I think Carlisle Bay was absolutely gorgeous, however, the experience we had on our honeymoon has taken me over a year to write because I was left so upset with the experience.
First of all, all our travel agents materials said it was our honeymoon, but no-one even bothered to congratulate us when we arrived. When three days in some canapes turned up in our room, I thought that was to say congratulations. We started eating them, until I noticed some champagne and an envelope with a card in - not with our name on. This was hugely embarrassing, we called reception and someone came and collected it. The guy spent five minutes rearranged the (left) canapes and putting the celophane ball back over it whilst we were stood there.
Service was awful. And yes I know this is the caribbean, but it was just unacceptable. Toilet blocked three times and it would take four or five calls each time to get someone to sort it. Coffee machine v tempramental.... again three or four calls before someone came to fix it. I paid for a manicure which wasn't a pleasant experience (actually painful) but then v poor quality nail varnish that chipped within three hours....
At breakfast in Indigo 50% of the time our order was got wrong. When we ordered room service breakfast twice it seemed like the chef had played pick and mix, as both times I'd ordered vegetarian food and yet I ended up with sausages both times.... Food was cold too. Pool overrun with small children, which was fine, as most of them were fairly well behaved, but there was no way you could swim across there with all the floats.
Cinema - air conditioning on so its one temperature was freezing, screen was VERY poor quality.
DVD library - great, except we were called twice at silly times to ask for a DVD we'd already taken back.
Taxis - book them through the hotel at your peril. It cost us around 5£ for a taxi to the cricket when we booked ourself. Nearer £25 when we booked through the hotel.
The library was great and we had no problem with rubbish or dirt at all though. I think that would have been the nail in the coffin. I was reduced to tears several times because of just how scrappy service was though.
We had their meal on the jetty.... it was comic. The wine we'd ordered had been got wrong. We were left standing there at the alloted time, but no food. Food was fine (East was great, Indigo and the jetty food from this menu v poor) but not great, and courses took a long time to come. Dessert wine wasn't brought. We had to ask for it, which again, is embarassing when you're paying £90 each for a meal or something in that region! So we had the guy on his radio, radioing back. We'd finished our dessert. Our coffee came, still no dessert wine. We were waiting for twenty minutes after coffee before it arrived (we'd said about 5/6 times by then that we didn't want it, but they could knock it off the bill). To add insult to injury, my husband had had one glass of wine, but they tried to charge us for the bottle.
This is just the list of negative things, to get them out of my system as much as anything else - obviously not the story I tell friends about my honeymoon. But all in all, they spoilt my stay.

We very much enjoyed our stay at the hotel during April, 2008. We travel with our 3-year old little girl and booked a beach suite for our stay.

When we take a holiday, we go to relax. There are no to-do lists, no guidebooks...just relaxation. And, this is an absolutely wonderful place to just "chill out" on the beach. Very quiet and relaxed.

They also do a great job with little ones! Our little girl had a great time and she very much enjoyed the Kids Club. There were other little ones at the hotel so she made some great friends.

Some hotels can be a little "snooty" when it comes to kids. Not this one! I'd strongly recommend it to anyone with little kids.

This also looks great for adults. They have an entire section of the hotel for adults-only...and it looks great.

We were very happy with out stay!

First, to make things clear, there is a huge gap between what you see from Carlisle Bay on the pictures, advertisements, etc. and the reality. How could this be possible?!!!?

What we saw was not even three-star grade:
- Room was a major deception: dirty, worn out, small and pretentious,
- Common areas are a great deception and dirty: littered pathways, grey concrete everywhere, services areas shared with guests, etc.,
- The beach is less than average,
- The pool is well below average: maintenance is inexistent, appearance is awful,
- The food is ok, and the service we experienced was good,
- The welcome (by management) was good, but this is not what you want to remember from your holiday, isn't it ?

Now if you want to have the detail, read below.

We were to stay at Carlisle Bay (CB) for a good week at the end of April. The four of us (two adults and two childrens) are used to tropical destinations and with our last very successful trip to Mauritius in mind (Le Prince Maurice), we were expecting to be treated, especially given the pictures and the ads, by the highest standards and land in paradise.

