- Antigua Holidays
- Dickenson Bay
- Sandals Grande Antigua Resort and Spa
Nestled on an island of 365 beaches, one for each day of the year, the hotel will steal your heart with its magnificent gardens and tropical flowers, which line a path to the clearest of aquamarine seas. Set on breathtaking Dickenson Bay, the island's best and most famous beach, this romantic getaway offers all the charm of a quaint Caribbean village. Situated on 19 acres of Antigua's most spectacular and celebrated beach, Dickenson Bay, the hotel is just 15 minutes from Antigua's V.C. Bird International Airport.
This city hotel comprises a total of 193 rooms on 2 floors and facilities on offer include an entrance hall with 24-hour reception, a hotel safe, a currency exchange facility, 5 bars, a disco, a casino, a games room, a TV room, a restaurant, conference facilities and public Internet access. For an additional fee guests can make use of the room and laundry services, and there is parking available for those arriving by car.
Accommodation is offered in nine categories at the Caribbean Village. All rooms include air conditioning, a four-poster king-size mahogany bed, a ceiling fan, an amenity kit, a hairdryer, a telephone, an en suite bathroom with bathtub and shower, a safe, a CD clock radio, an iron and ironing board, cable TV, a coffee and tea maker and mini-fridge, restocked daily. A balcony or terrace also comes as standard.
Relax at the full-service spa, where you can enjoy massages, body treatments and facials. You're sure to appreciate the recreational amenities, which include 6 outdoor swimming pools, a 24-hour health club and an outdoor tennis court. This property also features complimentary wireless Internet access, concierge services and an arcade/games room.
Due to the surrounding area and the number of steps around the hotel, it may not be suitable for those with mobility difficulties.
We stayed at Sandals Grande Antigua for 10 nights in September and it was an absolutely phenomenal holiday. Here are the key take aways:
Butlers First off, if you're thinking about a stay with Butlers my advice is DO IT! They absolutely made our holiday. We had Vikeisha (miss V), Neisha and Wendell and they were brilliant. They totally matched our vibe and become like our resort pals, nothing was too much trouble, they were thoughtful, attentive and fun, we got great tables in every restaurant, surprise cocktails and snacks in the room, if we went too long without asking for something THEY phoned US to check if we needed anything! First holiday with butlers and won't be our last - thanks in particular to miss V and Neisha who were our main butlers, our Antigua playlist is amazing!
Room We stayed in the mediterranean side in a 1 bedroom suite on the 6th floor. Views to die for, wet bar well stocked and constantly topped up, housekeeping did a wonderful job every day watching for us leaving the room and immediately coming in to turn it over. Bed and pillow were comfy and balcony was huge. A real oasis.
Food We loved all of the food, there were so many choices every day and the portions were brilliant. Our favourite was barefoot by the sea - the quesidilla was delicious the jerk pork was the best I've ever tasted. The drunken duck does excellent fish and chips, and the steaks were cooked to perfection everywhere we had them. I'm aware that some people had difficulty getting booked into restaurants at popular times but we never had that issue due to having butlers. There are some restaurants doubling up (Mario's was only open for breakfast but it's dinner menu was available in another restaurant). The staff were pleasant and efficient - no complaints from us.
Pool, beach and grounds The main pool was lively and fun, the perfect temperature to float around in all day (which most people did) the swim up bar staff were friendly and remembered your drink. The grounds were very pretty and well kept, the gardeners worked very hard! The beach is a showstopper!! Gorgeous white sand and turquoise water, calm enough for paddleboarding and not a single piece of seaweed on the sand. We were off season so it was quiet, but even the days where there were cruise ships in the harbour, the beach was never busy. The vendors are friendly and lovely but not in any way pushy.
It you visit the nearest town of Saint Johns, do wander past the duty free shops and buy local - we got some incredible original art and hard carved crafts, we love supporting local artists and there is plenty of choice. Taxi bit pricey for such a short trip but we used the same taxi driver for our 3 trips off resort and he was lovely, knowledgeable about the island and proud of it's heritage!
All in all, we will be trying other sandals resorts for comparison but the Grande Antigua as our first one was an excellent choice and has made us sandals customers for life!
We didn't use the spa, we thought it was very expensive. Likewise the excursions, we booked with local people to do a private boat trip and Shirley Heights. The island is beautiful.
Our whole experience at this hotel was
Honeymoon experience, which was fine but not amazing. The photography team and entertainment team were by far the best during our honeymoon! Everyone on these teams were friendly, fun to talk to, considerate, and went above and beyond for the guests. We have a few people we would like to give praise to.
