We had a great week at this resort, first time at Sandals. The room was good but a bit noisy because there was a generator at the back and the staff coming to work at 6am passed along the front and the Antiguans love to chatter. Oh, and why do they need to put up the 12 flags outside our room at 6am each day?

Now having got that off my chest the good stuff. The resort and the rooms were clean and all the staff friendly and cheerful. There are 9 restaurants and we managed to eat in 5 different ones in a week. It's a bit of a challenge as you have to pre-book 5 of the 9 and getting through to the desk is not easy which means many are already booked or the time you prefer is taken before you get through, but if you persevere and book 2 days ahead you can get in most of your choices.

The food is good in all the restaurants although the menu in the main one (Bayside) is a bit boring. Make sure you try Marios (Italien) it was really good and Eleanors (traditional Antiguan food) was even better, but you do have to book both. Our favourite was Barefoot which is on the beach and casual and you do not have to book. The food is great and the staff the friendliest so make sure you eat there and say hello to Kizzy the manager who is really friendly and helpful.
Enjoy the cocktails, make sure you try the banana sip-sop and a BBC.

The beach is fabulous and the water warm so enjoy Sandals and don't be put off by some of the other reviews.

This was our first trip to Antigua, but our ninth to a Sandals. We booked the lowest concierge level, and were upgraded two levels, as we are "returning guests". The island (and beach) is one of the prettiest we have visited in the Caribbean.
The food was, overall, above average, and sometimes excellent. There are several restaurants which prevents you from feeling you are eating at the same place every night. We thought Eleanor's and the Sushi bar were excellent. I especially enjoyed the outdoor pizza. It was great to sit and drink a beer or wine watching the water waiting for pizza.
Premium brands of liquor are available almost all the time, and any kind of drink you wanted was available.
Our room, on the third floor in the new Mediterranean Village, was more like a suite, very large, with sofa and table and chairs, balcony with ocean view, huge bathroom with walk in shower, separate granite vanities, and whirlpool tub. We were disappointed that room service did not come with our level of booking. Each Sandals offers room service at different levels.
The only activity we were interested in was Scuba. The dives we did make were quite good, seeing turtles, rays, a nurse shark, flounder, squid and lots of fish, including my favorite, drum fish. Several times though we had to abort dives due to very poor visibility. Visibility seemed to depend on the location where we were trying to dive, the south was usually quite clear, while the west was not. Could never find out why the boat captain went where he did on certain days. There was no dock, due to local regulations, so we had to walk to the boat with our bc's, fins and personal stuff.
The service was overall very good. We had a few instances of employees who seemed like they would have rather not been working, or had their mind on something else, but most were trying to please.
Entertainment, both before and after dinner was exceptional. Nothing beats sitting on your balcony or on the beach listening to a saxaphone player or a jazz group.
It usually takes us a month or so to let the trip settle in before we can rank our visit compared to other Sandal's visits, but this was definitely one of the best.

Having just returned from two weeks at the Sandals Antigua Grande we felt it right to let everyone know how we got on.

Before we went we had been reading the very mixed reviews on here and were a little apprehensive to say the least.

First thing first the resort is great, food and choice of restaurants is excellent, the resort is very clean and the gardens and landscaping are beautiful. We were lucky to get an upgrade to a Monte Carlo suite in the med village on the top floor. The room was amazing and the views fantastic.

We have travelled from the UK many times to the Carribean and this resort is up there at the top, if not at the top itself. Like any resort though there are always some issues, so below are the best and worst bits we experienced.

Best

- Great choice of restaurants with very helpful and pleasant staff. By far the most romantic two are bayside and barefoot - which even better - do not require reservations.

- Whole resort is very clean and attractive to walk round and very romantic - especially those late night walks on beach.

- Cocktails and premium drinks are great. Cocktails taste great and are not watered down like other hotels we have experienced.

- Med village rooms are great. Whirlpool bath in most rooms (I think) and large marble bathroom areas make it that bit more luxurious.

- Towels. Plenty of them and you can have as many as you like by the pool. No need to carry towel cards etc.
Beautiful beach and setting.

- Mini Bar in room is well stocked and if you ask (with a few dollars) they will stock it with your choice of brand.

- Jacuzzis are very very warm - which is great during the liquid sunshine moments.

- Nearly all staff were generally very friendly and made you feel welcome.

- Good high speed internet access on Carribean side.

- Very attractive and modern spa facility.

- Weather was good - although there were occassional liquid sunshine moments - the breeze during the day was also very pleasant. At night time the temperature and humidity was also pleasant.

Worst

- Concierge service not great. Had high hopes for this but to be honest had more problems than we would have liked. It got better towards end of our stay though and dinner reservations were generally made as per our request.

- Med village pool bar is very slow at times - but most bars like this are.

- Pool waitress service is poor - seems to happen very adhoc and infrequent. Although seemed more frequent towards end of our holiday.

- There were not enough sun umbrellas and the control / management of the sun beds could have been better. If you wanted a certain area you had to be down early. Regular saw beds 'reserved' by towels for the vast majority of the day.

- Whilst restuarant staff were fantastic - we thought some bar staff could be more customer focused and more welcoming to guests.

- Unless you have butler service there is no room service available - if you want to eat in your room then you have to go and get it yourself. Not ideal for a 5 star resort.

- Although med village is relatively new some of the pool furniture was in need of maintenance. (e.g. Wheels loose on sun loungers / umbrellas not fixed into bases and regularly being blown out by the wind).

- Only one of two internet pc's ever working at the same time.

- No internet access on med village side.

- Although spa experience was good it could have been better and more inviting. Felt that the staff had been encouraged to sell more services and products than making your experience special.

- Gym was subject to refurbishment during our entire stay and covered in dust. Not great but likely to be quite impressive when finished.

- Although Teppanyaki restuarant had great food the experience could have been better. It was a bit conveyer belt like and there was no real atmosphere created. The chef came in just to cook the main course and to be honest didn't really interact with guests very well.

- Although no real problems with mosquitos we did have some problems with sand flies during the day. Some insect repellant is recommended.

- Although this a very romantic resort there were some occassions when groups of loud mouth (generally americans - sorry!!) did spoil things. It seems in these types of groups there is always a who can talk the loudest competition! Was particularly embarrassing when they started to sing 'who let the dogs out' as a wedding was about to start!

- As said earlier we have travelled from the UK many times to the Carribean and this resort is definetly up there at the top, if not at the top itself. Also, to be honest some of the 'worst' bits mentioned above are likely to be experienced at most resorts.

Hope this review helps you out when making your decision. We are certainly glad we ignored the poor reviews on here and went with our instinct.

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.