Sandals Grande Antigua

We’ve been to Sandals/Beaches resorts 9 times, our last trip was to Sandals Antigua and it was incredible. Sandals Antigua is now our #1 Sandals resort and our new favorite destination. The Food was great! The resort grounds were beautifully landscaped and clean. The staff was fantastic, friendly and responded quickly to any and all of our requests. Special shout out to “Meisha” at club front service desk, she was very helpful. Also, a special shout out to “Amanda”and the entire entertainment group as well as “Nyisha” and “Ladoya” at the excursion desk. They were all so incredibly helpful and fun. Great times, great resort, great people. As a long time traveler to Sandal’s resorts I 100% recommend Antigua as anyone’s next vacation. Antigua is our new #1.

Upon arrival we checked in everything went great they took our luggage and had the staff deliver them to the room We were patiently waiting in our room to get changed but our luggage didn’t show up for an hour. Restaurants are only open certain days and certain times, you have to pre book your reservations day 1 or you won’t get into them and have to eat at the buffets like us were they’re really isn’t much selection. Don’t miss a meal as you never know what will be open and where. If you don’t like cats this place is not for you, they are everywhere, they sit beside you at the restaurant begging for food and they have a poop in the sand right beside you while you eat. Very gross. Wear sandals and do not go bare foot. If you like your coffee and get up early you won’t get anything other than in your room, no coffee machines are turned on until 7am, very frustrating when your cleaning lady doesn’t restock the coffee in your room for 2 days and you call and they apologize then fail to bring you more coffee. Staff and servers are friendly but more of robots, no hurry for anything or aim to please. Very laid back, no servers walking to beach to order a drink, the bars are very slow to get a drink. Our air conditioner wasn’t working in our room for 24hrs, called 3 times nobody came to look or help. Housekeeping arrived in the morning the next day and she apologized and finally got Maitnence to come look at it. The hotel is great and the rooms are nice, pools are nice, overall our trip is great it’s just not at all what you pay for, don’t waste your money paying the extra for a sandals in Antigua.

Great place to visit. Beach is stunning and the staff are really friendly. Lots of difference places to eat on site. Visit the whole island if you can though as there are some great places to see and do.

We have been to this property 3x and have booked again next year. We have been to Antigua 7x. It is our favorite Island. To us, there is no comparison to the beautiful people of Antigua. The staff at Sandals Grande Antigua are so incredibly friendly and kind. They go above and beyond to make your stay wonderful.Truly our favorite resort and island.

Whilst the location of the resort is great with a fantastic beach, the holiday that we had was missing all of the premium touches that you're expecting to get when visiting Sandals. Our room wasn't serviced for 3 days - 1 of which a member of staff had entered the room, turned on the "do not disturb" sign and then kindly left us a note to say they'd respected our privacy. This also happened to another guest whilst we were there and the lady had blamed her husband as he must have accidentally turned it on. She was very apologetic to him when we mentioned that it had happened to us also. We had to ask for towels which just get's boring after the third time. The coffee machine in the club lounge was broken for 5 days. When I asked if we could get coffee we were just told no as the machine is broken. I enquired if there were other coffee machines in the hotel to be told, of course but we would need to go there to get them. We were told to come back on a particular day to book restaurants only to be told that we must have misunderstood as that wasn't the process and all the restaurants were now full. It's amazing as all 6 of our party remembered them saying come back on Thursday for next week. The restaurant servers are robotic - hi, my name is x, can I offer you some water. When taking our order, the person at the head of the table couldn't decide what she wanted, instead of moving to someone else the server just insisted on waiting until she had decided as they have a system to ensure people get the right meals. As expected, the first plate came out with the phrase "who is having the steak?" - laughable. All in all you feel like you're inconveniencing them by being there. Then there are the ever present Spa ladies - they're very friendly but only interested in you buying a $100 spa treatment for $250 instead. You get asked multiple times a day - get used to it. There are no people wandering round delivering what you need to you on the beach or round the pool as per the adverts - I think we saw 2 in 10 days and other than that you just go queue at the bar with the hundreds of other people waiting on 2 bar staff who were clearly overworked. There are other staff members lounging around waiting for drinks to go to the restaurant but that's got to fit in with the 2 bar staff. They regularly run out of glasses so you can occasionally get a semi-washed glass - yuck. You never get the same drink twice even if it's in the same round - it's just whatever the bar tender can reach. In 3 vodka and oranges we had 3 different brands of vodka and 2 different types of orange. Variety is of course the spice of life. We enquired about hiring a taxi for a trip around the beautiful island of Antigua and whilst talking to the trip centre my wife casually asked a passing taxi driver if he took direct bookings. We were royally told off by the hotel staff that we weren't allowed to talk to taxi drivers and that we should book through the hotel. This was purely so that they could add the Sandals premium quoting us $600 for around 4 hours. The taxi driver (same guy) did it for $60 per hour. Did we have a good holiday - yes. Are Sandals ripping people off and underwhelming in their product - most definitely yes. Will I ever go back to Sandals again ever - Definitely NOT. There are far better hotels, for far less money with greater service elsewhere and these will be getting my hard earned cash next time round.