My husband and I were at Sandals over Christmas - 9 nights and stayed in the concierge grandlux beachfront in the Carribean village.

Overall, we had a fantastic holiday. Weather glorious and we were simply able to just relax by the pool outside our room and swim in the sea when the mood took us.

the grounds were stunning, although I preferred the carribean village to the new med village, which felt more like a concrete jungle and lacked character.

Yes, the accomodation blocks in the carribean side were a little down at heal, but that was part of their charm and we are told that the interiors are being upgraded in 2008.

There were one or two service issues, but nothing to get hung up about, and generally the staff were friendly and helpful.

the food was just okay, and certainly not 5 star, so we just chose to go off site on 3 nights, but again, you were never going to go hungry or thirsty.

We did feel, however, that just after Christmas, as the resort went to full capacity, the staff started to struggle, especially in the restaurants (breakfast/lunch) where there were long queues to get seated nd quite often, food dishes empty. Up to and including christmas, this had not been an issue, so we were glad to leave on the 29th.

We have taken advantange of the advance booking, to go back same period this year, with the same room.

Some of the reviews have been overly critical, and if they want the 5 star quality in the carribean, then they are going to have to delve a lot deeper in their pockets, having stayed in several carribean islands, we know that 5 star in the carribean is more like 3-4 star in the UK and the USA.

My husband and I stayed at Sandals Antigua Grande for our honeymoon. We stayed in a concierge level room in the Venetian building. The room itself was gorgeous- nice new four poster bed, nice fixtures, and very clean, including a mini-fridge stocked with beverages (beer, wine, champagne, soda, juice, etc) that were all inclusive. The grounds of the hotel are very well kept- gardens perfectly manicured.

Beach: The beach at the resort left a lot to be desired... its a very
small strip of sand which the resort shares with a few other resorts. You likely will not be able to snatch up a chair unless you are a super duper early bird. The area to swim in is about the size of a swimming pool. The beach is filled with boats and jet skis. Sandals lets you take out a bicycle boat, kayak, hobie-cat and wind surfing boards.

Driving: As we were coming to the resort from the airport and our official taxi ran three red lights I decided that driving a rental car in Antigua was not for me. No one stops at stop signs or lights.. its a miracle that anyone survives driving there.

Tours: Come with enough money to get out of the resort and go snorkeling, sightseeing on the island (each day trip is going to run you at least $200 per couple, and taxis are really expensive), also the sunset cruise got high marks from people who went on it. My husband and I decided to save our money and only ventured out to St. John once... which is the biggest tourist trap- it is a rippoff to get there from the hotel and is super crowded with cruise ship tourists. If you're really adventurous and want to do day trips all of the time and would like to try authentic local food, don't stay at an all inclusive resort- it doesn't make sense. DON'T change your US $$ to EC$ you will get ripped off on the exchange rate. All of the shops, taxis, and tours will let you pay in US$ at a better rate than if you were paying in EC$.

Pools- The main Mediterranean pool is beautiful.. its enormous but hardly anyone actually swims in the pool... there are a lack of chairs at that pool because people think it is okay to grab a towel and put it on a chair and leave the chair for hours just in case they want to sit down. (not that I'm bitter or anything- Out of six days I was only able to get a chair for two times.) They also run out of towels frequently because the same people who hog the chairs that they don't even use take three to four towels at a time for themselves (two under them, one rolled up behind their head, one under their knees or feet).... Sandals needs to politely ask people to not leave the chairs unattended for more than an hour at a time and to only use one towel per person (or maybe even two)... and it could help to make the experience better for everyone. Again- if you are a very early riser- you can probably get yourself a chair. I don't like getting up before 9 am on vacation so that isn't me.
There is a pool on the Caribbean side and it is usually less busy than the other pool but is a bit of a haul from the Mediterranean side.


Spa- I had reserved and paid for a spa service before we got to Sandals.I had a nice 80 min wrap and massage combo for about $160. The lady who gave me my services was very good at her job and she was kind. It was relaxing and the actual physical structure of the spa is quite nice and relaxing. After my massage there was some hard sell pitch that the lady gave me to try to get my husband into the spa for a service or to buy overpriced products to do a do it yourself spa treatment in the room. The price was too much in my mind $85 for bath salts, soap and some lotion.... so I left without buying anything extra. Sadly the sales pitch left me less relaxed than I was before.

Guest makeup-

The guest profile during our stay was a mix of Aussies, Europeans and Americans. About one third were over fifty, One third between 35 and 50 and about one third were under 35. A lot of couples with a guy over 50 and a lady under 35. Mainly white couples, mainly straight couples. The resort became increasingly diverse during our stay with increased racial diversity as well as more same sex couples, which made us feel more comfortable as a biracial couple.

Activities at the resort-

Sandals has a ton of daily activities- we did some beach volleyball, some piano sing along and some karaoke and all of these organized activities were fun.

