Over the past 6 years we have stayed at various Sandals resorts around the Caribbean and, until now, have enjoyed every single one. Hence the reason we booked Sandals Antigua for our third wedding anniversary. What a disappointment. Apart from the fact that the place was full of female Thomas Cook reps hogging the bars and resturants, and collapsing drunk on the beach in front of us (Thought I was on a hen night in Benidorm for a while there not in a ‘romantic couples only resort’). This place is dire. The hotel in the new Med Village is like a tower block. There are not enough sun beds and the pool is too small to accommodate every one in the tower block. The other accommodation around the resort is old and shabby and the other pools tend to get neglected, as they are not situated in the Med village. There is little or no entertainment (and no where to have it when it rains). The staff are obviously totally fed up, as they are all miserable, especially the new top bloke, Alfred, try to get a smile out of him if you can! And on top of all that the beer was warm.
Dickinson Bay is stunning and there are some fab bars and resturants there, but next time I would go to the Rex Halcyon next door.
Definitely do not waste your time or your money

This review was originally posted in Jan/05.
In Nov/04 we spent one week at Sandals Antigua for our 36th anniversary. Having heard much about Sandals being 5+ star resorts, (although in the last few years we have heard and read an increasing number of negative comments), we decided to try the Sandals experience.
We were most disappointed!! During the week, we talked to several other guests all of whom were also most disappointed. Based on our other 14 trips to the Caribbean, the rooms, other facilities, service, food, booze, and performance of many employees would rate at most 3 stars. The beach, although public, is very good although not the best in the Caribbean. This makes a generous overall rating of this resort 31/2 stars. The cost is 5+ stars. On leaving we took the time to leave with the Manager an extensive comment card. Since then we sent to Sandals several e-mails with our comments , seeking responses. We telephoned and left messages asking for calls back. Our only purpose in doing this was to get from Sandals why the resort was so disappointing and what improvements are they making to deliver the advertised quality in the future. Almost 3 months later we still have had no response to any of our e-mails or calls, other than acknowledgment of receipt, . Obviously Sandals don't care!! We continue to read and hear about the slipping Sandals quality.
Bottom line ? Sandals do not deliver 5 star value (barely 3 star), but charge 5+ star prices. If you are thinking of a trip to the Caribbean, there are many, many other resorts that deliver the promised value and then some. Sandals are living off their past reputation. Of our 15 trips over several years to the Caribbean, this is the first time we have been disappointed in the overall quality relative to promised quality.

We have just returned from spending 2 weeks at this resort ,where we renewed our vows and not only was the holiday fantastic we met some wonderful people that have now become our friends. Before we left we were quite apprehensive after reading some of the reviews but all i can say is please don't worry. There are one or two small things that need sorting as in service at the pool bar is a bit slow at times, but hey your in the caribbean, certainly not anything to spoil your holiday, and you can always use the barefoot on the beach bar.
We stayed in the med village and the room was wonderful with the best stocked in room bar i have ever seen. The staff all over the resort were friendly and polite, especially Ali, one of the playmates, thanks Ali for going the extra mile and making our holiday even more enjoyable. We ate in all the restaurants even the sushi bar and found all to be very pleasant experiences.
Our renewal of vows ceremony was one i will never forget everybody pulled out all the stops to make it one of the most memorable days of our life, a big thanks to sue and jurgen for being our witnesses, and to ray and val for taking photos for us. The wedding team are great. We also made use of the diving school and i took my advance course, the guys and girls here are brilliant, a special thank you to natalie for getting me through my advance course and making it enjoyable. Our whole holiday was fantastic, would i go again, try and stop me.

We went to the resort during the Thanksgiving holiday for four days. The Mediterranean Village was absolutely beautiful! We were greeted with hors d'oeuvres and champagne, given our room key and escorted to our room. I remember looking at the lobby and being in total awe of how beautiful it was, with waterfalls and lush tropical plants, and marble floors.

