One week stay split between a Premium Seaview Cottage (#19) and a Standard Seaview Cottage (#9). First impressions were very nice. Pretty landscaped walkway from parking area up to reception. Beach area is small and tucked into the corner of a long and beautiful bay which also is home to the Jolly Beach Resort. We were offered a cold drink while checking in and we saw that the reception/bar/dining areas are all beautifully laid out decks cantilevered off the side of the hill with great water views. The whole resort is made up of gingerbread cottages set into the hillside. Then off to our cottage,# 19 which is the second to last at the top of a VERY steep hill. The poor souls in #20 had a very steep staircase to climb after the ascent of the hill. The climb was not fun carrying winter coats and carry on bags etc etc after a long trip, but the staff did bring up the suitcases. I can't imagine why the resort doesn't put out for a golf cart at least for the luggage transportation. It was a very guilty feeling to have a very kind and very small female Antiguan lady lug our overstuffed duffle bag full of sunscreen and books up that mountain. The room was just breathtaking. Simple dark wood furniture - a four poster bed with fitted mosquito netting (necessary) looking out over the deck to a gorgeous west facing Caribbean postcard view. Stunning. Bedside tables with good reading lights, a dresser, fridge (full of coke when we arrives which we switched for beer and tonic water), busted up mini coffee maker with the folgers coffee bags and tea makings. We always bring our own coffee! The observant housekeeper the next day switched the coffee maker to a working one and provided us with mugs that were missing the first day along with hand towels and face cloths that were also not in the room for the first day. If I were the staff I wouldn't want to be running up and down that hill either! Adequate bathroom with double sinks, a toilet that flushed (doesn't always in the Caribbean!) and wooden doors out to the deck and outdoor shower. This is simply a shower head and knobs on the wall- no enclosure of any kind - which we loved. Barely any hot water - warmish at best for one shower and then luke to cool for the second. I assume this was just because of the distance from the tanks etc because hot water was no problem later on when we moved rooms. So the room was fine. The resort is all inclusive in theory, but in practice you have to work hard for your drinks! We like a drink in our room at sunset and after dinner so we brought our own vodka and rum and asked the housekeeper to put tonic in the fridge. Trying to get some lime slices or ice from the bar all the way down the mountain was not always easy. One day, no limes - the next day, no ice and always the trek down and then up - good way to build up a thirst. I tried to order a margarita and there was no tequila. These are important details in a tropical resort, at least to me. We ended up walking along the beach and through the Jolly Beach Resort to the supermarket to buy limes and a few other provisions for the room. We had to remind ourselves each time we went to go up the hill to ask for a bucket of ice. There were no real ice buckets available but the very nice staff let us borrow everything from an empty pickle jar to wine cooler buckets to transport the critical ice. Call me crazy but I like a cold drink in a hot climate. At the bar itself, local liquors were included in the all inclusive (but not tequila which was not available at any price!) and we sampled the Cavalier rum which was great and the vodka which was just fine, especially on the lucky days when the bar/kitchen had a lime. The house wines were acceptable - an Argentinean Malbec and an Argentinean white that was good when it was served cold and so-so when served luke warm, which was more likely. When we brought our own that we had purchased at the nearby grocery store the waitstaff brought an ice bucket and poured for us. As I write this I realize that a lot of Coco's problems could be solved with a new refrigerator, some ice buckets and a golf cart. Anyway, the food turned out to be delicious. At first the portions seemed tiny to our American eyes, but we were totally satisfied after every meal so I guess they know what they are doing. I think that there is just a funny feeling of cheapness or frugality that keeps creeping in to the experience when you have to beg for a lime and you see a 3-4 oz portion of local fish alongside a 1/2 cup of rice and some vegetables! Tyrone and Bernard were really very talented with what was obviously a limited food budget and the fish entrees in particular were delicious. You could always order from the regular menu at an additional charge but we were happy enough with the changing specials on the included menu. I did have the lobster one night (USD $36.00) but my husband;s marlin was better. Breakfast was fine, cooked eggs and bacon etc or the special of the day, pancakes etc. The fresh fruit was always the same, honeydew melon, oranges and some pineapple. The baked goods were the same every day - croissants (frozen, I suspect) and some muffins and bread etc. Terrible orange juice from a can. Horrible coffee and when we switched to tea the challenge was to get a hot pot. Lunch menu had a catch of the day, a special like chicken curry (delicious) salads, burger and club sandwiches. Back to the room with the stunning view. Birds would flit in and out of the room and steal sugar