Bars- the bar downstairs from Kimono's is the WORST bar in all of the resort... terrible service there. The best bar service is found at the Pub- Arthur, Marie-Louise and George are the best bartenders at the whole place. They bust their asses to make sure that everyone is having a good time and getting what they want. Dionne in the Piano Bar is also excellent at her job and will treat you right. If you ask- each bartender has their own selection of signature drinks which are quite good... Stay away from the bar next to Bayside. The bartenders tend to make the drinks very weak so don't be afraid to ask for an extra shot if you want that.
The one thing that I noticed is that the bartenders at Sandals seemed to be pretty sexist. Men get served first at the bar and then ladies (regardless of who stepped up to the bar first)- especially if the men are older and the women are younger... I don't know what this was about. Introduce yourself to the bartenders and you you are likely to get better service.

Service Overall-
Unfortunately, service across all of the restauraunts is very uneven, and many of the servers are rotated, so the bad ones keep popping up. There is no tipping so it is good to be extra kind to the servers.... some will return the favor and some will not.. With our room we had access to the concierge to book reservations for our meals. Their booking system is a little cooky- you can book for two days at a time and no more. It is best to be flexible regarding your eating time and you should be able to get seats at all the dining places.
On our last day at the hotel- we never got our wake up call- and nearly missed getting our taxi to get to the airport on time.

Food
Well- part of the so-so ness from our experience came from the downright mediocre food. You can eat all day if you choose and get midnight snacks... thats the plus- the negative is that its not very good food. Don't waste your time at Mario's or the Benihanna's style Kimono's (more of a spectator event than dinner) - both serve bland boring food.
The best food that we had was at Eleanor's a Caribbean style restaurant. The OK corral was decent as well. For Lunch there is a pizza place outside of Marios which is decent as well- order ahead- it takes 25 minutes to get your pizza.

Papparazi-

During your stay you will be followed by people from the picture shack- every where you go on the resort you will be asked if they can take your picture. I personally found this to be really rude and alienating- My husband and I trying to have a nice intimate dinner and then someone interrupts us with a camera. (they take pics of people and try to get them to buy the pictures before they leave) We said no every time. I hope that Sandals changes this practice because its really annoying and very Disneyworld.

I really enjoyed the resort it was quiet and the staff were friendly. Enjoyed the scuba diving the most.

I have just read the review by JanOwen (below) and could not have summed up better, how bad the place was.

My wife and I were there over xmas and new year. While the beach and weather were great, our holiday was really spoilt by the rude, insensitive and just downright useless staff. We did have the odd bit of good service, but it was very much on the occassional side.

The worst service of all was at the beach bar. There were often 4 staff working the area but were more concerned with gossiping and flirting between themselves than serving customers. On many occasions I had to shout 'Hello - can I get a drink please'. Their response was usually one of 'yeah, yeah, I'll get to you in a bit' (once they'd finished their conversation). If you had ideas of getting your favourite cocktail by the beach, forget it - they only know how to make sickly syrup based drinks and overload them with lots of alcohol. A guy next to me asked for a dry martini. The waitress asked, 'Would you like that with ice ?' - we looked at each other is disbelief. I ordered a cosmopolitan for my wife one evening, it came in a tumbler filled to the brim with ice - the bar staff were all completely clueless !!

On our day of departure, there was actually a fight in the lobby between two of the staff, followed by lots of shouting by one of the senior managers. They didn't think anything of it, the fact that there were guests sitting around !!

I really cant stress enough how bad the service was - they were all clearly uninterested in what they were doing or indeed ensuring their guests were having a good time.

The food was bland at best - they call it gourmet and suggest that all their chefs have been trained by International/European chefs, but I think most of them have more likely done a stint in Europe at fast food restaurants. The pizzas were more like cheese on toast (we actually took a bite and then just got up and went to eat elsewhere). Pretty much everyday, the buffet lunch consisted of low quality, cheap food, stacked high - bit like feeding time at the zoo.

In terms of the place, as mentioned above the one good point was the beach which was always clean. We stayed in the older side of the resort and were told that we had been upgraded to a better room. They definately weren't 5 star, more like 2 star. The rooms are dated at best and need an overhaul ! One of the most annoying things about the place was the blaring music being played over the tannoy system. After a while it just gives you a headache, and its the same everyday !!! One of the other reviews, below, suggested that they found it endearing that the staff were alway singing. I'm not sure she'd feel the same way if she was sitting at the bar when the barman was singing the words to a song called 'Slap the [--]'.

To top things off, we had a nightmare getting back to London because of aircraft problems- the airline staff (Excel airways, XL.com) were just as useless as the Sandals staff and I'd never travel with them again.

In summary, I would not recommend this place to anyone, its one of the worst holidays we've ever had !!