From the entertainment team: Lynnique, Super J, Cassie, Nia, De’Andre, Michael, Adam, DJ Sky, Juju, Junior, and Kwasi (sorry if I misspelled their names).
All the photographers were amazing as well, but a very special shout-out to Delmore for really making us feel special on our honeymoon!! Jmoi, JT, Malique, and Keannalee from Epix were also great!
A couple other shout-outs we would like to mention are Kim, Meira, Macxen, Jonathan, Denique, and Nadi.
The pizzeria and Café de Paris were consistently delicious and had amazing service!
The games provided by Entertainment were a lot of fun, and we appreciate the incentive for people to participate by getting points. Everyone especially liked it when they gave prizes to the winners! This definitely made the trip a lot more fun, lively, and encouraged guests to mingle. It also makes us all feel appreciated.
Volleyball is always our favorite!!
We did have a few hiccups during our honeymoon, which made the trip less pleasant and not “worry-free”.
The fan in our room had four different settings, but only one setting worked. We asked them twice to fix it, and it never got done. The hair blow dryer was absolutely disgusting and needed to be cleaned. We asked for a new one, which they provided. However, we just want to bring this to your attention so the staff can check the other blow dryers and clean them if necessary.
Barefoot by the Sea was a nightmare to order food from or dine at. They always took a very long time when preparing the food, and our order was rarely correct.
We also ordered breakfast to the room one morning, which never got delivered, and we had to call to remind them. When they finally delivered it, they completely left out my husband's breakfast order.
We also noticed no one was serving at the poolside. Have all the resorts stopped doing this now, or does just Antigua not have this service? Someone did come up once on the beach, but never at the pool.
The second most disappointing aspect of our vacation was the honeymoon package. We assumed since Sandals prides itself on being one of the best romantic couples resorts, that the honeymoon package would be a little more luxurious and romantic. The package only includes a bubbly welcome of chilled sparkling wine, flower petals on the bed, and breakfast in bed with flowers. However…we did not receive the bubbly welcome, so I went and asked about it at Club Sandals. After that, a bottle of champagne was set next to our coffee maker, not on ice or anything. Poor presentation. The breakfast in bed did not come with flowers or any special arrangement. This just felt like ordering breakfast to the room, not a special experience. Very underwhelming.
We would not recommend anyone to specifically do their honeymoon here. Especially after we asked if our tub could be filled for when we got back from dinner one night, and we were told: “We don’t do that”. We have been to other Sandals Resorts that did this without us even asking, and it was not even our honeymoon on those trips. We don’t believe there is consistency within the Sandals Resorts. This is disappointing because Sandals prides itself on being a luxurious couples resort, where you can put all your worries aside. We did not completely feel that on this trip/our honeymoon.
We won a cabana during a raffle which was exciting! Yet, when they asked which cabana we wanted for the day, none of our options were available because they were out of order (3 and 4). So we asked for cabana 2 and they confirmed. Unfortunately, when we went at 9:30am they put us at the wrong cabana! We didn’t make a big deal of it since we won this perk and didn’t have to pay, but if we had paid for this then we would have been very unhappy. Plus, the person taking orders at the cabana took so long to show up, that we left and got our own breakfast at the buffet, even though breakfast is supposed to be included in the cabana experience. This being said, we now know not to waste our money on a cabana in the future.
Gina was very unhelpful. I don’t drink much alcohol; instead, I like coconut water. The bars either didn’t have any, or ran out after 1 can. When I mentioned this to Gina, the app just told me to go to the bar. We also informed Gina that my husband lost his wedding band, and Gina just said it would be turned into the lost and found if someone found it. I am not sure I understand Gina's purpose.
This brings us to our most disappointing aspect of our honeymoon; We are still waiting for someone to get back to us about my husband’s ring. The poster on the back of our doors mentioned Antiguan law; if something is lost or damaged, it can be covered up to $500. We are still waiting to hear back about the investigation.
Very beautiful and well maintained resort as they continue to modify many areas for revamping . The grounds, gardens and all the different flowers are beautiful! I will say I was a little leery about all of the cats (and I'm a cat mom of three) but they don't bother anyone nor could you "smell" their presence and we love that they are taken care of (little huts with food & water and some are spayed & neutered). No complaints about the food or drinks, everything was delicious! Staff was overall friendly but at times some of them seem to horse around a bit too much or did't want to stop their conversations with each other to put the guests first. I get having fun and joking around but also be a little bit more professional. All in all we had an amazing experience and will be back!
