Royalton Antigua, An Autograph Collection All-Inclusive Resort

There are very few hotel chains in Antigua, one of the rare ones is from “Small Luxury Hotels” which can be a good deal with Hilton points but it’s adults only. As far as I know, the only chain hotel in the country where we can book with children is this one: Royalton. In destinations with such a complete lack of competition I am generally quite lenient. With this caveat in mind, I was happy with our stay at Royalton especially since the reviews I previously read about Royalton in general (in various countries) were not always great. As Ambassador Elite guest, I can say the service at the hotel was quite good, for example Mrs Vanessa the Bonvoy liaison was in touch with me via chat even on her day off (!!) to ensure we had everything we needed. Kudos to her. We had a bracelet to indicate Bonvoy status which staff used for recognition and we saw almost nobody else on the resort with one. I guess January is not when Bonvoy elites travel to this part of the world? It’s an all-inclusive so of course no fine dining expected, but we were able to get by with decent meals if knowing which restaurants to go to and what menu items to order. The Diamond lounge had a decent selection of liquor; for people without Diamond access, less so. The room was nothing to write home about but large enough such that the lack of upgrade was tolerable and anyway even if we had been on the other side of the building the views were not fantastic because the hotel was looking at a pond and not the open sea. Public areas were nice including the beach and pool(s), even better if having access to roped off areas reserved for Diamond. If returning to Antigua with children I would pick this hotel again with no hesitation rather than try an independent hotel. Read less

This hotel is set on one of Antigua’s 365 beautiful beaches and could be fabulous but sadly isn’t … when we arrived and checked in we weee told we hadn’t got the room type we booked however were assured ur room would be changed the following day … this never happened … the block where all f the rooms are situation had 11 floors and felt like a throw back to The 70’s ! Two lifts service all of the 11 floor re and some days bot were out of use … corridors smelt damp and dusty and our floor had some sort on f leak at the end so f the corridor which made the floor extremely slippery … the room itself was clean and bathroom had a good supply f nice fluffy towels … room was extremely noisy at night and early morning! Buffet restaurant for breakfast was a shambles and even tough whole hotel was all inclusive had to queue to check in and wait for a table and they clearly didn’t have enough staff to service this and so queues wee surrounding diners … We are at the Italian , Caribbean and the beach grill ( lunchtime ) The Italian was a lovely setting but food all very bland , Caribbean was the best food and service and the beach grill was a great lunchtime light bite place … Beach and pool didn’t have enough sunbirds for guests so people wandering around looking for loungers and no help …. Let ts of spare sunloungers in the diamond club area but unused … loungers dirty and stained and many ripped … Pool area so noisy all day more like club 18-30 including a foam party ! Toilets near pool had had no water over the basin ! Banner and balloon for a happy birthday put in room however was wedding anniversary very poor attention to detail Not the 5 star experience we hoped for and certainly not luxury … 3.5 - 4 star max not marketed correctly for what was delivered and paid for Read less

Antigua Trip Jan 19 to 26. Royalton Resort Wow!!!!!!!! We escaped ……allow me to explain! My wife and I enjoy travelling and have taking many different types of trips. The cost of these varied depending on, location, and services. etc. Depending on what we wanted for that particular trip. This trip we decided to spend a little more as we have not been somewhere warm in a while. We decided to go to the Royalton Antigua. Some of the reviews were not the best but we are not the type of people to complain about everything so we decided to take those reviews with a grain of salt as there was a few good reviews as well. In addition, we decided to upgrade to Diamond for an extra level of service which sounds good in the Boucher. Cost of an extra $1,800 so we figured we were safe. Booked this with WestJet which was a first as well for us. So where do I start?.......DO NOT GO HERE!!!!!!!! Not kidding. This place is a major health risk. • Felt a tickle on our throats the first day in the room and smelt mold. • Found mold everywhere. They paint over it and pretend it’s not there. • Common HVAC systems in rooms so AC system is likely infested with it. • Food was terrible. Useless you like hotdogs. (remember paid extra for this) • Tried to book reservations at restaurants. App didn’t work so had to stand in line and book manually with girl at counter. • Booked the steakhouse and Italian restaurants as we could only do two days out. • Got to steakhouse for reservation and they had no steak, no salmon, no this no that. They had maybe 20% of their menu. I wanted to walk out. We has a tasteless chicken cabob with a scoop of mashed potatoes. Pretty sure it was off the buffet restaurant from next store. • Next day could barely breath room was getting worse. Decided to complain. Shut AC off and opened patio door for fresh air. • Complained to travel agent who started working on getting us a transfer to another resort. • Electrical in room as having issues with power outages, the control systems would not allow TV, lights, and ceiling fan to stay running. Which was critical because we deliberately turned AC off so we needed ceiling fan for air movement. Thankfully there was a breeze from patio door and humidity was not too bad. • Decide not to go to Italian restaurant because figured they wouldn’t have their menu either and this was proven true by others we spoke with so at least we did not waste our time. • Buffet was terrible. Same food recycled over and over. No flavor or taste of any kind. (maybe it because inhaling mold destroys your taste buds) • Found mold in buffet on walls and ceilings around vents. Have pictures to prove it. • Got to the point we just didn’t want to eat on resort anymore because it turned our stomachs. • Spent the third day in room sick and the fifth day a well sick again. Only felt better out on balcony or outside for long durations. • Many others sick as well for same reason and I think management pushed it off as cold or flu but doesn’t explain why we seemed to get better and then sick again. • Got the total run around from WestJet and Nexus who was apparently the representative for WestJet. So Air Canada had a rep on site almost every day but the WestJet (Nexus) person contacted us from Mexico. Told us to look at other resorts to transfer too. • Chased them down the next day and they changed their tune saying they were trying to get a hold of the hotel manager. • By the next evening wen whet to the front desk and asked for the manager and they did not know who the manager was…..omg! • Finally did catch up with a manager person Marlon and he gave us the run around saying not all rooms had mold (so he was aware that some do….interesting!) • Told us he would find us a room to move us too. Never got back to us. • During this time we were speaking with him we found out that they were in our room cleaning mold and ductwork (and fixing the electrical which was nice) without us knowing. Didn’t matter we have pictures anyway? They had also painted over some the mold. • Nexus did get back to us shortly after this (after taking to a manager) they said the resort stated that they will be charging us for the used nights as well as an additional night in penalty for the early departure. So basically we were held captive because we only had a few days left at this point. • Staff in general are not happy people. It’s like they just don’t care. • Found out on-line that the staff had walked off the job in December 2024 just before we get there complaining about many things but mainly working conditions. I think they are getting tired of telling people that pay big money to stay at their resort that there is no steak in the five star steakhouse restaurant. • Still not feeling well we spent the last day on the beach which was absolutely beautiful. The resort had offered us a cabana as compensation, we refused. • Still not sure what we spent almost $8,000 on. We have in the past spend half as much money for twice the resort. We were just numb as this point and still not feeling well. Spent the last day on the beach which was absolutely beautiful. The resort had offered us a cabana as compensation, we refused. Just wanted to go home at this point, get some food that was not going to make us sick, drink some water that wasn’t filter in Antigua. So basically don’t stay here unless you like spending lots of money for hotdogs and a beautiful beach. Read less