We stayed at the Mediterranean Village side of the resort. Our room was a Venetian Ocean View Suite on the 3rd floor, which has a glass door which opens to a balcony where I had a beautiful view of the ocean, greenery and pool area. I loved sunrise and sunset views from the balcony. The room itself had a 4-poster king bed with very comfortable linen and pillows, Jacuzzi tub, shower, just beautiful, with marble floors and granite counter tops. Luxurious. I would not have spend the extra $1,500 for a Villa unless it was one of the two villas that were closer to the beach if they could give it to me without a butler. I'll probably book the Grande Luxe St. Tropez Ocean View suite on the highest available floor for next year

Although there was live music on the MV side, most of the fun and entertainment was on the Caribbean side of the resort, both on the beach daily and in the evening -- this is the much older side of the resort. We met a couple who had to switch rooms twice and had to be shown 5 rooms on the CV side before they found a satisfactory room there. They also complained about several cats roaming the restaurants over there (patrons were feeding them), and they told us that other Sandals resorts, such as Ochoa Rios, were much livelier than Antigua.

We did not have problems with mosquitoes, roaches or cats as others have reported. I was also not bothered by construction noise. Most of the construction I saw was on the CV side.

I don't know if I would ever stay at the CV side of the resort due to its age, although the only true beach-front accommodations were on this side. I saw one woman enjoying the sea mist from the porch of her oceanfront Rondoval on the CV side. The plunge-pool rondovals were directly behind the beach-front rondovals, which did not have plunge-pools. Perhaps if it were renovated I'd stay in one of the beachfront rondovals. On the MV side there were a couple of villas on the right which were closer to the beach, but most of the other villas were not beach front and one set of villas on the left were situated near a parking lot!

The food at most restaurants we tried at this resort was outstanding. There was Cricketers Pub -- the food was okay here but you can get something to eat here just about anytime of day or night; Barefoot is a seafood restaurant near the sea, great food. Barefoot, OK Corral and Cricketers were the only places which did not require reservations. The others, such as Marios (Italian), Kimonos (Japanese), require reservations WELL in advance. We really liked the restaurant that served local Antiguan cuisine (I believe the name was Eleanor’s).

We had our daily breakfast at Mario's, as the ambiance was beautiful. They also served breakfast on the CV side.

The gym is not air conditioned, but the fans kept me very cool while I worked up a sweat on the treadmill, elliptical and lifted weights. They had a good selection of free weights and barbells -- old but very functional and I truly enjoyed my workout. Their selection of weight machines was limited.

The beach atmosphere on the Caribbean Side was much livelier, more serene on the Mediterranean Village side. I will say this resort has MANY MANY pools(esp the CV side), and they have various suites and villas that have their own plunge-pools, so there is no shortage of places to relax on this resort.

We were lucky enough to get a cabana near the pool two days of our stay, but I had to awake at 6am to reserve them, as most of the cabanas and good spots on the beach were reserved by butlers for the butler suites. I met up with others reserving shaded spots near the pool at 6am as well.

Red Lane Spa was very nice, but I typically am disappointed by massages at resort areas, especially reflexology, and this was no exception. The reflexology was like a glorified foot massage to me, and not true reflexology in my opinion. The steam room was down for 3 of the 4 days I was there. Disappointing.

We had dinner at Mario's. Appetizers were served buffet-style, and this was really nice, a large selection of appetizers to chose from, and the Italian dinner entrées were tasty as well.

The pre-arranged candlelight dinner on the beach was a nice touch but be sure to order it online as it is only $160. If you want the lobster dinner they charge you $300 and this doesn't appear to be available online. The food itself at the Candlelight Dinner was comparable to the other restaurants at the resort which you could eat at for no additional cost, but the candlelight setup with private white-gloved waiter was a nice touch.

The staff everywhere was very friendly, and I did not experience slow service as others have complained of, except at the Pizza restaurant. where I never received the pizzas I ordered as they were so slow.

Internet access is limited to two terminals on the CV side, for $7 per 1/2 hour. If you want direct net access in your room, a local company called ACT will install it for you for $250.

Shopping was very limited at the resort, next time I'll stay longer and go outside of the resort to shop.

They had many excursions, but we chose to stay at the resort for our entire brief stay. Snorkeling and boating was not available for most of our stay due to the rough seas but we will do all of these things when we return next year. Can't wait til then!