packets, but our biggest problem was the appearance of a good sized rat on our deck of our cottage while we were sitting out on the deck reading at night. Thank God I had my feet up on a table and I didn't scream. We were due to move that day anyway down the hill to #9 (billed as a standard seaview cottage but beware that the lovely deck overlooks the walkway to the reception and a tiny tiny bit of sand but is certainly not a seaview of any kind) and when I went to empty the dresser drawers there was abundant evidence of rodent activity - shredded Halls cough drops wrappers and rodent poop everywhere. I realize this is the tropics but I was glad we were moving. My husband swears he felt something crawl over him in the night, but as I said, the rum was good. Anyway, I was considering leaving Cocos at that point because I was disappointed on a few levels. Called around and found a room at Jumby Bay for $1200 a day, more than three times the cost of Cocos. You do get what you pay for and we found that overall, for the money, Cocos was good value in the pricey Caribbean. We were about to go for it but it seemed like we would waste too much time of our last few days moving around so we stayed put. The staff at Cocos said that they would refund our last two nights if we decided to leave because of the rat thing - and I appreciated this - we really didn't make a big deal of it and given the setting it really shouldn't be surprising that furry animals are around. One girl at the reception desk told me very matter of factly that they were only "bush rats" and that they were only a problem in cottage # 16 and above. This made me feel much better. We moved to #9 with no view but a much shorter walk to the beach etc. The bed was fine but not as nice as #19. The shower was outdoors and was fine - everything else was much the same. We spent the next day away from the hotel. Took a taxi to Harmony Hall for lunch - very nice, beautiful view, terribly overpriced but we appreciated the good frosty margaritas and the wine list and a change of scene. We kept the taxi all day (about 5 hrs total including the over two hours we were at lunch) and drove back via Shirley Heights and English Harbour - very scenic drive and lots to look at. We paid about ECD 400 plus tip for the day which seemed like enough. Back to Cocos. The pool area looked lovely - lots of great trees and plants but the water was very murky - you couldn't see the bottom of a five foot deep pool at any time that we were there. We didn't ever see anyone sitting by the pool let alone getting into it. The beach area had a just sufficient number of lounges and if you were not up as early as some of our European friends you had to make do with a broken strapped vinyl thing rather than a more comfortable wooden lounger. Nice padded chair cushions. No umbrellas but there is a good area of palms so if you need the shade you can drag your chair over. The sand was medium to coarse and the swimming area right off shore had a nice sandy bottom, no rock or coral to navigate. The water was not clear when we were there but was that beautiful shade of turquoise. Not warm, but not too cold to swim in. There were occasional hawkers coming along but no bother and very polite. One very nice young man was doing his best to "raise money to send his local football team to England" US dollar cash contributions only. I am afraid we didn't participate! There is a tiny hut on the beach that serves as a beach bar. I wish I could remember the bartenders name. He was the most energetic and enthusiastic employee at Cocos. We tipped him on day one and he took very nice care of us to the point of running up the hill to get the one blender in the resort to bring it down to the beach to make my pina coladas. Up a the bar, frozen drinks were not possible because the 110 volt plug couldn't run the 220 volt blender. Not a huge deal but lots of people think of frozen tropical drinks as part and parcel of a Caribbean holiday. The arrangements for seating at meal times were a bit weird. The evening host had a very tight command of who sat where for dinner. On our first evening of our holiday we were directed to a table on an upper deck very far away from the water. I politely said that I didn't come all the way from NY to not sit by the water and the man explained that there were several outside reservations for dinner that night but that all the resort guests would "get a turn" to sit by the water. This rubbed me the wrong way as a paying guest of the resort. There were a good number of waterside seats along the several decks and dinner was spread out from 7:00 to 9:00 and it seemed a silly policy. Overall, one of my gripes with the resort was this feeling that you had to negotiate for every little thing. We tipped the staff and bent over backwards to be friendly and not too demanding and we had very good service from almost everyone. After the first day or so when we had won them over, we were always taken to a waterside seat. There was a real friendliness and that made up for a lot of the service details that were lacking and were not really the fault of the staff. Our bill at Coco's worked out to about $400 a day, 5 nights in a premium room and two in a standard. We probably spent another $250 or so on tips and $150 or so in the nearby shop for wine, snacks, vodka and limes etc. Really not bad for a week in Antigua. Coco's is a good mid priced resort and it could be great if they bought some ice buckets!