Rooms are frankly a IMMENSE deception. We had a ground floor 'Carlisle suite' on the beach which was meant for 4 people. It felt like a two star hotel in Athens back when I was a student and was traveling cheap. But this isn't exactly cheap, right? One very small room for the children, and for us, well..the living room !!

The rooms are dirty, the furniture are dented, the cousins are often (if not all of them) punched with holes left bright open, unsealed cousins, stained sofa, stained chair, missing tiles everywhere in the bathroom with cracked wood and grey/black fungus traces in the shower... the tiles are tinted and yellowed with time, everything is so small and feels packed... I continue; The only closet was in the kids room and was SO small it was impossible to unpack all our cloths for a week (see picture). No windows in the bathroom, and the second room only has very small top windows, the curtains in the main living room (the master bedroom btw) are so yellow and dirty that the light that comes in the living room is grey. Not pleasant at all.

'Fine', you say, 'I will stay outside most of the time and forgive the
suites'... But, the common parts of the hotel are a massive deception too.

The main entrance and the welcome building is acceptable, but pathways, buildings, are dirty. I mean really, gray bold worn-out dirty concrete...(see picture) The ways to the rooms are dirty, the beach was dirty and un-raked for what had seem weeks, littered with used papers from the days before (and I am talking 8'o-clock in the morning when service should have done most of the work cleaning everything). The A/C escape from the beach restaurant is RIGHT ON THE BEACH, offering guest a unique Audio experience throughout all day AND night! The service entrances are visible to guests which contributes to make you feel less and less impressed as you see the handling of food, laundry, etc...

The kids club is okay, but when you compare with places in the indian Ocean, Dubai, or even South Africa, it doesn't stand a chance for a minute. I was told the staff is good with kids though.

The pool is an absolute joke. First, it feels and it is old. Because it is so old, the dark grey/dark blue tinted tiles were sealed with bitumen(actually, you could not tell if it was bitumen or dirt or fungus)... that's when they could hold, because they are often simply missing all around the pool !!! (You would think that in such a place, they could fix this sort of things, right?). Then of course, to add insult to injury, it was dirty, not taken care of: birds deject everywhere, on the pathways, on the (old and worn out) cousins/mattresses, plastic bottles in the flowers, all kids of litter (papers, tissues, bandages...) in the plants surrounding the pool. Then, to finish the picture, the water was plain cold for the place (like 24Celcius or something).

This was so bad indeed, that after less than 24 hours, we decided to leave the hotel for another resort in the area, and so saved our holiday...

To finish on a good note and add a little balance, I shall say that the service seemed quite good. The staff has a friendly (although sometimes lazy) attitude, and the food was, for the little time we spent at CB, quite good quality (My wife said she had an amazing breakfast and I must admit mine was quite good too).

Service and food; this is what probably earned the CB its current amazing reputation, but something remains an absolute mystery to us still: how can the gap be SO large between the reality we experienced and the so many outstanding reviews and reports (private and professional) we have read before and on which we decided for this place?

Its a big competitive market out there. It is time for the Carlisle Bay's management to open their eyes and see.

I stayed at this hotel with my partner back in May 2006 and, quite frankly, it is remiss of me not to have posted this review earlier. We booked the celebration package - it was my 50th birthday - and what a fantastic time we had. The executive transfer was superb, as was the greeting at reception. The beach suite was fabulous... two tier room with massive bed, a large balcony with a day bed overlooking the beach, great bathroom with wet room shower, good choice of TV channels and a DVD player with loads of films to choose from.

The food was superb, and that's saying something from veggies who find it difficult to get great food abroad... you must try East... brilliant!!!

The staff were the friendliest we have ever encountered and, on the few occasions where the service standards fell short of 5* standards (but were probably 10* for most Carribean hotels) you just know that this had been discussed at the morning team meetings as the staff bent over backwards to raise their game.

The beach is beautiful and the watersports staff were extremely patient in teaching this landlubber to learn sailing.

A must do is the boat trip to a deserted island for snorkelling, we feel sure that Stuart kept us out far longer than we should have been but I drank so much I'm not sure!

Our trip also included a massage in the Spa. Brilliant!! For 12 months I had been suffering from severe neck pain and stiffness. After the massage, it had gone and has never returned.

Yes it is pricey, but it is exclusive, it's classy and the manager is a great team leader.

I love this hotel - in a different class to the Malliouhana Hotel & Spa in Anguilla - see separate review.