St. James's Club - All Inclusive

Customer Ratings & Reviews

• 

  It isn't perfect but not bad.

  After a long journey I was expecting a more friendly welcome but instead simply offered a cold towel and then bombared with information about the resort which I had no ability or apetite to take in. Then taken to room and left to my own devices. The lack of information is bewildering and I never did work out the TV, coffee machine or clock ! However non of these things bothered me and I somehow enjoyed exploring the resort without a map or guidance notes. The resort is well maintained and the room (Royal Suite) is large with a good bathroom. There are 5 restaurants the best being Picolo. The food is average but with a wide choice at the buffets. Service can be a bit hit and miss but then I was in no rush and believe you must adapt to the laid back approach of Antigua. Lorraine and Marrisa at Guest Services were very friendly and helpful and assisted in making my wife's birthday a wonderful day. I wasn't able to arrange a late room check out and as not being collected from the resort until 6pm meant we needed to change in the Gym shower area which was not ideal. Overall it was a pleasant 14 day holiday and whilst some other guests moaned about the food and service I didn't think it was that bad. I suggest providing more information by way of down-load to a phone perhaps, better welcome and improved food. I would say it was a 3.5/4 star resort but no where near 5 star.

  Mar 18, 2025
• 

  If you must go to Antigua, don't go here.

  29 years going to the Caribbean and this is the second worst experience. We have been to Blue waters before and it was brilliant. That time we took ferry rides to both Barbuda and Monserrat - and thought is was one of our best breaks. So let's start with what is good. It is the most amazing site, with parallel beaches offering Atlantic waves, tempered by a reef, or a totally protected beach on Mamora bay. There is a wonderful coffee shop, open all hours and staffed mainly by one lady, who is absolutely charming and had the biggest smile on the island. If she could be cloned there would have been no problem. Then the rest. The reception staff were arrogant and rude. Leaving us fuming after a 13 hour journey, interested only in ensuring $350 was removed from my bank account - just in case! and then we waited half an hour to find a porter to take our cases. I asked if I could have a map of the site - no. I asked if she would explain where the room was, so we could walk there and wheel our own cases - no. It was 8.30 pm before we could get to a restaurant. Only the Docksider was available, The remaining food was garbage, uneatable. I had a plate with some lettuce and slice of Mozzarella cheese and that was my entire supper. I was so angry that we had decided to demand Virgin remove us to another hotel if things were the same the following day. Breakfast was OK, so we stayed on. Mistake. The booking system for evening meals was Byzantine. There was only one good restaurant with about 40 covers. Piccolo. You were fined $75 a couple for deigning to go there. But the rest was awful. Docksider was grim. The main restaurant for waiter service was called Rainbow. They kept on saying it was fully booked and forcing you to go back to a heaving Docksider. Why, I don't know. The restaurant was only 1/3 full in the evenings and we waited up to 2 hours to get a main course. You had to plan up to 3 days in advance to book a restaurant with frequent refusals, saying you can't book until tomorrow morning etc. By the time we left I was sick of the food and desperate to get away. Try asking for an ice cream instead of the ubiquitous sponge cake for dessert. You get a look from the waitress as if you had asked her for a quick one.. The rooms are dated. There was no instruction booklet! When I queried this at reception they claimed it was due to Covid!! Covid is over and anyway the sheets would be laminated and could have been wiped down between clients. So we had no idea where anything was on site. No map of St James or the rest of the island. No information about sports, boat hire, what to do if you were ill or the crazy booking system. The wind from the Atlantic came through an ill fitting door and kept us awake. Then every other night we were woken promptly at 4 am by a loud machine going backwards and forwards both sides of the block. It sounded like a very large lawn-mower. One night I decided to ambush the culprit and found a functionary gassing all the insects in a process they called fogging. Why they chose 4 am for this was beyond me. The stairs to the upper story are a serious health hazard. Some steps looked like railway sleepers, they were rotting, warped at odd angles and I fell twice, luckily having the foresight to hold the rail. The other stairs at each end offered a 25 step fall on concrete. These also had no connection between the steps so that anyone wearing sandals or slip ons could catch their shoe under the step and fall 20 feet. I noted at the sister hotel called Pineapple resort, all the steps had been made properly with non-slip bands glued to every edge. Why St James is so behind I cannot tell. They obviously have no health and safety officer. I reported the taps weren't working in my bathroom. They had not been fixed two weeks later when I left. The rooms were not serviced daily - as I had found in every other Caribbean hotel for nearly 30 years. Why not? I suspect to save money on cleaning and clean towels. After three days without cleaning, we complained to the management. The next day a rather grumpy old woman turned up. When we later returned from the beach, we could not get in. The lock was not working. After a lot of faff and bother, someone turned up and reactivated it. Two day later the same cleaner came. Yes! - you got it. The lock was not functioning again. I complained as there was a long walk to get back to the reception and arrange for a visit and asked whether there was a possibility that the cleaner was doctoring the lock to punish us for complaining about her. "No, of course not they trilled. My posterior. The beaches were nice, kept beautifully clean, but there are no lifeguards - even for the Atlantic side and the promised drinks truck came just once in the two weeks we were there. Worst though is that it is a 45 minute ride on very pot-holed roads to the main capital and airport. You are effectively stranded on this resort, with scanty items in their shop and nowhere to get alternative food. They offer a hire car service with mini cars that will not cope with the potholed roads. Yes - you guessed, you can't insure against tyre and wheel damage and will have to pay the full cost of repairs. We instead decided on a day trip around the island. Organised by Virgin with Pelican tours, it was a total rip off. £220 to listen to a load of drivel, driving past 1000 battered houses and a visit to three tourist spots, not worth the effort. An "authentic" meal in a roadside cafe probably owned by a relative of the driver. Food was worse than the hotel - and that's saying something. The ferry rides to the other islands were closed. The entertainment consisted of repeating bands, who either could not sing or decided that what you needed in a restaurant was a very loud bass amplification so that you could not hold any conversation, whilst waiting 2 hours for your food. At exit we were treated like criminals. The car was stopped and they demanded a receipt to show you had settled your bill. No-one at reception had offered us this when we paid. Why anyone who had shelled out £10,000 for the holiday to Virgin was likely to run off without settling the extras eludes me. The final straw was a £450 "tourist tax" from the Antigua government "to improve facilities". If they could prove any of this money had gone to repair the atrocious roads I might have seen the point, but we all know where this money will be headed. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.

