This is a fantastic hotel. Right on the wonderful beach with a really relaxing atmosphere. The staff are really friendly and very attentive.

The food is the highlight. It's like eating in a quality restaurant 3 times a day ... even Breakfast is a real treat. There is another more romantic restaurant with an amazing setting. Food is excellent there too.

Everything you can possibly think of is included. Internet, watersports, tennis, champagne and even Mini Bar. I was watching the football and some guys knocked on the door saying 'I heard you watching the football, want me to stock the bar with more Beers for you?. Amazing.

We had the Cottages which were great. The plunge pool was brilliant to wake up to. Having a nice dip before retiring was great too. Fully Air Conditioned so slept a treat.

The communial pool is fantastic too. Spent most of our time there as it was near the bar. The pool is an excellent fresh water pool and never too busy.

Only advice would be make sure it's not jelly fish season when you go (it was in early October). Some of the best snorkelling was to be had on Galley Bay beach but there were too many jelly fish at the time.

We booked our stay with Elite Island Resorts through email which is not the conventional way to book a $$$$ vacation but the agent was very helpful and knowledgable of the resort and Island and since I live in CA being able to contact someone on the East Coast at 7pm my time was great as I had many questions that were answered quickly to make Galley Bay an easy choice.

This also gave us some indication as to what was to follow when we got to the resort.

When we arrived through the walkway we were graciously awaited by a gentleman who escorted us to our cottage, a long day of travel so we appreciated the speedy check in.

The Gaugain Cottages were very quaint, two thatched roof buildings (private) ne for bathing and dressing and the other for sleeping and resting, which we did alot of here, especially by the plunge pool.

Busy lives and schedules so we decided to enjoy as much peace as possible and Gally Bay delivered.

The grounds are immaculately kept and the bird sanctuary is nice for viewing.

Dinning is at it's best here, gourmet upscale fare with the island flavors ummmm I am thinking about drinks on the beach at sunset as I day dream of our return to Galley Bay.

This was the honeymoon our lives prevented us from taking and the ambiance of the resort was laid back and relaxing to make our honeymoon very special and romantic.

We did meet some nice people on our stay from all corners of the world and hope to meet up again next year.

The staff was over accommodating leaving nothing to be desired.

We did get out into town for some shopping and over to devils bridge which is a must see.

All in all if you are looking for paradise come to Galley Bay and don't forget to relax, that is the best part!!!

We have traveled extensively and visited some of the most highly rated places out there. Having just returned from a fortnight in Florida with our five kids, we decided that we needed a break away, just the two of us. So, we left the kids with the babysitter and headed to the Galley Bay resort in Antigua. We’d read so many good things about this hotel that we decided to pay a lot more money for Galley Bay, as it seemed from the reviews to be the place to stay in Antigua.

We do not usually write reviews, but I’m sorry, we were so disappointed with this place that we’ve decided to write one for you now. I don’t know why this hotel gets such good reviews from other travelers! Honestly, it’s three stars at best. It’s just not worth the money! If you’re considering going here then don’t! There are far cheaper hotels on the island and far better ones at that!

We were there in the last two weeks of August and thankfully, the weather was really nice. The temperature hovered around the 31 deg.c mark and the ocean was 28 deg.c….. Bliss!! No complaints about the weather at least.

We usually holiday in the Caribbean because we’re keen scuba divers and it has some of the best diving in the world. We were disappointed that the nearest Dive Centre was a $75 Caribbean taxi ride each way (£15 GBP each way). We spent more on the taxis than the diving!! The diving was spectacular, but usually the Caribbean has Dive Centre’s within reach. The taxis in Antigua are expensive! In consideration, you’d think the hotel (like any decent hotel) would run a free shuttle into town, but NO.

OK, so what will I moan about now? I know what you’re thinking, “This one must moan about everything, thank God I’m not married to that!!” I feel like a total nag, but honestly, I’m usually really easy to please. Look at the other review I’ve just written about the holiday we needed to get over Galley Bay if you don’t believe me! It’s just that this place really did disappoint me! I’m not usually one to complain!

