Jolly Beach Antigua - All Inclusive

The only word that comes to mind when thinking how to describe this place is scam. The rooms are extremely small. The balcony is the same size as the room. The bed is almost taking up the entire room and it is just a small bed. You barely have a few inches on the side to move and you can’t even slide a suitcase in the gap between the bed and the walls. There are security bars on the inside of the room door and you get the feeling that this is prison not a hotel. No fridge or coffee or tea making facilities in the room. No water. No Wi-Fi. This place is dirty. Mould and dirt everywhere you look, even on the sun loungers. Rooms are crawling with bugs which looked like cockroaches. Glasses stained with lipstick so clearly, they didn’t even bother to replace them between guests. The bed linen was stained, there was hair and it looked like there were bed bugs too. It seemed that they didn’t even bother clean the room between guests. Extremely rude staff. We were at the hotel for 2 hours and did not see a single person from the staff smile or try to be polite or helpful or in any way make you feel welcome. The person who checked us in Paulette was very rude and made us feel very unwelcome. Went over the charges for lost keys and towels and safe key 3 times. Repeated another 3 times that it is very important to be present the following morning for the orientation so that we are made aware of all the services and places which are not included in this all-inclusive hotel. While we waited for our room to be ready, we tried to have lunch but were met with more of the poor service and management at this place. No drinks are served at lunch. Not even coffee. Coffee is a myth altogether as the only coffee this hotel offers is instant coffee. No espresso machine anywhere in the hotel. The beach strip is ok but really not seeing any upkeep in years. We were there only shortly because the only free sun loungers had mould on them and a there was a tractor going back and forth making noise and spreading the smell of burnt fuel and not doing much else. The hotel has not seen any maintenance or repairs since it was built. If this was in the UK it would have been closed long time ago due to health and safety concerns. The disrepair is evident anywhere you look. On top of this there seems to be a construction going on at several places throughout the hotel and the noise is really loud. After we experienced all of this in just our first hour at the hotel we decided to speak to speak to a manager and started with the front desk staff who advised the manager is busy and we need to come back later. After several more attempts I eventually got to speak to a supervisor who told me this is the hotel you booked, there is nothing that can be done to which I replied I would like to check out please. She advised she needs to speak to the duty manager. The duty manager arrived and expressed some understanding and said he needs to speak to the general manager which sounded odd but anyway we waited another hour and after another couple of attempts to persuade to stay he instructed the front desk to check us out. This is where is got interesting as now trip.com are saying the hotel never agreed to cancel our booking and are refusing to refund us. They asked me to speak to the hotel and I have multiple times and the hotel are saying their checked us out so our dealing is now with the booking agent. Trip.com are now saying there was another supplier involved in the booking and they are refusing to refund us but they won’t tell us who this supplier is or how to contact them even though trip.com should be leasing with them. I am now speaking to my credit card company and the travel insurance and I am exploring the option to take trip.com to small claims court. We paid £1000 for the 5 nights we were planning to stay at Jolly Beach and 10 days after those horrendous 2 hours we are still chasing them to get a refund.

Kind and friendly staff. Property is dated. Rooms are very small and it didn’t come with a fridge. We didn’t choose house keeping option because you had to pay an extra fee. Food choices are limited in options and times. The pools were nice and the beach was beautiful. The spa was shut down for maintenance. The water was completely shut off during parts of the day and other times the cold water worked but not the hot water. This was a huge inconvenience because we couldn’t shower and use the toilet. There was not a huge crowd so I didn’t understand why the water was so impacted. The onsite gift shop was very bare and what they did have was so over priced. I enjoyed the greenery and flowers, it was well kept. Live entertainment was not available every day. Everything shuts down at 11pm. So there were no night life options on the property. Shuttle service to and from the airport is not included.

I have today returned for Jolly Beach Hotel, my son and I spent a week there. The complex is amazing, so huge over 400 bedrooms . It has a gym, a games room and a small shop. The buffet is quite diverse, my son tried so many things, but the best thing of all is the staff, they are all so friendly and helpful for anything you need, large or small. There is an iced water and coffee station , tour bureau and at the bureau you can get a beach towel and beach bag free of charge. Guests are really spoilt, lovely terraces to sit on, and eat out on at times, nice seated reception area, and a poolside grill . Beautifully kept grounds so large too, the staff were busy doing some painting, bit of tidying up here and there, but everywhere so clean, staff work hard. Three different bars , we went all inclusive and it was great. The jotel is right on the beach which is long and full of sunbeds, also beds around the pool too. Outside the complex, for anyone who wants to take a local bus into St John’s the capital, they re pretty frequent, not buses as we know them, but large window vans, they wait at the bus stand in St. John’s until full, which doesn’t take long then they leave. The scenery around the bay is beautiful too, jet skis and some boats, were just starting to be in use . A really lovely place for a holiday and weather to go with it. Tours can be booked at the tour desk too.