We had a good deal on a promotion, we were upgraded as returning Sandals guest, to a junior suite in the Caribbean Village. So the accommodation, was good the food and wine we found good and most of the staff were fun and attentive. We had wonderful boat trips around the island and to Barbuda. After two weeks we had had a really relaxing break exactly what we wanted.

Would we advise a friend to go to this resort....NO.

- By building the Med Village on the same site, which is very nice, they have over loaded certain facilities eg. beach
- Bringing incentive travellers in to up their occupancy rates meant 150 rooms (about 45% of capacity) were taken up by Harveys Contruction, who quite rightly enjoyed themselves. However, it killed the couples only promise of Sandals. When we mentioned this to the Jim, the GM, he rather arrogantly, told us that they were paying a lot more than we were!
- The big groups increased the noise on the beach and pools because of business conversations shouted to one another, (it felt like a busy beach in Spain! )plus queues in the restaurants.
- So the resort is in transition, and really doesn't live up to what Sandals stands for romantic ultra luxury for couples.

Stayed at Sandals Antigua for 10 days in November 2007. As returning Sandals guests, we received a welcome free upgrade to the Mediteranean Village. The rooms are fantastic, very modern with beautiful furnishings. The resort itself is split into 2 parts. The older Caribbean Village side and this new Mediteranean Village side. The pool on the MV side is huge and hence many of the CV residents come over each morning and this is part of the problem. There just isnt enough sunbeds for everyone who wants to sit by the main pool. I witnessed people getting out of bed about 6 in the morning going down to the pool, taking towels from the boxes provided and reserving up to 6 sunbeds for the day - and then going back to bed, returning hours later to claim the sunbeds. Another problem at the pool where the floating rubber mats for the pool area. The same people reserving the beds where the ones who would also help themselves to 6 of these mats and lay them on the sunbeds and cover them with towels. This ensured no one else could use them for the hours they werent around. Once they did show up at the pool later on, they would use the mats to rest their feet on for the day, again ensuring no one else could enjoy their use in the pool. This could all be easily resolved by the Management. They could have a policy where no beds could be reserved simply by placing towels on them hours earlier. Management could just simply remove them leaving the beds free for those who are ready to use them. They could also regularly check around the pool area and remove the rubber mats from under peoples feet and off sunbeds and put them back in the pool ensuring everyone had a chance to enjoy them. These are not serious problems but on holiday they do start niggling away at you when you see these things each day. The games around and in the pool were fun. One particular playmaker deserves a special mention at this point. ALI - hello from England. My husband entered pool olympics, pool volleyball, beach volleyball, quizzes etc. All good fun and enabling you to build points up for prizes at the end of your holiday. Ali never stops smiling and goes out of her way to ensure everyone is enjoying themselves and if there is anything she can help you with. Food-wise, I would say that the restaurants here are above average, not excellent. We enjoyed the italian Mario's a la carte menu and they were also good for breakfast. Kimonos was a bit boring. There was no showmanship by our chef like we have experienced at other Sandals. Maybe she had an off-day but I found it quite boring and the food quite bland. The other restarants were all good. The Bayside buffet was the one we used the most as they had a relaxed atmosphere and a good selection of food and a great view of the ocean. The entertainment was good. Alot of live music where you could just pull up a table and watch the world go by. They also had karakoe nights in the English pub which were good fun. The grounds of the resort are magnificent. Gardeners were out constantly trimming bushes back and keeping the whole place looking beautiful. The only thing I would mention here is that the wedding co-ordinators should ask them to turn the lawnmover off while people are saying their wedding vows. My husband and I attended a wedding while we were there in the gazebo adjacent to the refelctions pool. ( Hi Elaine and John). Whilst my friend was giving her vows, a lawnmover was humming away in the background.Maybe not too noticable at the time but very annoying if you play your wedding video back home and find some of your words drowned out. That could ruin a couples special day and can easily be avoided. Other than that the weddings are perfect from the beautiful decorated gazebo to the cake and champagne and the setting off of butterflies ( an optional extra).
I agree with a previous review that Concierge are a complete waste of time. We rang 3 times to order a particular bottle of alcohol for our room and each time we were promised it was on his way. It finally arrived 3 days before we were due to fly home and that was only because the wonderful Ali became involved and got it sorted. For all queries they just fob you off to another department instead of doing any work themselves. I would be pretty annoyed if I had paid for this service. Fortunately we received it as part of our free upgraded room so we were not that bothered but I feel for people who have spent their hard earned money on this service and get the run-around.
The beach is absolutely gorgeous. Not too wide but plenty of sunbathing space and chairs. Lined with palm trees. Plenty of boats etc to enjoy some watersports. My husband went diving many times and really enjoyed it.
The hotel is about 10 minutes from St Johns the capital which is a lovely little town to enjoy a safe walk around. The duty free shopping at Heritage Quay is full of bargains. There is also a KINGS casino here if you fancy a flutter.
All in all, this is a good resort in a beautiful location with nice accomodation. All it needs is some good strong management to improve things in certain areas and to direct the staff. I would stay again at this resort but I do want to try other Sandals resorts to see how they compare.

