First of all, sorry for my english.

My girlfriend and I belong to travellers who always travel light and aiming to be simple and share with local people.

If you're looking for a beautiful island with incredibles beaches, go to Antigua.

Concerning good parts of Verandah,

rooms are excellent, quite big with all you need: big bed, cooler, fridge, microwave, big bathroom, flat TV, and no mosquitos.

Main Beach is great, water is clear, staff is nice.
Swimming pool is ok, but a bit noisy

Concerning drink & food, you should really go all inclusive, not because the food is amazing, but correct, i mean all bad comments about food i read were from people i think who are limited concerning food flavours and way of cooking, sometimes there are too much garlic, a bit too spicy, or not cheesy enough, or whatever you want for every meal, you can't have perfect meals, And i really laugh when people say that the 3 restaurants share the same kitchen and serve almost the same meals, what are you attending for, a world famous Chief who prepare you some meals like "Tournedos Rossini and french Foie Gras", "Scallops with a vanilla sauce" & crayfish or lobsters + a Chateauneuf du Pape as wine? come on, if you want that spend at least 600 $/night in another hotel in another place, but if you can't afford it, try to enjoy their correct and sometimes very good meals.

We usually had our breakfast and dinner at the Seabreeze, and lunch at the beach Bar/Grill which served good Burgers, fried fish and others, thanks to Angela, the fastest and nice cook we met.

And all inclusive is especially useful to order a drink whenever you want at the Bar and to enjoy it after a bath or sunbath, and of course there's no Cocktails or drink menus, talk with the Bartender, he/she will help you, especially Vera, who is such a nice and funny Barmaid, and knows quite a lot of drinks.

To spend a nice holiday, ask/talk with the guest service staff, special mention to Danna.

Concerning bad parts, that mainly come from other guests :

- it's so funny and ridiculous to see that people challenge every morning of who's gonna wake up the earlier as possible to reserve a shade seats at the swimming pool or the beach, we experimented to wake up at 6.30 am to have a look, that's amazing, you can see the stupidity of humans (actually the guests) who run to reserve the best seats and going back to their room and being able to spend like only 1 hour a day at the place they reserved and letting that empty for like 10 hours but happy with the fact they have THEIR RESERVED SEATS.
That's a weird vision of relaxing and enjoying holidays.

I think that people don't know actually how to be simple and respectfull when they go to a foreign country, they think that having a good financial situation allow them to attend more than they should and sometimes to treat people with no respect.


Well, i'm not gonna describe all the good things of this place, which in fact come from many employees, a great thanks to Icilma, Noel, Danna, Vera, Daytonn, Lionel (Ritchie? --> joke), Jennifer and Angela.

We'll be back for sure.

If you are not on an all inclusive plan do NOT stay here!!!!!!


HOTEL LOCATION:
The hotel is one the east coast. Save for two places there is NOTHING within 30 minutes drive of the hotel. The two exceptions are:

Mama Pasta
Turn right out the hotel and it's up a dirt track. Shuts at 7 which is way too early. We never got there so can't review it.

The Long Bay Beach hotel.
It's just on the beach which is passed mamas place (Long Bay beach-brilliant) The main hotel is closed but the beach bar is open. it was dead when we went there (all inclusive strikes again!) but the food was great. It is right on the beach and if you eat there you can use the sun loungers all day.

You need to go to either South-Shirley Heights or Nelson's Dockyard (dead out of sailing season) or St Johns. Don't miss the Sunday BBQ at Shirley Heights!

We were on the vaguely offensive "European plan" (i.e room only) We spent all our time at the main supermarket on the island at Woods mall on Friars hill Rd in St Johns. Frustratingly, although the hotel rooms are equipped with microwaves, nothing at all is sold in the gift shop which could be microwaved!-it's mainly chocolates and chips. There is a small convenience store in the next villiage -Willikies but it’s difficult finding parking.

If you go to Nelson's Dockyard most restaurants are closed now (August) due to it being hurricane season-Abracdabra does remain open -the food is utterly brilliant.

HOTEL ACCOMODATION

I read various negative reviews about the poor sound proofing of the rooms. I was pleasantly surprised. The rooms are well built and whilst we could on occasion hear loud children in the adjoining cabin that's no different to a hotel room! The rooms are far from being flimsy. The decore is I think just about 4 star. The furniture is well constructed, beds big and the sheets very well made and clean. We had the largest bath I’d ever seen and two sinks in the bathroom. All told pretty good. We never felt noise was an issue.

Another plus is practically no insects at all! All we saw were 2 small ants-certainly no cockroaches.