We really enjoyed the pool and beach areas. The restaurants not so much, firstly we did not discover that Mario’s was closed for renovations until we arrived, very disappointing. Then the lack of vegetables with the meals, half a slice of tomato or half a piece of asparagus. As for Kimonos, the waitress couldn’t have cared less. We were only three couples then another couple arrived and she looked visibly annoyed and when a butler arrived with another couple we never saw her again. No desert was offered so we all just walked out. Very disappointing. The grounds are amazing. This was our third and probably last trip to Sandals Antigua.
We have always wanted to visit a Sandals resort for one of our holidays and having taken retirement now seemed a good time to treat ourselves to this type of holiday. We have been to Antigua before and love the island and it’s culture, so booked this long awaited treat for ourselves, and even upgraded to an ocean view honeymoon suite and premium flights. On 2nd July we received and e-mail from our tour operator (British Airways) to advise that there would be some construction work going on and one of the pools may be out of action, but all the restaurants and other facilities would be operational as usual, so we didn’t see this as an issue with the main pool open. As in all my reviews they are honest on each one, so this is going to be no different and we do understand that these complexes are a 365 day 24/7 operation and yes things wear out / break to need attention, as in our room we had a broken bedside light which we reported and it was fixed that day. So far so good. We arrived at the airport and was expecting as in the web-site for the hotel to be greeted by a Sandals liveried mini-bus, but we were sent to the desk in the car park and given a standard off the rank one. On arrival we were greeted and welcomed to the hotel, given a cocktail , checked in and given a hotel guide and a restaurant guide which had opening times, attire to wear and days they were open. We were escorted to our room and shown some of the restaurants on route. We headed that evening to the Drunken Duck Pub, as we only really wanted something quick and easy, it was not busy but took nearly 45 minutes for a simple 1 course meal. On route back to the hotel we noticed Mario’s the Italian was closed and undergoing a full refurbishment (not what BA advised). The next day we lazed around the pool and chatting to other people who were not very happy due to the construction work, nor the overall presentation of the complex the closure of one of main meal venues, some of these were on a re-visit to Antigua and have several visits to others on different islands. We were reasonably happy and got on with our holiday. That evening we visit the Bayside restaurant, the food was really nice and had a 3 course meal, it was a bit rushed as we were in and out in 30 minutes. The next day we visited it again and thought we would ask to have a break between course, unfortunately we found out it has the same menu every night and we didn’t have to ask for a break…15 minutes for a starter, 25 minutes for a main and another 20 minutes for desert. The server was also very abrupt and on auto pilot with her well rehearsed patter! (Tamara) Next morning we tried to pre-book some of the other restaurants and did manage to get the Japanese and Eloner’s book but not on the days as per the guide, as it turned out the guide we were given on arrived actually finished the day we arrived, so we had to go and get a current one. We continued our holiday but did note that the staff seemed to struggle with doing the basic operation stuff. Went to Barefoot for a late breakfast one morning at 09:45 and was told they didn’t have enough staff to do food and to go the Bayside, even though it should have been available to 10:30! The last night for us was really the point that we lost all well being in the food department. We fancied our last evening meal to be in the Barefoot Restaurant on the beach and it was shown to be open on the sheet, only to find it was closed and along with others had to seek alternative location. So we all went towards the Bayside only to find a queue and a potential 45 minute wait, so off we all went again towards our last option having tried to get a table in Eloners and the Tex-Mex to the Drunken Duck. Where there was again a queue of disgruntled people and again a wait of potential 45 – 50 minutes! I joking said to the lady on the counter it might be quicker to go to our room and get room service! Her reply was a shock as she said if we order a take out it would be quicker, and we could wait at the bench style table / seat to the side of the bar. We ordered out food along with another couple and sat at the bench table, after 10 minutes I asked the server that when our food comes can we eat it here at the bench table and she said “yes”, so we said just put our food on a plate then, which is what we did! Having spoken to a few people and staff it appears that due to the construction and the hotel was about 35% occupied they had sent staff off on leave. We were also advised that the instant feed-back forms that people were used to having had been withdrawn. Eloners states it has a dress-code for men of long trousers, but this it not adhered to and people turn up in shorts. The service in here was also very slow and we left without desert after a 40 minute wait. We were asked how our main meal was, even though we still had our knife and fork on the table, I had to hold back from a sarcastic response. Wifi is very hit and miss around the pool / external areas, yes you can opted for an upgrade but why on a luxury 5* hotel should you! WE also only found out on the last day there was an APP where we could log live issues with Gina! Would we visit again or another Sandals, not sure to be honest.
