 30-minute journey by taxi to the resort (US$ 28 for two, one-way) passes by some impressive gardens and new buildings, such as the sport stadium. Another noticeable difference is the absence of sugarcane fields, which were so prevalent 35 years ago. Apart from the planted palm trees at the resort, very few palm trees can be seen on the drive between the airport and the resort.

My wife and I stayed at this resort for two weeks with a good many enjoyable experiences there. The hotel grounds start at the edge of the beach and extend up a steep rise on the west side. Most of the rooms -beachfront, waterfront, garden view and standard accommodations- are located at the bottom of the slope. We requested and were given an oceanview room , room 931, which is located on the top floor of a building to the west near the top of the slope with an impressive view of the ocean and beach with refreshing prevailing northerly winds affording us the opportunity of turning off the air-conditioning at night and listening to the wind and waves before nodding off to sleep. The high-volume music during the 45-minute aerobics session at midmorning and the nightly show music from 9 to 11 p.m. can be disturbing if you want to sit on your balcony at those times and enjoy the sound of wind and waves. The room itself was quite spacious with plenty of closet and drawer space. The bathroom and toilet were separate from the washbasin and dresser room. The room was attractively furnished apart from a badly scratched nighttable. The television set was in good condition and offered an impressive variety of stations.The balcony was large and had two chairs. The balcony included windows with screens allowing us to enjoy the wind and waves without the problem of insects, especially mosquitoes in the evening and at night. The first three days of our visit were very relaxing, in very large part due to our very considerate neighbors in the adjoining room and other rooms nearby. On Saturday, January 12, a group of six- 2 couples and 2 twin brothers, took the three middle rooms of the top floor, i.e. 932, 933 and 934,one of them being adjacent to ours. Unfortunately, during their stay, which was for the next 8 nights, few of us in our building got much sleep. This very thirsty group would return to our area shortly after 1.30 a.m.,( the late bar and disco, the Pineapple Sport Bar, closes at 1.30 a.m.) continuing with raucous parties and the banging of doors both outside in the corridor, their rooms and on the balcony. I made one attempt to have a friendly word with my next door neighbor and his wife about this, but they refused to listen. The next night at about 1.45 a.m. I called reception and made a complaint. I was told that they would deal with it. After the third sleepless night I talked with someone in management at the front desk about the problem. I was told that the night security watch would keep an eye on them. In fact, however, nothing helped. We had to buy earplugs. Mercifully our 2 remaining nights were blessfully quiet.

The food was reasonably good, breakfast being the best meal with fruits, usually good cantaloupe and watermelon, sometimes pears, apples or bananas. On the last three days of our visit there was some unripe pineapple. Oddly enough there were no papayas,although they grew abundantly on the premises. Mangoes are evidently not in season. The breakfast grill cook Maria was very friendly and could put on quite a show when flipping the eggs and delicious omelettes. Special mention should be given to Delaney, in charge of the dining hall at breakfast and lunch,who was always cheerful and friendly; also to Carlus, who was a witty and good-humored waiter, who made us laugh at least once at every meal. The coffee waiters and waitresses could be quite slow at times so I sometimes found myself going and getting the coffee either from the machines out in the entrance to the dining area (coffee there is so good; try the latte) or from the thermoses (usually very good coffee) on the big table in the middle of the dining area. There was also a standard variety of breakfast foods such as bacon, breakfast sausage (often a little on the raw side) scrambled eggs, pancakes, French toast -all lined up in lidded serving containers - bread for toasting ,breakfast cereals and sometimes yoghurt, For me one of the highlights of breakfast was the delicious coffeebread and sweetrolls, which were set aside on a special table.

Lunch could be taken at Mary's outhouse up on the crest of the rise to the west (grilled chicken in barbecue sauce, cooked squash and mixed salad with bottled beer -Heineken or Red Stripe, which you will find in an icebox in the storage room) - beautiful views can be had while having luch, at the pool snackbar, which served a variety of fast foods, or in the dining hall. In the dining hall the food varied slightly every day. Chicken, usually grilled,often with barbecue sauce, or southern fried, was an everyday occurrence, beef stew, fish, salad bar and then some interesting local cuisine such as leg of goat and various squash and bean dishes. Oddly enough there were no dishes with fresh avocado. The desserts were often bread pudding, a strange local unsweetened pie filled with rice and some good to excellent cream cakes.

The evening meal could be a buffet in the main dining hall occasionally with various themes such as Mexican or Italian cuisine. These dishes were not very complimentary to the countries where they originated. Other evenings the main dining room was divided up into two a la carte restaurants quite often with the aforesaid themes but unfortunately with the same aforesaid result. On the positive side, a noticeable and commendable effort was made to make the dishes served as attractive as possible. The plates on which the food were served were heated. The puddings, pies and cream cakes were very good to really excellent. For the first two days of our visit the house wine Concha y Toro from Chile was excellent, especially the Chardonnay. But after our second day there, this wine disappeared and was replaced with another wine brand - red and white - from Chile, labelled simply as "Maipo", which was dreadful. Several times a week a la carte meals were available at the Pineapple griil, near the reception building, Here the ambiance was depressing, the menu very limited and the service often very chilly. According to the menu the food was either Mexican or Caribbean, the latter being interesting while the former would not be recognizable in Mexico or the USA. The so-called guacamole was of a thin, tasteless commercial variety most likely made from a powder. The beers - Red Stripe from Jamaica, Heineken and an excellent local beer - are to be preferred over the lackluster Maipo wines served there.

The bar scene was generally satisfactory. There was one huge female bartender at the central bar with a hostile attitude, who would slosh the drinks over the counter with a hateful glance and who would pay little or no attnetion to your individual requests. At the Surf Bar just east of the dining hall, which closed at 4.45 p.m.,there was an extremely nice little female bartender who would make the drinks exactly as you wanted them

The beach scene was quite good. If you prefer the quiet side away from the music, there is an adult pool just to east of the dining hall, and there is always an ample supply of chairs for sunning on the beach. During the winter months when there are strong prevailing northerly winds, the waters are choppy and snorkeling from the beach is far from ideal. Still there were a couple of days during our stay when the winds shifted to the southeast resulting in calmer waters along the beach. Before coming I had noted that Grand Pineapple Beach Club offered free use of snorkel equipment. The water sports staff were seldom available or could rarely be found, so that it was first on the third day of my visit that I succeeded in borrowing a snorkel. The snorkel was in very poor condition, and the strap broke after a couple of minutes in the water. I took the snorkel back to the water sports building and was told in a very unfriendly manner that I would have to pay US$ 45.00 for the the strap. Upon learning that I had no cash, the same person demanded that I give him an I.O.U. After all of this seeming unpleasantness - my wife was in tears - I was told that it was all a big joke. We didn't laugh. I reported the incident to water sports manager the following day. He stated that he had previously worked at the water sport shack and that the staff there had a tendency to carry jokes a bit too far.

The weather there was pleasantly warm during the day and mild and comfortable in the evening and at night. We found no need for the AC at night after the very loud evening music was turned off around 11 p.m, at which time we could again open our screened windows.

Robert and Mary Roady
Stockholm, Sweden