Rooms have a balcony and a slight downside is that one side is open which can be a little uncomfortable if you are sitting out with the next door neighbours (not those directly adjoining the cabin fortunately )A simple screen would provide more privacy. However, frankly that's a small point and shouldn't spoil a holiday.

The rooms are well appointed with fridge and microwave, but see above.

We were in a cabin right off the main area -pool and restaurant complex so we had no walk. We would probably have felt different if we were stuck out in the middle of nowhere. The buggy will stop (sometimes) for those on the way to/from the reception pool but not always.

RESORT
The resort is frankly beautiful. Each cabin (is that the right word?) is surrounded by lovely foliage and all are given names (we stayed in "St Kitts"). It is impeccable and very clean. There are banana trees everywhere with massive bunches of them hanging off. There are two beaches. The first, closest to the reception, isn't really worth visiting. the sand is very silty and there’s no real reason to go there. The main beach is great. I've heard terrible things about this beach from other reporters on this web site-it's polluted and very crowded. Neither was the case when we were there.The water was incredibly clear and if you snorkel by the rocks you will find coral and reef fish. A great point is that you can take out kayaks and peddalo's and (if you can sail) a hobie catamaran . Ask for George to take you out on the big Hobie-with a stiff wind it is magic. The beach was never very crowded and I can think of nothing particularly negative to say about it. There is a trudge down a steepish flight of stairs to get to the beach. Other resorts we’ve stayed at in Malaysia and Dubai have the beach right there. But, frankly it’s another small point and shouldn’t spoil the holiday.

By the way, in terms of beaches to visit this is my list of priorities:

Long Bay Beach (just outside the resort but a great beach- it’s public so don’t take cameras or too much money- we had no problems with touts though)

Half Moon Bay Beach: This is about a 20 min drive south. It is truly wonderful. When we were there were about 10 others. It is entirely natural-there are no hotels restaurants-nothing. It is safe though- there were a handful of other tourists and some locals-no beach touts.

We drove all the way to Dickinson beach where Sandals is. The beach wasn’t as good as Long Bay and it was covered in touts. Avoid.

We didn’t think much of Devils Bridge. The path has lots of broken glass so if you are going wear proper shoes.

Food:

This is the main negative. Some reporters have already commented on the fact that the Verandah’s restaurants seem to be served by the same kitchen - an apparent fact from what I could see.. There are 3 restaurants-Sea Breeze, The Buccaneer and the “fine dining” experience of Nicoles. They are all in the same complex round the pool area . So far as I could tell Sea Breeze and Buccaneer look exactly the same. This is plain wrong-resort restaurants should have different charcters and serve different food. There is a silly rule that you must book every time you want to eat, unless it’s a buffet. The night we arrived we went to the buffet (Buccaneer was booked and we already realised Nicole’s would be absurdly expensive). The Seabreeze like the buccaneer is an underwhelming experience. It’s almost pitch dark and was generally very flat atmosphere wise. we told the waiter we were room only and asked how much the buffet would cost. We were told $150US for 3 persons (one a child)!! We looked at the food- there were 3 or 4 platters of sludgy sauces (Indonesean curry anyone?). There was no seafood at all save for a large salmon which customers were given pieces of with a gloopy sauce. All told it looked pretty awful; and not worth anything like the money. We got chips from the gift shop instead.

We eat once at the beach bar. The burgers are unmistakably frozen and were generally poor. By contrast the burgers at the Long Bay hotel were fresh and superb. The beach bar closes early and we would have expected BBQ nights but there was nothing like that. The resort at night was a bit flat-the “entertainment “ is mostly dire- a man on his Bontempi organ playing various instrumentals (theme tune to “Titanic” etc)

The only other time we eat in the resort was at the Buccaneer on the last night. The food was ok-ish. I got the wrong wine and my son’s prawn tempura was totally cold and slimy (the waitress argued that it was meant to be cold (despite the vegetable termpura I had being hot!) I’m certainly glad at the start of the holiday I didn’t agree to “upgrade” to all inclusive for the reasonable some of $2,000US! .

The food is rubbish probably because of the fact it is an all inclusive resort (you don‘t get something for nothing-etc). That reason alone will guarantee no other businesses open up to serve clientele in the area which is a real shame -I’m really not a fan of all inclusive.

Service:

Service falls into two kinds-very friendly or surly . The latter can be a pain-this seemed to be a qualification for working in the bar! Overall though they weren’t the worst. Generally people were helpful and friendly especially at the beach.

