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 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