St. James's ClubReviews of stjamesclubantigua.com

I have traveled extensively round the Caribbean but never experienced such a terrible hotel as the St. James’s Club in Antigua and it is vastly over priced. Albeit situated on a beautiful peninsula. It is tired, very short staffed for its size. Water problems endless in the bathrooms. Taps all rusty drains dirty, rooms serviced they state every second day bearing in mind this is supposed to be a four star hotel! Service in restaurants terrible. Food average. Music very loud at all stations. Beach towels never stocked up. Messages not relayed from department to department. The management have no power to solve any big problems - all reverted to base by email somewhere in Miami - they never answer. It becomes one huge stressful holiday. We are now thankfully recovering at a beautiful hotel on the island.

We stayed in ‘Royal Suites’ which is the Adults Only part of this resort for our 10th Wedding Anniversary. The room was nice with a balcony overlooking Mamora Bay, with a lovely bed and huge bathroom. Everywhere is extremely clean and well kept. The grounds are vibrant and neat and there is no litter or mess, and the tennis courts were very nice and well maintained. Empty glasses and used towels are collected quickly. The beaches are really clean and hardly packed with people. There are a few swimming pools but sadly are not suitable for actually swimming in, except the one next to the Rainbow Restaurant and Bar, but this was the one used for all the activities. The special concierge for the Royal Suites was supposed to be open everyday, however in the time we were there it was only open on 2 of the days, which was a real shame. However, when it was open and manned by Lorraine, we received excellent service, who also managed to organise a romantic meal for 2 on the beach to help us celebrate our anniversary. The excursions offered are great and the tour lady was very helpful in explaining and giving recommendations. The Pink Panther Tour was a highlight - there was nothing our driver Joy didn’t know about the island and the locations we visited and it was amazing to see and learn about the culture of the island. The taxi’s from the hotel were extremely expensive, which was a shame as it put us off from using them to discover the island for ourselves. Piccolo Monde Restaurant was the fine dining restaurant which you had to pay a supplement for. What a fantastic experience it was, the views, the staff, Ariana the Singer were all excellent, and the food was absolutely lovely, which made it one of the best meals we have ever had. Throughout the Resort, staff were lovely by speaking to you when they passed with a Good Morning or Hello. However the staff in the Restaurants were very hit and miss with inconsistent levels of service, from rude and lazy (which was a shame and let the resort down), to excellent. We did notice that the excellent staff were frowned upon by their Managers for speaking to us, which came across and noticed by Guests. Special mentions have to go to Damyon, Jessica, Joslin and Beverley who were all absolutely fantastic in their attentiveness, with lovely personalities, and have to say it was a joy to be served by them. Other special mentions have to go to Vernon who took the time to teach my Wife and I how to sail. Tony the Bar Tender in the Jacaranda Lounge who made us feel very welcome. A lot of reviews mention the seaweed, however for us it was an act of nature, however there were teams cleaning up the beaches, which was great to see. The seaweed didn’t affect our holiday in the slightest. Overall, we enjoyed our holiday at St James’s and in Antigua.

Returning guest , 3-week stay , beachfront room. A lovely time but a mixed bag this time really, overall a noticeable lowering of some standards since previous 2022 visit. At times the resort felt very busy, although it was lovely to look at. The seaweed being washed up on the Atlantic side beach was a big problem this year , particularly on the beach side closest to the main hotel. Watersports excellent , restaurant food generally very good in our view with only a few minor issues. Restaurant service was very slow in the 11-11(all day) restaurant sometimes taking hours at lunchtime just for a salad but did improve after we raised the matter with Elite Hotels centrally. Food content and size were sometimes erratic- ie same dish different from one day to another. US $ prices in the restaurants look very expensive when converted into £ if you weren't all-inclusive ( we were). Room not cleaned for first 4 days but again, attended to after we had complained. Wifi not good enough for this day and age. Selected restaurant closures on certain days meant a restricting of choice to a buffet or the 11/11 restaurant and you needed to book your table early to ensure reservation at the Rainbow garden on the days that it was open. Staff were mostly friendly and helpful ( some very much so) but there was evidence of staff shortages and lack of experience.

The resort is generally nice, the villas are decent and all the staff are very friendly, but there are way too many guests on site for the number of staff on duty. One of the restaurants was closed for a week because of staff shortages, which was a problem with so few options. The food is average at best. Wait times for tables and service are excessive for the expense. The supposedly best restaurant on site charges $37.50 surcharge per person, even if you are all inclusive. We also booked a tour at the hotel that was cancelled several times, which was hugely disappointing. Overall, St James’s Club is nowhere near value for money, but is a good for a break if you want to do absolutely nothing and have unlimited amounts of money to burn.