Conclusion

This resort is nowhere near as good as some we have stayed at, but despite the disaster of having nowhere to eat we really enjoyed our time at the Vernadah. We hired a car and without it the holdiay woulod have been a compolete disaster.There are problems with the food but overall I think for the sheer beauty of the place and the quality of the accommodation it deserves 4 stars (just).

Enjoy!

The hotel is still new so not everything is up and running. There are two pools on site, but the "Adult" pool area was supposed to have a full bar, but not at this time. The resort has two beaches on property, again where only one had a full service bar/resturant which is all the way up some stairs on the hill. This gave a beautiful view of the pool, but tiresome when you want to just sit and relax on the beach with a cocktail.

The grounds are truely amazing and it is a large beautful property. Although you must wait for a tram to get around, which comes every 15-20 mins NOT on a schedule!! Kinda frustrating when you wait just to get to the front of the resort to get a cab!

Don't get me started on the cabs!! It is a total racquett there! In the 6 days we spent at our resort for two people to get around the island it cost us $240 US!! That is rediculous!! I spent less at the Market in St. Johns shopping!! The hotel arranges the cabs to pick you up, and they charge whatever they feel! The excursions are only booked through the hotel, and a portion of what you are paying for is the person to book it for you!! (Your deposit on the trip the hotel takes before you go!!) Which sometimes include cab fare, but if your not careful to pay attention, sometimes you have already paid, and they want more!

All in all, it has a pretty view, beautifully landscaped property, mediocure food, and people will to take advantage of their tourtist!
Big disappointment! Definately not for singles!!!

We have just returned from a 7 night stay at this hotel, after reading some great reviews on Trip Advisor. We booked our flights direct with BMI (LHR-ANU via Manchester) and the hotel through Expedia. We saved ourselves a lot of money doing this rather than booking as a package through a tour operator or travel agent.

We have stayed at many all inclusives in the Caribbean, so we knew what to expect and also had some experience of what we were comparing our holiday to.

We travelled with our 2 children aged 9 and 11. The rooms were great and large enough for us to all share - the children shared a sofa bed which was large and comfy. They were particularly impressed when their cuddly toys were nicely arranged on their bed, every day after the maid had been! All the rooms appear to have a view of the sea, so I wouldn't have felt paying extra for a waterfront view would be worth it. Also we spent very little time in our room, leaving early for breakfast and getting back just before dark.
I requested a room close to the pool/restaurants and we were lucky our room was just a few minutes walk away.

The food was great at all the restaurants. We ate at Seabreeze most of the time and the staff here were very attentive, serving iced water and clearing plates between courses very promptly. I was particularly fond of the garden vegetables which were cooked to perfection, unusual for vegetables cooked en masse! The fresh pineapple was fantastic (Antigua's national fruit), however we were disappointed at the range of fruit available. We had bananas but only a couple of of times during the week. Melon was the only other fruit available. Nicoles and Buccaneers were only open a few days a week as it was low season. We went to Nicoles twice and the food was really fantasitc and the service good. The only disappointment was that they served the same menu on each ocassion! We didn't pay a $25 pp surcharge as it was low season. Though the Seabreeze was good it did become a little monotonous eating 3 meals a day there. We ordered glasses of champagne a few times, as we weren't keen on the wine. The champagne was lovely and we thought we would be billed for it but weren't, so we were gutted that this was included and we didn't realise.

We agree with many of the comments made already about the unfriendly staff at the bars. this was a real shame as this is the social hub of the resort. There were a few exceptions at the main bar but the beach bar/grill was a nightmare. We also missed lunch one day at Seabreeze and went here instead (food served till 4pm). After waiting for over half an hour and observing many people arriving after us and receiving their food before us. We asked how long it was going to be and were told they didn't have our order!! There are no menu's for drinks/cocktails available. You had to listen to what other people were ordering to discover what was on offer. Our children tried a 'mango crush' one day and loved it, so were disappointed when for the rest of our stay - there was no more mango left!

The beach (despite the steps) was beautiful, just a shame there wasn't more shade available. The sea was calm, safe and really warm. The pool area could also do with more shade. We did notice more umbrellas were being put up around the pool during our stay.

Though we travelled in the rainy season we had very little rain which tended to be once or twice at night or first thing in the morning. The weather was really hot around 89 degrees most days, and ocassionally with a very welcome cooling wind. This is definitely the perfect time to go as the hotel is not full and the prices are lower.

We would definitely recommend people to travel to this resort, taking note of all the comments in Trip Advisor.

Lastly take lots of suncream with you. We ran out of high factor suncream and had to buy some in the shop which cost $25 (a lot more than Boots!).