We arrived back from the Verandah resort on Saturday 24 after our 2 week stay.

After reading some of the reviews I agree with some points but not other but I guess what people want and expect from a holiday do vary, although in my experience the Caribbean is much the same.

We were met by very friendly reception staff and offered a nice drink, we were then driven off in an electric buggy to the rooms. They have made great progress on the resort over the last 2 weeks before we arrived and more so whilst we were there. There seems to only be 2 villa shells left, shame they are on route to the available room, bad planning there even the green shielding around the bases would be a quick win.

Our room was great 176, we paid for an oceanfront room and it was great with a nice view, highly recommend rooms 162 onwards if you are on the front row. In typical Caribbean style the rooms are clean and practical but they certainly look very plain compared to the offerings in say Mauritius or Maldives etc.

During our stay we found the staff very friendly and helpful with good manners and what seemed like a genuine attitude. Some of the restaurant staff need more experience which I am sure will come with time but they need to ensure it is soon as it seems to be getting busier each day.

We were lucky enough that all 3 restaurants were open when we were there and the food standard was above average for an all-inclusive resort. The fine dinning restaurant that currently is included on AI was good but not worth the planned $25 surcharge they plan on charging.

The weather was great with only 1 morning and 2 hours 1 afternoon lost to the rain.

The pool is very nice, clean and had plenty of sun beds, as did the beach once they moved 20 from the other beach near reception.

During the managers evening he announced the kids pool was open along with the kids play area, also the tennis courts would be complete on the 1/11/07. They are all working very hard to get this place ready, we were advised that completion by end of December was now unlikely and end of Feb 2008 was more the case.

Overall and enjoyable stay in a nice resort that in 6 months time when it is all complete the dust has settled and the plants have grown a bit will be a genuine 4 star resort.

Paul

Just returned from the Veranda. Pleasant enough resort. I generally agree with previous reviews. However, PLEASE BE AWARE: My mobile phone
was stolen from my room. Someone with a master key entered the room as
it was impossible to get in any other way. The hotel staff were ok but
I had to insist that they allow me to make a free phone call from the room and also I had to pressure them to call the police. All these arrangements were carried out begrudgingly. Having read previous reviews, it seems this has happened before. This is not a good sign for a newly constructed resort!!!! I will NOT be going back to the Verandah

Just got back from the Verandah resort. Spent a week celebrating my mothers 70th birthday. The resort is nice, but most resorts/vacations away from the cold weather are nice.

Yes, the resort is still under construction. However constuction noise is not an issue. Landscaping is new so you are still going to see some areas were plants/trees have not grown in.

The food is O.K. Typical resort food in my opinion. If you are use to fine dining this is not a resort for you. I did have a fresh tuna starter that I thought was excellent, but besides that I was just O.K. with the food/dining.

Staff was very plesant, but still green. I tipped most of my servers, but I did not see a lot of tipping in general. Needless to say they were very appreciative when you gave them a few bucks.

The beach was o.k.. However there are 42 stairs (I counted) to get onto the beach. Which means there are 42 stairs to climb to get off the beach. Not an easy task for an older person or a person with disibilities.You better not be a smoker. In addition there is no bathroom in the beach area. You have to climb those 42 stairs and then a steep hill to use the bathroom at the pool. The beach bar is also located at the top of those 42 stairs. We only had a server on the beach 1 day out of seven. I was very disappointed about this. The water is nice, but the beach area could have been raked more often. If you want more of a surf beach this is not the resort for you,Stay at Coco Bay. We had no problem getting a lounger or a spot in the shade, but we were usually on the beach by 9 a.m.

The pool area is nice and they do have servers coming around on a regular basis. Plenty of loungers as well.

The rooms are beautiful. We stayed in villa 155 and the view was great. Beds are comfortable and the bathrooms are big. They never stocked the frig, but I'm sure if I made a phone call to the front desk they would have.

This is not a resort for pre teens/teens. My children 14 & 11 would have been bored to tears. Maybe in a few years they will add some activities to draw this age group.