Take the hotel shop for example. Over priced is an understatement! After being told that the restaurants (all two of them) had a dress-trouser policy (no jeans), we decided to look in the shop for a pair as he’d only packed one. They wanted $85 USD for a cheap pair of khaki trousers that would have cost less than $10 back home. What a cheek! You can’t believe the prices in this shop. Every other place in Antigua labels their prices in Caribbean dollars, but not this place. It’s all in USD and it’s all way over-priced.

The beach was pretty disappointing. We’ve been to the Caribbean a few times, but this was the poorest beach we’ve seen there. The waves are really choppy by Caribbean standards and it has steep sandy undulations as you entered the sea, so you went into deep water pretty sharply and suddenly. Half of the beach (the left side) is useless if you want to go into the water as it’s really rocky and impossible to walk out in. The snorkeling is non-existent, with absolutely nothing to see but sand.

Beach facilities were ‘just ok’. They had two small catamarans, a few kayaks and some wind surfers. The flippers and masks had seen better days. They’re covered in sand, not at all looked after, just hung out on old rusty nails. The rubber seals on the masks had worn so badly that they all let in water.

We’re not usually bothered too much by mosquitoes on holiday. You know, maybe a half a dozen bites is normal and to be expected. However, come to Galley Bay and you will get eaten alive! Our room and the entire grounds of the hotel were infested by them. Even after using about $100 worth of ‘Off’, we were like a couple of lepers. The bites from these Galley Bay mozzies is particularly bad! Trust me, I’ve been bitten in the Bahamas, Egypt, USA, Africa, always not too bad, but here they’re unbearable! Take a look around the hotel grounds though; it’s not hard to see why there is such a huge mosquito problem. There are breeding pits for mosquitoes everywhere! The hotel seem to expend great efforts in maintaining dead water pools. All around the jogging trail and all along the sides of the paths. Dead water literally teaming with mosquitoes! They fumigated the place wile we were there, but honestly, the hotel management have no clue how to deal with this problem. They need to tackle the breeding pits!! I should have taken a picture of the back of my neck, it was like something out of an horror film.

We’d read good things about a bird sanctuary? We couldn’t find it. We did find a rather filthy looking pond at either side of the road leading from reception, but there were only a few ducks there. The water was filthy like the Thames and is stunk of God knows what. The area around the pond is a jogging trail, literally teaming with mosquito pits and dead water pools.

So, onto the room. We’d looked at the hotel on the net before opting for one of the quaint little Gaugin Cottages. It was just the two of us and we thought they looked quite romantic and we didn’t see the point in spending the extra on the ‘superior’ rooms. Well, what a letdown!! The room is split into two tiny little cottages with thatched roofs. One room has a shower and a WC in it. The other room has a bed in it. There’s pretty much no space to put anything else. They’re so unbelievably tiny! The bed is a queen size and it takes up the entire room. There’s a 21” TV and it looks so out of place as it makes the room look even smaller! OK, so what the heck, we didn’t plan on spending too much time in the room anyway, so we just got on with it. At night we couldn’t sleep though. They didn’t have air con, just a silly little wall shaker built into the wall. The thermostat was erratic!! It made the room either freezing like ice, or too hot to breathe with nothing in-between! The blanket on the bed was wafer thin and the pillows were disgusting. Add to that our mosquito problem and the room was the last place we wanted to be!!

The shower room and WC was a joke. The lighting was terrible as it had a single 20W bulb. The shower itself did not have any lights in it and you had to leave the curtain open to stand half a chance of seeing anything! On top of all this, if you needed the loo in the middle of the night, you had to a) find the key for the toilet door and then; b) run outside to the toilet with a towel or something round you in case anyone is around, then fiddle with the lock to try and get in!

The Gaugin Cottage did have a cute little “splash pool” in the yard. Forget about swimming in it though. I’d call it more of a “bath”

WE WERE FOOLISH ENOUGH TO USE THE PHONE in our room!!! $6.50 USD per minute when the kids were back home. This cost us a whopping $945.00 phone bill at the end of our stay!!!! WHAT A RIP OFF!!!

