Departure
We flew Continental nonstop out of Newark and it was great, completely uneventful. We were delayed by “morning traffic” on the runway, but even with the almost 1 hour delay in taking off, we still arrived in Antigua about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. We noticed a few improvements to the airport since our February trip. One thing is that the airport is now air conditioned, which makes waiting in the immigration line much more comfortable. Also, they have added a corral to the immigration area so that all passengers must wait in the same line and an immigration agent directs you to the next available window. This seemed to be way more organized than the old system, which basically menat picking a line and hoping you picked a good one. The bad thing about Antigua’s airport is that it seems on Saturdays all the jumbo jets arrive around the same time, so the wait is usually pretty long to get through immigration. We arrived just after a Virgin double decker had landed so not all of those passengers had made it through immigration before our plane arrived. And more and more people kept getting in line so I’m assuming a few other planes landed while we were still waiting in line. We finally made it through, found our bags and proceeded to the Sandals desk, where things were just a little bit hectic and confused. The girl working the counter seemed a little overwhelmed as there were several Sandals guests waiting for transfers when we got there, and there seemed to be some confusion surrounding Med Village transfers and Caribbean Grove transfers (there is separate check in for each side of the resort). Anyway shortly we were loaded into our van and were on our way to the resort!

Check in
Check in was very easy. We were herded into the lobby with the other guests and offered a cool towel. Then I noticed a butler wandering around asking for us. I spoke up that that was us, and lo and behold, our butler was Cecil, who we had met on our last trip. He served our candlelight dinner on the last night of our trip for us. Cecil escorted us up to our room and that’s when my jaw dropped.

Room
We were very fortunate that we were upgraded from a Honeymoon Oceanview suite in the old section of the resort to a Penthouse 1 bedroom suite in the Med Village. Our room was 7701, so we were on the top floor, corner room. The room was absolutely stunning. It was by far the nicest room we have ever stayed in at that Sandals, and the largest hotel room we’ve had anywhere. You walked into the room and you step into a foyer, which has a beautiful tile design on the floor. To the left was a door that led to the butler pantry, where our fridge was located. It also contained a closet, sink, coffee maker and microwave. If you kept walking, you entered the living room, and it was perfect! The living room contained a plasma tv, a sofa, a lounger and double doors with a fantastic view that led onto the huge balcony. The mini bar was also in the living room. Next to the living room through double doors was the bedroom and bathroom area. This area looked just like what I assume the other rooms in the med village look like, less the living room. Tile floors, a 4 poster bed, a loveseat, another flat screen tv, and open access to the really nice bathroom. The bathroom was beautiful, although I will say it is laid out a little strange. First off, there are his and her sink areas on each side of the room. Then there is a toilet room with a door that closes and locks. There is also a huge shower that doesn’t have a door. And the Jacuzzi tub is in the middle of the bathroom, again with no door. So since our room was a 1 bedroom suite, it was fine because you simply closed the doors to the bedroom anytime you took a bath or shower and knew no one was going to walk in on you. But I would think in a regular room having the tub and shower open like that might take a little getting used to!


Food
We had a chance to eat dinner at every restaurant at the resort, except Bayside. Our first night, since we didn’t have reservations anywhere, we were limited to Barefoot by the Sea, the Cricketers Pub, or Bayside (buffet night). I really didn’t want to waste a night on a buffet since they have so many sit down places now, so we opted to try Barefoot. It was pretty crowded and we did have a bit of a wait, which concerned me because I wondered if it would be this crowded all week. We waited about 15 minutes and were shown to a table. I liked this place a lot. The atmosphere is really nice with the tables being in the sand and the location so close to the beach. The menu is all seafood, so if you don’t like seafood, you probably won’t like Barefoot. Barefoot also serves as the beach grill, just like Arizona’s at Whitehouse. I should probably mention what the restaurants are and what meals they serve.

