Our vacation to Antigua and staying at the Rex Halcyon was the best choice for our budget. We we're completely satisfied with the staff and hotel managers. "Trust me" compared to NY customer service ~ I found the staff at Rex Halcyon to be extremely polite and helpful. The room was great & kept very clean. We didn't go with the all inclusive.
Instead we enjoyed wonderful meals at " The Beach" restaurant. It was a lovely walk at the end of the beach and having dinner each night at a table near the water was ideal. The Coconut Grove restuarant was ok.
But we prefered eating our dinners at "The Beach" as the menue is trendy, more variety and well priced. Rex Halcyon has a set menue for dinner which doesn't suite us.As far as activities, there is plenty to do at the rex. We had a blast renting water jet skis, horseback riding,renting a car to tour the island for the day (well worth the $70.00). Snorkeling with a personal guide known as the "Master" or Danfield was also good. Overall, everything really met our expectations. The beach was absolutely beautiful! Although, reserving beach chairs before 6:30 am was kind of a downer. That was the only negative thing, only because I like to sleep in a little on my vacation. I would definitely stay at the Rex Halcyon again. But I would make sure I stay longer. Six days wan't enough to enjoy everything there is to do!

Don't ever book a standard room at this hotel as it is the worst room I have ever had to spend two nights in in my life. Apparently, according to the Assistant Manager Mr St Luce, this is normal for a standard room in Antigua. I understand from talking to other guests, that Virgin Holidays always upgrade people who book standard rooms free of charge, I went with British Airways and they don't.!! The walkways to the standard rooms were dirty and in need of complete redecoration and repair. The room itself had a chest of drawers that had a laminate covering which had peeled off and most of the drawers would not shut. Two out of the four lamps in the room were not working and all the shades were very dirty. There was a mark on the wall where a smoke detector had been, at some stage, but had obviously fallen off and had never been replaced. The fan above my bed looked as if it were going to fall off at any minute and had to be coaxed into working every time it was turned on. The shower was very old and was rusty. We did complain about all this and had to pay £150 to upgrade to a poolside room once one became available, it was like moving to another hotel. Do not go all inclusive if you can help it as the food is well below average, and there are plenty of restaurants nearby, they came highly recommended by other guests at this hotel. The breakfast was the only decent meal of the day, so we ate heartily then and just picked at the food for the rest of the day. We had read about Elwyn who organised the activities but although we saw him on two occasions he never came to see us or encourage us to join in anything, in fact if I had not read about him on this website I would not have known he existed. The grass needed cutting on our arrival and during our week's stay but we never saw anyone attending to the gardens. The beach is beautiful, and was the saving grace of this holiday. I cannot recommend this hotel as I feel that it needs complete renovation. Although Antigua is a lovely island if I did return it would definitely not be to this hotel.

I used this site before going to Antigua and looked at several possible hotel options. Unfortunately there seemed to be as many bad as good reviews against each hotel, which made the choice confusing. In the end I went for the Rex Halcyon due to a work colleague just having come back and telling me that although the hotel may not be the best on the island, the facilities around it were very good.

We went for 14 days in March 2004 on a room only basis (due to my colleague recommending the local restaurants). I therefore cannot comment on the hotel food, although I didn't hear any adverse comments.

Down to basics:

PLUS POINTS

Booked a standard room - automatically upgraded to an Executive Suite at no extra cost. All staff were very friendly & responsive - had 3 small problems with our room, all these were sorted very quickly and to our complete satisfaction. Hotel kept extremely clean - an army of cleaners are always on patrol, the pool for example is cleaned for an hour each morning. Excellent beach. Very good local restaurants (2 of which have a superb beach front location). The hotel's Warri Pier restaurant is also extremely good in an excellent location.

MINUS POINTS

Hotel starting to look dated - will need major refurbishment in the not too distant future. Not enough sunbeds for guests - this is a pain as by 8.00am all sunbeds, both on the beach and around the pool, had been 'bagged'. To get a decent sunbed involved being up & about by 7.00am!
Due to the fact there are 8 hotels/apartments in the local vicinity, the beach can become rather crowded. There is an end (past the Coconut Grove) that is completely empty, but there are no facilities - just an excellent beach.

CONCLUSION

A lot of the other hotels that have a good rating by clients on this site, are a lot more expensive. We managed to obtain a very good late deal and consider the overall holiday to be excellent value for money.
Note that once going on holiday here, Spain, Greece, etc., does not hold the same appeal - you will be spoilt. Although the hotel was fairly large and on a busy beach, we did get around the island to look at other hotels and would be concerned staying elsewhere, as a lot of these other hotels had no facilities anywhere near them. You would therefore need to be on an all inclusive basis, as there are no local restaurants. The local restaurants around the Halycon Cove were superb (particularly 'The Beach' & 'Coconut Grove').

Hope this review may help you with your decision.

we went last october and we loved it. the staff could do more to help you. there is lots to do and see there. the food there is something different every night which was lovely and lots to choose from. the beach is lovely and the se is so blue and clear scuba is good here to.
yes thay do have ppl coming to sell you things but a simple no thanku and thay go (but thay do sell some lovely things) thte room ws lovely and clean we had a sea room view. all in all we had a lovely time as soon as we got hme we booked to come back again. see you all in october marie and ann....