  Mar 18, 2025
• 

  A great relaxing resort

  Great resort on a beautiful peninsula, this allows for two beaches thus offering both water sports in the bay and the ocean waves in the other. Many restaurants offering a variety of options. The resort offers a number of trips both sea and land right from the resort, if desired taxi's and rental cars are also available on site. The staff from the Housekeeping, groundskeeping, Bar, front desk ect are all friendly and willing to help, I do not understand some of the previous reviews as we did not find any of that. Service at the restaurants was never a problem, hard to complain about service at a buffet and the al a carte was fine. Accommodations were fine, we did not spend much time in them anyway, in speaking with staff they are constantly upgrading rooms. The many pools, two beaches made getting a place to relax easy. Definitely going back

  Mar 17, 2025
• 

  Solid four star resort. We loved it!

  This resort has gotten a lot of negative reviews and I don't quite understand. The only thing I can figure is people are going expecting a five star. It isn't that ,but also doesn't claim to be. Our only real complaint was the room. It wasn't great. Beautiful view though. If we went back we would get one of the suites by the pool as they have been updated. We were in one of the premium rooms. That being said it didn't damper our vacation as we spent little time there. Food was great! Loved cocos, and rainbow room was great too. Were they a bit slow, yes, but not outrageously and we were in no hurry. The fresh fish was a huge hit with my daughter at every restaurant. Docksiders buffet was in a such a beautiful spot and always had something yummy. The coffee shop is fantastic. It was March break so full resort. We never had to put towels on chairs there were always spots. The staff were so lovely. On the last few days we got to watch whales from the pool deck so keep an eye out there. They had fun specialty drink nights. Amazing mojitos! If you do you research and go in knowing that this is a laid back resort you will love it. Lovely laid back vibe. We would definitely return again.

  Mar 16, 2025
• 

  Mixed bag

  Overall it's a nice place, excellent location. Good food with good selection. A good amount of activities. Some great staff. Lots of live entertainment. A few problems though: the map of the resort given to us was illegible; the pilates instructor did not show up one day; on the same day the yoga instructor did not show up; noisy resort tractor on the beach at least every other morning (at 4:15 am) woke us up accompanied with terribly strong diesel fumes which came right into our room; our server for dinner at the Rainbow Garden was terribly inexperienced and we left before finishing our meal; a server at the Beach Bar and Grill ignored us for an extremely long time but we flagged another server who alerted ours....long story short we left after one hour without being served at all while others all around us were getting served; water dispenser at the tennis/pickleball court was empty on hot day; way too many birds flying into the main buffet restaurant landing on people's plates, glasses, and yes, landing on the buffet food; information on the website was different from what we experienced on the ground; activities people were chronically late showing up for activities; a staff member entered my room one day at 4:30 pm while I was napping..... she knocked but I did not hear it (because I was asleep) and she got to speak to me in my underwear about a noise complaint that she was investigating.

  Mar 15, 2025