For breakfast, your choices are only buffets, at Bayside in the CV and Mario’s in the MV. Both serve basically the same food, except Bayside is outdoor dining and all food except made to order omelettes are served in warming trays. Mario’s cooks most things to order, and offers French toast, waffles and pancakes cooked to order, whereas I only saw French toast at Bayside. Most other choices are the same. We ate at Bayside once for breakfast and Mario’s about 3 times. The other mornings we had breakfast delivered to our room. Lunch is served at Bayside and Mario’s buffet style, from about 12:30-2pm. For lunch you can also eat at Barefoot, as I already mentioned. There is also a pizzeria located adjacent to Mario’s that is open for lunch. We ate at Mario’s 1 day, Barefoot twice, then ordered room service the rest of the week. This is probably a good time to mention that while there is a room service menu in your room, if you have a butler suite, your butlers can bring you any food from any restaurant in the resort, as long as the restaurant is open. So for lunch, a few days Cecil brought us food from Barefoot because there was a wait to be seated, so we opted to call him and have it brought to our balcony instead. Another day, we had him order us a pizza for lunch that we ate in our room.

The other dinner options besides Barefoot are Mario’s, which is Italian and reservations only, Cricketers, which is a pub and does not require reservations, Eleanor’s, which is Antiguan cuisine and is reservations only, the OK Corral, which they call a steakhouse, and is reservations only, Kimono’s, the teppanyaki restaurant, reservations only, and Bayside, international cuisine, no reservations required. Like I mentioned earlier, we ate at all of the restaurants except Bayside and enjoyed each place. I’m not really sure which one I would call my favorite. Most people rave about Kimono’s, which is good food and is fun, but it is just way too much meat for me. I also heard really good things about the new sushi bar at Kimono’s. We don’t eat sushi so I can’t say firsthand how it is, but many people at our table at Kimono’s ordered from the sushi bar as an appetizer, and they all said it was really good. I actually really enjoyed Eleanor’s. The menu is different because it is Antiguan food, but I loved the pumpkin fritters and friar’s chicken. Honestly though, I think the food is really good overall, even better than when we were there in February. There is tons of variety and lots of options so you certainly won’t go hungry! The only thing we were disappointed about was the closing of the Courtyard Grill, which used to be the quick service snack place. You could just walk up to the counter and place an order and get your lunch pretty quickly. You could also get nachos and other snacks from there without even waiting for a server. The only self serve snacks I noticed now was popcorn at some of the bars. However, a pleasant addition to the food at the resort are ice cream carts! Yay! There were two, 1 on each side of the resort that are open during the afternoon. You can get an ice cream cone, or they would make you a sundae with basic toppings like chocolate sauce or butterscotch, chocolate chips, etc. It’s a nice touch. I did hear a rumor that the Courtyard Grill will eventually become a pastry shop, so if that ever happens it would be worth the sacrifice of losing the quick service grill! Restaurants were never crowded at dinner except the first night at Barefoot, we never had a wait and our reservations always got us seated promptly. Breakfast was spotty. Twice at Mario’s there was a bit of a wait getting seated for breakfast, which is why the one morning we walked all the way over to the Bayside instead. Other days, no waits at all. Same for Barefoot at lunch. Early in the week, the place was packed at lunch time. By Thursday, no wait at all. I have no idea why that was.

Main Pool/Beach
Okay, here’s my two cents about the main pool. We did sit by the main pool 2 days out of our stay. They were the only two days we could get seats. And I don’t even mean good seats (although they were pretty decent), but I mean seats at all. Our butlers never saved us seats by the pool, and I did not see during our stay any indication that other people’s butlers were saving seats either. There were no “reserved for butler guests” signs anywhere to be found. Just towels. And it seemed like as the week went on, it got worse. Almost like everyone at the resort started competing with each other as to who could get to the pool earliest to save seats! It was crazy. And the most ridiculous part of it was that it seemed as though people forgot there was even a beach or like 7 other pools scattered throughout the resort, but beach loungers and spots at the other pools were readily available. Also, there are a lot of complaints out there about service at the main pool bar being slow. Well, its kind of common sense that if more than half of the resort is sitting around the main pool, then most people are going to the main pool bar, so service will be slowest at this bar! I did get drinks from this bar a few times and I thought the bar tenders were working very hard and doing the best they could. But we found most days that walking to the main bar over in the courtyard would get you a drink faster, just because no one else was there! Also, they did have poolside drink service most days by the main pool, with a waitress actually taking orders and delivering drinks to your chair. Nice touch, and about time. They also have cabanas around the main pool, we never used one and found that most guests were just a little bit confused as to how they work. We never asked, but we heard different things, from “only for butler guests” to “$50 per day” to “I thought anyone could just take one if you got up early enough”. They might want to clear up the rules on using the cabanas. I think the $50/day for anyone is the real answer as that came from the butler of a couple that we met there. I don’t know for sure though.