Entertainment is minimal. Don't expect to see big shows. Each night they had a different band/singer in the bar area. Just o.k. nothing special. They do have a casino, but it has not opened yet. Looks small.

We took a day trip around the island which was good but expensive. If you want to book trips do so early because they don't run daily.

Over all I enjoyed myself. It was a very relaxing trip (read 4 books).If your looking for lots of excitment do not go to this resort. As it matures it may be better.

We stayed at The Verandah Resort and Spa November 9th – 13th for a girl’s weekend away. When we arrived we were greeted by managers (who told us that they were formerly with The St. James Club) and received a cool beverage – a tasty rum punch. The customer service at this point seemed spectacular, although we quickly learned how wrong we were.
Back in August when we made our reservations for the resort, we requested 2 rooms side by side with an adjoining verandah. We were told that this would not be a problem. When we arrived this was not the case, after multiple phone calls and a day later, we were finally accommodated.
Restaurants and food: 2 weeks prior to our arrival we had made reservations for Nicole’s Restaurant for dinner for 2 of the nights that we were going to be at the resort. When we attempted to confirm our reservations prior to dinner our 1st evening there, they claimed to have no record of our reservation. Just a side note – there is nothing on the menu for Nicole’s that warrants a $25.00 surcharge. We had the surcharge removed because there was nothing about a surcharge when we made reservations back in August. On Friday they told us that there would be a Seafood Buffet on Sunday, but on Sunday afternoon they changed the Sunday buffet to a carving night with ham, turkey, etc. Needless to say we were very disappointed because we were all looking forward to some fresh Caribbean seafood. Speaking of fresh, the size of the fresh pineapple kept getting smaller and smaller each day until the day that we left we were served canned pineapple. As far as the food choices – no major complaints for the breakfast buffet, yet nothing to brag about. Although there are no real complaints about the taste of the food for lunch and dinner, there were very few choices. It was a bit disappointing to realize that the best desert we had all weekend was what appeared to be store bought cookies, which were however very good. They only had 2 restaurants open to choose from. We were under the impression that there would be 3 with 1 being a buffet option every night.
Alcohol: All alcoholic drinks were excellent and made with top shelf liquor. Our only complaint would have been that they should have had fresh fruit for their frozen drinks. We had asked for bananas and were told that one of the managers was going to get some mix, but in the five days that we were there, there was none available.
Entertainment: The nightly entertainment was pretty lame. They need to offer more entertainment to get the guests involved.
Rooms: The rooms are spacious and clean, but we felt that they needed both interior and exterior color to add character to the resort. Housekeeping did a phenomenal job.
Telephone service: Unfortunately we all have Verizon cell phone service and we didn’t have any reception making international calls quite expensive using the phones in the rooms. The telephones in the rooms had no identifying markers. We had to call the reception area to find out how to make room to room calls and to inquire about the number to contact guest services. We did not know until checkout that all local calls were75 cents per call. We made a number of calls (17 to be exact) trying to find a number for scooter rentals because guest services could not help us out, saying that they didn’t have a phone number or a phone book. One of the girls in our group called a random restaurant in Antigua to ask for a phone number for the scooter rentals.
Guest Services: Whenever we called guest services, they would have to get back to us, which always took over an hour.
The Beach: If you’re looking for a beach front resort – this is not the resort for you. It was a small man made beach with a lot of sea weed, sea grass and coral – not the ideal place to float in the ocean all day. If you like a raft to float in the ocean, bring your own like we did as there are none available at the resort. The water activities employees were excellent. As stated in previous reviews, there was a swampy area next to the beach, but it didn’t really bother us.
Excursions: The zip line with the rainforest canopy tour is a must. We had an awesome time.
Over all we had a great time because we made the best of it. The place is brand new and I’m sure things will improve with time. Special thanks to Lionel, Lionel, Cedric and Noelle Peter (the guys in the magical navy blue shirts) who went above and beyond to make our stay an enjoyable one.