Booked 5 days all inclusive package, got picked up at the Airport as arranged. Checked in at the front desk, sent to our room with no instructions,figured there would be some paper work describing the place and amenities.There was not even amap with the layout of the place. When time for dinner we did not know where to eat, we had to ask fellow guests. The front desk was telling us the name of the different resturants but not how to find them.Even asked some workers and they did not know.The dockside, their main resturant serves buffet style food for lunch, but is not open some nights. For the first 3 days we did not find a resturant to have a good breakfast or where the pool was located. turns out the Rainbow Cafe was about 50 yards from the front desk. For te entire 5 days while there I could not connect to the internet. One more thing there are no elevators in the place. I have 2 dislocated discs in the back also need rotator cuff surgery on both shoulders and to add insult to injury the tv set in my room had awased out picture that hurt your eyes to watch. I spoke to some of the staff and found out they are very dissafied with management. When the place shut down for 3 months during COVID the staff was furloughed, but when they reopened again they wanted to pay them as new employees, so most left and went to other hotels for better pay. On the positive sidethe grounds were meticuously landscaped-if you like peace and quiet to read a good book you will like this place. one more thing worth mentioning, they had a manager who tried toupgrade conditions for the staff but was fired after 2 months for spending too much, no wonder the staff is disgruntled, but they do not show it to the guests.. As someone who was born in the caribbean I was able to get informationthat they probably would not tell other guests. Needless to say I would not patronise this hotel? again.

We have just spent 10 days at St James Club. We had previously enjoyed at many other stays during the last 10 years and thought everything about the previous holidays had been wonderful, our last stay was February 2020, just before Covid. We had been led to believe that we would feel Covid safe and were happy to pay all of the extra fees charged to cover this. To our dismay, virtually all of the staff had seemingly been replaced with young staff without experience, who were basically disinterested and unhelpful. We had booked our usual Royal Suite room and were told that the cleaning would be reduced to every second day. We didn't get cleaned for any of the next three days so asked if the room could be cleaned and the towels changed and at least every third day in the future which did then happen. Despite all of the notices around the hotel assuring us that everything was being done to keep everyone covid safe, on the day we left we were told that we would be transferred to the airport at 5.00pm for our 8.00pm flight. We had to give up our room in the Royal Suite at 12.00, but we would be provided with an alternative room to shower and freshen up before we left, which was often the routine. We asked to book the room for 3.30pm but were told at reception that booking the room wasn't necessary as they had plenty of rooms available. This wasn't what had happened in the past so I returned twice more to the reception and requested to reserve the slot but were told again that a reservation wasn't necessary and to just come along when we wanted the room. When we went to reception at 3.30pm we were told to take our suitcases to the porter who would take us to the shower facilities in the electric buggy as it was too far away from the reception area to walk. The porter then took us to the gymnasium toilets and told us that we needed to freshen up in the gymnasium male and female toilets and left our cases outside. My wife and I had to separate after leaving the cases in the gymnasium and each use the separate toilets alongside other guests taking the same evening flight and the guests using the gymnasium at the time. In my case, I had to wait by the row of urinals for the one shower to be available and to use the toilet which was also being used. There were two washbasins side by side where I was able to have a shave alongside another guest. The only place to get changed was by the side of the urinals as the shower room had nowhere to put either a towel or clothes without getting them wet. All of the time the facilities were available for the guests in the gymnasium. There were no masks, no social distancing and nothing was being cleaned. We had thought we were staying in a luxury hotel but this seemed closer to a camping holiday. We tried to complain to the duty manager who tried to pretend that it had been a mistake and we were the only guests who hadn't been provided with a covid safe private room but this certainly wasn't true because I and my wife had used the facilities alongside other guests on the same flight. Some guests had been given shower rooms but for some reason others hadn't. I explained how it didn't feel at all safe to be sharing facilities at this time but she claimed that it was a rare mistake and generally the premises were covid safe. This wasn't our experience at all. The previous day we had been asked to come to the reception area for the lateral flow tests we had booked at the hotel. We were then asked to go into a room with a total of 82 people and jostle for over 2 hours to get into a side room for our test. There was no social distancing whatsoever and had any of the guests had covid, we would all have been at risk. At the time of writing this review, I am waiting with my fingers crossed on the result of my PCR test taken shortly after we landed at Heathrow. In summary, the hotel is not the same as it has been in countless ways but if you have any concerns about covid I would consider your options. Room 233 Royal Suite

Now that my wife and I are semi-retired, it frees us up to travel more. We had to turn down past offers to visit some of the finest resorts in the Caribbean but this time, we selected St. James Club. They had closed for a couple of months to renovate. We were curious to see the improvements made during the shut down. Upon check in, my wife and I were upgraded to a Jr. Suite in the Poinciana building. They remodeled many of the rooms by replacing the flooring and updating the bathroom. The view from our room was perfect. The Rainbow Garden restaurant received a complete makeover as well. The Jacaranda Bar and Lounge had a moldy smell but was supposedly “redesigned”. You can sense how proud they are of their property. The staff was exceptional. The grounds are well maintained. The quality and variety of food was excellent. Our british friends said the Piccolo Mondo was not worth the extra price and was “average” Italian fare. We didn’t see a need to pay the $40 US per person when the Coco Beach Restaurant, Rainbow Garden, Docksider and Eleven/11 were more that sufficient. On the downside, free WiFi is only available in the lobby, Rainbow Garden and is spotty at best. You have the option of paying for WiFi if you would like internet access from your room, but we were not there to work! Also, we felt slighted when we found a “No Children” pool close by. We were not welcome to use any facilities in the Royal Suite area, although the next closest “No Children” pool is a ten minute walk away. Patrick, the concierge, bemoaned to a guest how hard it was to keep the resort guests in the non-royal area from using the Royal Suite facilities. He may want to consider wristbands for the “royals” or specially colored towels that would identify them. Overall, St. James Club is a wonderful destination for a romantic getaway and Antigua is a fantastic destination you must experience. Kudos to Elite Island Resorts!