The Verandah Resort & Spa

Really enjoyed the week away. Went to celebrate my 60th.

Beautiful place. Good food. Traveling between accommodations, meals and activities can be a little challenging. Having to wait for shuttles, but worth the wait. Service was good, especially at the restaurants when being served by Theodore. He was amazing and elevated our experience at The Verandah from good to “Excellent “. Also the driver Shemar was amazing and extremely informative.

We found the resort to be beautiful, clean, comfortable. The service was excellent and the food was great. We loved Lover's beach and the Main pool. Shout out to exceptional employees Rosette, Theo, Marina, Keisha, Olvis and Mikton- restaurant Jensen and Aquez beach attendants. These servers went the extra mile in friendliness and service.

Our stay at the Verandah was fantastic. Our room was great. Ideally situated in the centre of the action. While we did not have the best view the hotel could offer we were right at the heart of the resort. We were only a few minutes walk from all the main restaurants, the main pool, the pool bar and the coffee shop. The Lovers beach was only a couple of minutes walk away. For us the perfect location. The room itself was great. Large with plenty of storage space. Spotlessly clean with fantastic housekeeping services. The room did have a fridge as well as tea and coffee making facilities, but we were so close to the coffee shop and pool bar it was easier and quicker to pop out and get a fresh coffee than it was to boil the kettle! The resort was well laid out and the views over the bay were just stunning. The hotel has two beaches. We particularly enjoyed speeding time on Lovers Beach. There were always plenty of sunbeds and plenty of shade in the palm trees. The beach was always spotlessly clean and sea warm and inviting. We loved watching the fish and bobbing on the round floats. The beachside bar was fantastic. Plenty of ice cold drinks and fantastic service. Overall the beach was a great place to relax, unwind and enjoy the Antigua sunshine We also enjoyed speeding time at the main pool. The main pool was always lively with a number of different activities throughout the day. As always at the Verandah the staff behind the main pool bar were fabulous. The other pools were also pleasant paces to relax but we enjoyed the more lively atmosphere of the main pool. The food at the Verandah was great. It was of a very high standard and there was always plenty of choice. The buffet in the Seabreeze restaurant was great with a different theme in the restaurant each evening. There was always a big choice and the food was always of a very high standard. The staff in the restaurant were very efficient and friendly. Always keen to provide a high level of service and always with a warm smile. We also eat in the Hotels other restaurants, Portofino, Sails and Tails and Nicoles. The food and service in all the restaurants was excellent. Although we enjoyed the buffet it was nice to have waiter service. We also had lunch at the Beach Grill and Papa Ricco's Pizzeria. The pizzas at Papa Ricco's were great. We found they were huge so we tended to share a pizza. The staff were only to happy to customise the pizzas to our requirements. One of the best features of the Verandah was the staff. They were awesome. Always happy and friendly always keen to provide a great service. They made us feel truly welcome and special. A big thank you to all the staff at the Verandah, you were fantastic and really made our stay special. We would have no hesitation in recommending the Vearanah and would definitely stay here again.