The hotel itself is pretty mediocre. With only two restaurants and one swimming pool to choose from, you will quickly become bored of the place. The main restaurant at dinner time is as silent as a church. Not a peep. The place is very, very, very quiet. It’s unnerving! There’s no background music and you can hear a pin drop. To call it boring is an understatement! It’s eerie! The food is ‘alright’, nothing to get excited about here at all. The staff are very, very nice though. If it wasn’t for the super friendly staff we would have left early and found an alternative hotel. They really do make the place.

The second restaurant is further away and they sit you in these little open huts near the beach. These are really nice. The scenery at night is serene and they have a lovely, relaxing atmosphere. The food at this restaurant is far better than the main restaurant and the staff are just as friendly. You need to book this place though as there are only about ten tables.

The staff were the most delightful people you could meet. They’re ever so friendly and they just could not do enough to help. They’re really friendly and they’re always smiling and always chatting.

We met several other couples at this hotel and everyone shared the same views. It’s boring, the food’s dross, the entertainment is non-existent and we all felt it was not worth the money we’d paid. I don’t know why so many people are writing such good things about this place. The only thing I can think of is that some of the staff are paid to write reviews in their spare time?!

So, thinking of visiting St. Johns? DON’T!! The place is disgusting. It has open sewers on the main streets and the place is just stinking. It has drunks and vagabonds on every corner, sleeping in their own urine after too much of the local juice. It’s a horrid place, nothing nice about it at all. You’ll just want to get out of there!

We did read a few other people dissing Galley Bay before we left, but the overwhelming amount of good reviews had swayed us to ignore them and put them down as ‘just plain moaners’. However, you should listen to the bad reviews about Galley Bay!!! Trust me, it’s absolutely not worth the money and there are many, many better Caribbean destinations for a far better price.

We went with Virgin Holidays, so thankfully there were a host of excursions to break up the monotony of Galley Bay. A few boat rides round the island and some snorkeling trips. All pretty expensive for what you get, but good to get out of that hotel. It was just so boring there and we were being eaten alive!!

We chose Galley Bay for our wedding and honeymoon largely based on feedback from TripAdvisor and we were not disappointed. Everything was wonderful…here is the breakdown:

Room: We stayed in a premium beachfront suite…totally worth it, as the bathroom was HUGE and we really enjoyed the oversize tub and his-and-her showers. It was also awesome to be able to go directly out our door and onto the beach and I liked the convenience of having a shower on our patio so we could rinse off the sand and salt before going inside. Housekeeping did a wonderful job of keeping the room neat and clean (she put flowers in the room on our wedding day as a nice extra touch!)

Beach: Clean and beautiful. Be sure to walk up the road to Hawksbill so you can get a view from above of Galley Bay…bring your camera for some great pics!

Pool: Small but never crowded; nice waterfall. A hot tub would be a nice addition.

Drinks: Awesome! Try the “drink of the day”…we found several new favorites! Only complaint was the house wines…not so good but there was so much else to drink, this really was no big deal.

Food: Great…we preferred the Gaugin to the Sea Grape. We had the lobster (minimal surcharge of $20, which is a LOT less than we’d pay for it in the U.S.) on our last night and wished we had done so sooner as it was excellent!

Wedding: Beautiful! They did a great job decorating the wedding gazebo. I requested tropical flowers instead of carnations and they made a bouquet of flowers from the property that was just lovely. The cake was also beautiful and tropical (and delicious!) They make the wedding day special by having only one per day instead of the conveyor- belt weddings of other resorts…it really felt like “our” day. Most of the staff seemed to know that “room 65” had gotten married that day and wished us warm congratulations.

I have been to several other resorts in the Caribbean and this was my favorite place overall…nice rooms, good food, great drinks, beautiful beach and friendly service. Do NOT hesitate to try Galley Bay…we can’t wait to go back!