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.

The sit down restaurant is only open 3 evening meals per week. The buffet open daily is adequate with some outstanding selections. Most staff were extremely helpful and pleasant. Beautiful beach. Great sunsets. Guest rooms had AC, but the remainder of the property apart from the store and workout/game rooms weren’t. There was a nice breeze and fans that kept it pleasant.

Food options are not as advertised- restaurants closed 5 of the 7 days we were there. Housekeeping is 10.00 a day more. Beach area is nice but the property is run down and only having one restaurant and a pool grill daily is not what they advertised