I felt sorry for some of the reviewers, who clearly had a bad experience. We had a most wonderful stay in the hotel, and generally found most aspects excellent.

Yes being relatively new they have experienced some teething problems and staff were still being trained. Some of the more experienced were excellent and able to cope with the slightly faster pace, generally adopted by Europeans and Americans. Sometimes the service was painfully slow and I agree with other advisors,that a get it yourself tactic had to be employed. However what you got, when it came was excellent in quality. The food in all areas was really impressive.

The beach is not the greatest ever, but is beautifully groomed and clean. The poolside area was wonderful. Service there was excellent. The gym and spa facility are excellent. The library very pleasant.

The Hotel did make a mistake with our room booking, meaning a room change the second day, but they were very apologetic and the move effected with minimum fuss.
The suites themselves are terriffic. The bathrooms are wonderful. I loved the simplicity, very therapeutic and relaxing. Again there were minor complications, that friends staying had with a coffee machine not working and taking 4 days to get cups for it. Also I agree ice buckets could sit outside the rooms for days, but they have excellent management staff and these irritations will go away. The management were very appreciative of any knowledge of problems and were very keen to see them rectified.

The other wonderful relaxing aspect of Carlisle Bay is noone is crammed in anywhere. There is always space, simplicity no clutter. It really works

We will be delighted to return.

We had read a number of reviews of this hotel on this site and were a little worried that they were so variable. We need not have been.
From the welcome and assistance at the airport to the welcome introduction, excellent room service, very professional watersports and excursions, and excellent cuisine we had no complaints.
The hotel focuses on being very relaxed, so the service is not pressured but that is what you are paying for.
The staff were all very friendly and helpful and could not do enough to help. The room was excellent and if you follow the hotel's recommendations you will have no problems with insects. We will return at some stage and cannot recommend this hotel highly enough.

My wife and I spent a lot of time on this site, reading reviews and researching before we booked our "dream holiday" for our 25th Wedding Anniversary on 15th March. We came to the conclusion that Galley Bay would be best, but to cut a long story short, on arrival at the hotel it was overbooked and we transferred to Carlisle Bay.
An excellent move! Galley Bay is nowhere near as good as Carlisle Bay.
Carlisle Bay was superb. The (Ocean Suite) room we had looked out onto the beach, palms and sea. The aircon was first class and the room was sheer luxury. We had a lot of space with comfortable settees/armchairs, a Sony telly with DVD and CD player, huge bathroom with double-sinks etc etc. It was spotlessly clean, and maintained at least twice a day every day.
The service was first class and we had no troubles that appear in some of the other reviews of Carribean hotels. It seems to me that if you start every request or conversation with a smile, you received a smile in return and everything went smoothly.
The food was excellent, although the menu remained the same for the whole fortnight that we were there- we ate in the two different restaurants and occassionally in the room with a full service.
The highlight for us is when Ava/Bruno/Dorothy organised a champagne breafast on the beach in the shade of some palms for us on our 25th anniversary. That night we ate at the end of the jetty - just us, a single table for two, in the moonlight and lit with oil lamps and candles. Pure romantic bliss!
Hired a car on a couple of occassions, Antigua is a safe place to drive and get lost, and has some unspolit deserted beaches where you can find yourselves alone with each other.
MAGIC! Its expensive, and we cant afford to go back anytime soon, but if we could, we would!!!!

My husband and I chose Carlisle Bay as the second leg of our honeymoon (following a blissful 4 days at the Mandarin Oriental in Miami) in July of 2004. We made the reservations at Carlisle Bay with some hesitation after having decided not to go to The Four Seasons Great Exuma as originally planned given the negative reviews we had read on TripAdvisor.

We were looking for a place that was comfortable and unobtrusive, small in scale (to us that meant less than 100 rooms) with a high level of service. Prior to our trip we checked TripAdvisor often, looking for new reviews - hopeful they would be glowing and we would feel confident in our decision. While that didn't occur, we went ahead with our plans and found Carlisle Bay to be a peaceful place, with its own set of positives and "room for improvements." Having said that, we'll be returning to Carlisle Bay.

Carlisle Bay is not the most posh, most service oriented place in the world and you should know that going into it. It's not a Peninsula, Four Seasons, Ritz Carlton or Mandarin Oriental property. With a place like this, you'll be best off if you're able to manage your expectations and know that it will be expensive, and maybe more expensive than what it's worth ($1000 + a day), the food will be just okay, there will be bugs and that there will be service inconsistencies throughout your stay, which you can either choose to let slide (like we did) or let it put in damper on your trip (like many of the posters here). We feel that CB is doing the best they can with the resources of a tiny island in the Caribbean.

We found the rooms to be serene and appreciated the design - it's nice to be in the Caribbean and not have a room decorated in bright colors, flowers, etc. We stayed in a Beach suite which was an older portion of the resort and would stay in an Ocean Suite for our next trip as the Ocean Suites are new construction. I believe that almost all of the suites are set up in a way that they all have spectacular views of the bay/ocean.

What we really loved about Carlisle Bay, and the primary reason we would return, was the ability to completely check out and lose track of what time it is, what day it is, and what will be waiting for you when you return home. It's a place where you can really just "be." In fact, I think the set up of CB encourages that. There are no clocks, you never have to look at a bill, just give your suite number (quick aside, yes there were charges on our bill that were not ours, but they were minimal and were quickly rectified upon checkout - on the other hand, I can only imagine that there were probably some charges that never made it to our bill...)

We loved the library and loved the boat trips that they offer (with Prince). We had several spa services that were included with the package they offered - they weren't "out of this world" spa services, but they weren't terrible. Probably along the lines of something you would expect to find on a cruise ship (with exception of the Canyon Ranch on QM2)...I don't know that I would pay for them, had they not been part of our package.

We didn't take advantage of the screening room, but we loved that it was an option. We're not big tennis people, but found that many people who were staying the same time as we were were fans of the tennis programs offered.

We never left the resort, except for the two different boat trips offered by CB - and to be honest, we probably won't leave the resort on future trips.

We loved the piano player in the evening outside of East - very relaxing and brought a certain liveliness to the place.

The staff/service: Here's the thing - almost all of the staff is from Antigua or neighboring islands and they've most likely never seen a place as "luxe" in Antigua and therefore think it's pretty great and don't have anything on that level, to compare it to. The staff that we encountered were very sweet people, a bit timid/shy, and for the most part, seemed to be trying their hardest. Yes, sometimes service is slow - yes, you can order the exact same thing every single day for breakfast, and invariably, they'll forget 1, 2 or more things...it's not on purpose, I just don't think that they're aware of the service at other properties that their clientele often visits.

Tipping - we were a bit confused at first about tipping the staff given the fact that you never see a bill. We asked a couple servers at the Bar along with management and they all seemed to shy away from answering our question. What we ultimately did, was give cash tips on our last day to those that we regularly interacted with (the people working the area around the pool as we were camped out there every single day) and they seemed so taken aback by the generosity - I can't even begin to describe it...

I know this is a long review, howwever we wanted to give a full assessment of Carlisle Bay to help others deciding upon whether to go here. If you're going to go, have an open mind and above all relax. Chances are, you're someone who is able to travel often and well and this won't be your last vacation...