First the positives: beautiful location; the 2 secluded beaches are lovely, the grounds are lush, tropical and beautifully maintained. The 3 swimming pools are also very nice and equally well maintained with plenty of sun beds and towels. We tried 3 of the 4 restaurants, Sea breeze, Sails and Tails and Portofino. The sea breeze is a buffet style restaurant and there’s usually something to suit everyone with the quality of the food being average to good. The Portofino is an Italian restaurant and needs to be booked the day before. we tried it twice and it was ‘OK’ but a bit samey with a limited menu repeated every evening. Sails and Tails also requires booking a day before with an international ‘surf and turf’ menu. Our food in Sails and Tails was average with meat dishes being a little tough. There’s not a lot of choice and a ‘proper size’ steak attracts a surcharge! Overall there’s enough food choice across the 3 non surcharge restaurants for most people. The fourth restaurant is Nicole’s and is surcharge only, so we avoided it as we felt that having paid for all inclusive we shouldn’t be paying yet again. I’d say that only about 20% of the staff were friendly with a few including Judith and Gail in the Sea Breeze and Florence our room cleaner, being really lovely, the rest not so nice - explained further below… The negatives? It seemed that wherever we went, the beach the pools, etc, someone would turn up with either a loud strimmer, digging tool (removing weeds on the beach) leaf blowers. Always at peak times when people were trying to relax in the sun - the whole purpose of the holiday When we arrived at the room we had no lock or key for the safe, we also couldn’t open the sliding door to the balcony. Eventually someone turned up with a lock and key for the safe (archaic! what about electronic locks!) and with super human strength managed to manhandle the balcony door open. The door was clearly really old and its tracks had worn away and the only way to open it was to physically lift it slightly by holding the tiny lock recess with finger tips! I bent my nails back many times trying to open the door. I was told by the maintenance guy that ‘they will be here ‘tomorrow’ to install a new door track’ Tomorrow never came - just more excuses! We asked if we could have some more bottled water when the 3 initial bottles had been used. We were told ‘No, you can refill them using the water tap in your room’ A 4 star hotel? Really?? Similarly, absolutely nothing else in the fridge. Again, 4 star? I think not! We had loads of ‘goodies’ including snacks, chocolate, crisps, soft drinks, beers, etc when we stayed in the Heritage Golf and Spa Resort in Mauritius last year, and the holiday cost less than the Verandah! The resort ‘fees’ were eye watering! Nearly £600 for 12 nights! Why?? The hotel certainly doesn’t justify such a high tariff! This fee on its own would put me off visiting Antigua ever again - irrespective of all the other issues we had - be warned! Staying in the Verandah in Antigua has a large additional cost (almost hidden in the small print) We took the time to find email addresses and contact names for the management at the Verandah (Marina Francois-Barthelmy) and the guest services main email address, and emailed before our visit to mention it was a special trip for us encompassing an anniversary and birthday and was our first visit. No one from the Verandah bothered to reply. Not a good first impression. Unfortunately it didn’t get better when we got to the Verandah. There was the ‘music’ Hugely amplified, ‘boom boom boom’ rubbish being pumped out all day and late into the evening around the main pool. It kept us awake at night. It was so loud during the day you couldn’t hold a conversation. There were ‘foam parties’ ’water aerobics’ all accompanied by massively amplified DJ’s and awful ‘muzak’ We thought we were at a 2 star hotel in Benidorm or Ibiza. It also kept us awake at night up to and past 11pm as we were unlucky enough to be in room 255 which isn’t far from the main pool. We ended up having to go to the little pool about a quarter of a mile from the main pool to get some peace and quiet, even there we could still hear the ‘Muzak’ albeit quieter. Why on earth is a 4/5 star hotel ‘for adults only’ doing this? Foam parties, loud awful muzak, ‘pool activities’? It’s really unnecessary and spoils a really beautiful resort. We also found that far too many of the staff have attitudes that range from ‘can’t be bothered to be polite’ to downright rude bordering on hostile. Examples included a bartender on the larger beach named Daquan saying quite rudely ‘What? what do you want? When I simply asked if the bar was part of the Verandah. He was so busy trying to act ‘cool’ and strut around that paying customers appeared to be an irritation. He clearly despises customers and gave the impression that he was ‘too good’ to be serving in a bar with delusions of being a DJ instead playing unnecessarily loud muzak on the beach - laughable 😂 Similarly, most of the staff in the coffee shop were openly hostile and frankly, rude. I asked one of the ladies what meat was in the sandwich rolls and she very loudly and abruptly told me to ‘read the labels!’ Wow! I nearly walked out. There were staff like this in all areas including a waitress in the Sea Breeze who seemed to get really offended when I asked for a couple of diet cokes. She initially seemed to accept what I’d asked for then completely ignored us for the rest of our meal, clearly annoyed about something, no drinks arrived instead she just kept rushing in and yanking my plates from our table even when I was still finishing my food! We were so confused because we are always polite and respectful. I would emphasise that it was only some staff that were hostile and rude, but enough that it affected our impression of the Verandah. There’s simply no need and no place in a resort/location that depends hugely on tourism, for people who treat paying, polite, respectful customers with contempt. Having taken the trouble to look up senior contacts at the Verandah and emailing them prior to our visit - and being ignored, it’s likely that the ‘attitude’ and ‘customers are a nuisance’ feeling we experienced comes from the very top. When we arrived we weren’t actually greeted, instead we had several forms thrust at us and were told to log onto the wi fi, fill the forms out, give them a credit card…. I had to stop the woman at one point because we were being bombarded with directives having just travelled for nearly 10 hours! Similarly, no one asked when we checked out if we’d had a nice stay, if we’d enjoyed it. Nobody gave a toss! So so arrogant. These are the main reasons we would not return to the Verandah. Shame because it is in such a beautiful place, spoiled by unnecessary loud music, lack lustre food and drink and (some) staff who seem to very much dislike the guests who contribute to their salary. Avoid the Verandah, there are lots of other resorts that actually care about their customers and want to provide good service! Hopefully people will start to book elsewhere and if the slide in service levels continues the Verandah will go bust. Such a waste of such a lot of our hard earned money! I’ve seen the ‘standard’ lamentable replies to these reviews by customer services/management at the Verandah and will probably get the same lame excuses and nonsensical platitudes about striving to be better, excellence - blah blah blah. Please don’t bother - just LISTEN take heed and do something about the issues at your hotel!!