Aurora Anguilla Resort & Golf Club

The service here is amazing. The staff really went above and beyond to make our family vacation perfect. We are especially grateful to Justin who was always ready to accommodate us. It would not have been the same without him. We went at a peak time but it never felt too crowded. Golf was great. The tennis pro, Joon gave my son some great pointers. Recommend staying on the Rendezvous Bay side if you appreciate a more serene experience. Request a room on the 2nd or 3rd floor. The water park isn't much, but certainly try to get out t of the resort at aome point if you can. Naveen gave us great recommendations. Go over to Crocus Bay; it is truly memorable as is the sunset on the west side of the island.

There is much to love about Aurora Anguilla and very little not to love… Our first very favorable impression was before we arrived — the very helpful and efficient concierge service helped us arrange dinners and advise us on activities etc. They planned all of our dinners at our request!! (And btw in busy season you really want to book dinners in advance). But what really blew us away was that --- at our arrival --- Justine met us! With his BIG friendly smile and warm welcome! I had no idea that someone would meet us — actually my husband had read about Justin in the reviews. The reason I had not expected to be greeted is because we had booked a rental car so we did not need ground transportation — but Justin was there nonetheless to make sure we had our bags, could find the car, etc. This made us feel very special and welcome! Another experience that just blew us away was that they had secured some chairs for us on the beach. I had mentioned in an email a while back (just once and did not even remind them before we arrived) that the one thing that was important to us is to be away from the crowds. When I went to the beach the day after we arrived — a gentleman told me - “we were waiting for you yesterday. We have received for you two chairs way down the beach where it is very quiet.” I was really blown away by this, and it really made my week! I felt like I was on my own private beach all week. About the resort…. It is definitely a family friendly place. I was so impressed with who nice they were to the children — and of course most kids are more well behaved when they feel welcome and a part of the vacation. What was very impressive was how they made my husband and I feel welcome - as a couple who wanted nothing to do with the delightful children. It really takes a skill to make everyone feel welcome….. The staff is so amazingly helpful and warm and nice — even for Anguilla standards!! BTW the families were raving about the water park, and they also have very nice 3 or 5 bedroom Villa's with pools that go directly onto the beach. If we come back with our family we can consider to stay there. Our room was amazing… we had a one bedroom oceanfront suite. Highly recommend… It is very large and very private. Beautiful and enormous bathroom - with an outdoor shower. (Hint - only use it when it is warm enough 😊.) Big bathtub with plenty of bath salts, plenty of towels always, beautiful luscious robes. They maintain service consistently twice a day — never missed once! (They did frequently forget to service/replenish some things, but each time I called they addressed immediately and very nicely!) The bedroom is very large as is the living room area. We also very much appreciated the second full bathroom. The terrace is so lovely overlooking the beautiful beach -- I loved sit there in the morning and at the end of the day. The beach is spectacular BTW - We visited most of the other beaches on the island — typically having lunch and sitting out for a while. However, our beach was likely the best (Meads Bay is also pretty amazing though…). The water is calmest and the beach is very wide and long. So, lots of privacy. You can definitely find a quite place for yourself (which is what I like to do.) The guys on the beach offer service — a bit variable - but they are very friendly and nice (as are all the folks who work here). My husband enjoyed the golf and they paired him with another single which he enjoyed. I should say that we stayed here because of the golf - and my husband played three days during our week’s stay. I enjoyed the SPA, particularly my 90-minute massage and 90-minute facial - it was amazingly professional and excellent service. And boy, she used every minute!!! About our dining experiences at the resort… The food quality here is very high. We were immediately impressed with our snack on the beach when we first arrived — we had a light lunch. Incredibly tasty. We had only two dinners here at the resort (we love the local restaurants…) but both were amazing. Especially our steak dinner at DJ Richards, where we also splurged for an excellent bottle of wine. DJ Richards was among our best meals during our stay here. We had breakfast only one time - since we did not enjoy it very much and it did not seem a good value. But we did enjoy the pastry and coffee at their cafe on site! I enjoyed this every morning! More generally about Anguilla….. we simply LOVE this island… we have been coming here 25+ years from when we were newly married (so just two us) to bringing our very small children, and then our bigger children as they got older…. Now we come alone again -- just the two us - and still it is a magnificent place. But while our own circumstances have evolved over the years, Anguilla has remained the same...The people are so warm and genuinely friendly — nearly everyone (over so many years….) had made us feel like we are visiting their home as welcome guests. It is amazing how this has not changed over such a long period of time. The island is now more popular and easier to travel to now...However, the appeal and the charm have not changed at all. We still LOVE Tasty’s and Nat’s place (Palm Grove) and E’s Oven - we have so many fond memories of these places and they are still delicious and welcoming! We miss Hybernia and Smokey’s, and Roys will now close as well. But we love the new places we tried especially SandBar (which we discovered on our last trip) and Vincys and Karaya, which are now new favorites…. On our way to the airport today we will have a last lunch at Tasty’s…. I can hardly wait...

The Estate villa was very nice. The golf course, gym, and tennis were all well done. We ate in all the restaurants. The food was good to very good in all the restaurants. The service in most of the restaurants was generally slow and sometimes orders were incorrectly taken. I guess one needs to keep in mind that staff generally operate on "island time."

We had such high hopes, but unfortunately, our expectations were not met. I will say when we arrived getting through customs at the airport was much easier than expected. We had previously been to Grand Cayman and Turks Caicos and the experience was much more streamlined. We flew into Saint Martin and took a boat ride over to Anguilla, which was also a great experience. No issues. When we were arrived at the Aurora, which was in the late afternoon, our room was still not ready, and we had to wait until the early evening to get settled into our room. One of the first things we noticed was large construction machinery near our villa as well as the beach which were running at all hours of the day starting in the early morning. Can I have some of that if there nobody’s gonna eat it?Secondly, the customer service was average. At times, we almost felt that we were annoying the staff with simple requests. Many of the advertised amenities were not available which included a tennis, the rock climbing wall. Many of the food items on the menus were not available. Room service and turn down service were inconsistent and an inexpensive toiletry item was broken. The island itself was beautiful and our best times were actually the experiences we had off the resort. Will return to Anguilla but never to the Aurora.

The hotel is beautiful. Our rooms were fantastic. The beach is stunning. The service is bad to rude. The beach / towel people are outright rude. They won’t set up chairs until 10 am. They come at 4:45 pm to clean up the towels and dirty-eye you until you leave. We recently had a rain storm and when we asked for towels after the guy told us no because “they’ll get wet”. The restaurant staff are slow and also rude The service in the rooms always forgets to replace the mugs or tea or whatever. At this price point I expected way way more from the service.