The beach is beautiful, although a little narrow. Looks like they lost some beach during a storm over the summer. But very nice sand, tons of loungers and the water is just amazing. It was churned up the week we were there, but normally its pretty clear, and the blue is just the prettiest turquoise color. There are vendors, but as long as you say no, thank you, they keep on moving. No problems.

Activities/Entertainment
We did a really cool excursion this trip. We had wanted to go to Barbuda for the day, but unfortunately this tour is only available through Sandals on Saturdays. Therefore, if you really want to see Barbuda but need to go on another day, you will have to make arrangements on your own to get there. So instead of doing that, we did the Rainforest Canopy Zip line tour. It was amazing. I was scared to death and almost backed out the morning of the tour, but my husband really wanted to do it, and we would have lost half of our money at that point, so I decided it would be a growth experience for me and I needed to conquer my fears. I’m so glad we did it! It was really a ton of fun, its only a partial day excursion so you don’t lose much beach time, and it was just tons of fun. If you have a good sense of adventure, I highly recommend trying this. Its also only about 9 ziplines, so it’s a good one for first timers, like ourselves.
We snorkeled once, it was great, there were TONS of fish, coming right up to you and bumping you, they were so close and there were so many. I didn’t see any jellyfish when we were there. And as a sidenote, on the snorkeling trips you now must sign yourself back in on the log sheet after you have finished snorkeling. Nice added safety feature. My husband also golfed one day with a nice man we met at the returning guest dinner. He really enjoyed it and said it is a nice course.

Each night there was live music at both the Caribbean Grove and the Med Village. Some nights more activities were held on one side than the other, but you could always find a spot to relax with a drink and listen to music. I think they are definitely working on improving entertainment options at night.

Butler Service
We LOVED our butlers this trip. We were assigned Cecil and Geoffrey. Cecil has been working as a butler for a while now, Geoffrey is new since our last trip, but he worked in the Concierge department before being promoted to butler. Cecil was our day butler, Geoffrey our night, so we really used Cecil more for most of the trip. These guys were fantastic. Very friendly and fun to talk to, without being intrusive (anyone remember Lurker’s private dinner???) Nothing like that. Although we met a great couple on their honeymoon from NYC who were staying in a villa suite and they said one of their butlers was way too talky, I’m wondering if it was the same person? LOL! Back to our butlers, Cecil and Geoffrey were very good at anticipating our needs and taking the iniative, often calling us to see if we wanted breakfast in our room, things like that. They did bring us a ton of food during the trip, we really used them for meals this time. One of the nicest surprises was the day we did the zip line tour. Cecil knew I was very nervous about it, so when we got back to our room, it was around 5pm, and he and Geoffrey had left us flowers, a towel animal, and a wonderful bubble bath, with candles and flowers all over the place. It was beautiful. Then he called to let us know that snacks were being delivered to our room, and champagne was set up and chilling by the tub. It was such a nice surprise, and the timing was perfect. He said afterwards that he thought I could use the relaxtion after the canopy tour! He was right!

LOVED,LOVED,LOVED this place and hope to get back in the not too distant future! Let me know if anyone has any questions! Sorry for the length of the review!

I forgot to add a special thank you to Amy McHugh and her agency, Dream Makers Vacation Services! She is so easy to work with and without her help, we would not have gotten the wonderful upgrade that we did! Thanks, Amy!