We spent 1 week at the Sandals Halcyon Beach in St. Lucia and 1 week at Sandals Grande Antigua, what a difference!!! The Halcyon is relatively small and friendly but is in desperate need of a refurb. it lacked any form of evening entertainment before 11pm and then it was a disco..the food however was very good and the service always friendly, beware the noisy main road to the rear of the accommodation.

The Grande was totally different, we did not stay in the new Mediterrean village thank goodness..that hotel could be anywhere and was a lot more expensive than the older original resort. Our room was very confortable, linen changed daily by happy friendly staff, if I am being picky the bathroom could have been bigger.
The food was varied and FABULOUS, service was friendly in all the restaurants. The entertainment was of a very high standard and typical of the island....steel bands etc and it started early in the evening, usually finishing around midnight.
Loved every minute of our last week and can't wait to return for longer next year.

We stayed at Sandals in Antigua at the end of January for two weeks and while it would be a very good 3 Star it is not up to it’s claimed rating. The new accommodation is very good but the whole place is let down by the totally inadequate control exercised by the management. The staff are willing (with a few very surly notable exceptions) but these foot soldiers are of little use with no direction – at what other supposed luxury resort would you see the General Manager picking up glasses round the pool while staff were talking in a corner! Control of the pool area is non existent - greedy guests get as many towels as they can carry whilst anyone arriving any later than midday get none. The use of sun chairs is dependent on getting to the pool before 7-30 because after that they are covered in many towels and an assumption by the people who have put them there that the chair is theirs for the day regardless of whether they use it or not (We once got chairs at the pool at about 3pm and on enquiring about the two chairs next to us found that the towels had been put on at 7-15 am and the people had never used them – not, as I found out by observation , an uncommon occurrence!) The beach area is the same (never saw the beach valet who was supposed to bring towels when you please - according to the brochure) there is little shade and the beach bar makes no check if the glass they are giving you is going to the beach – plastic glasses were available.
Concierge service was really not worth having . Most requests were met with directions to somewhere else which could have been done in the first place, cutting out the concierge and saving shoe leather. Never did get the his and her robes as in the brochure! However the service was useful for booking restaurants as trying to book with the lady who was in charge of bookings was not a pleasant experience .
The restaurants were adequate but a little bland and again control could be better – if a particular wine was unavailable the waitress would not come back and tell you but stay away and hope you would forget! (Had to wait one day one hour (despite about 4 requests) to eventually get some wine with the pudding!) The staff in the restaurants were generally very pleasant – they just needed a bit of direction.
Finally a word about Karen who did the excursion bookings. This was someone who went out of her way to give us 5 star service when we wanted to get tickets for a cricket match. Nothing was too much trouble and it was an example of how things should be done.