disney4me4ever
Is living proof that patience pays off!
- Joined
- Jul 25, 2001
We just returned home from our stay at the Village at St. James Club, Antigua and wanted to share our experience. We did an exchange through Interval, got a 2 bedroom villa for 160 points. This was our 3rd exchange and was the most disappointing. Previous exchanges were at Marriott Ocean Club, Aruba and Marriott Desert Spring Villas II in Palm Springs.
Check-in went smoothly, with guest service manager greeting you with a refreshing fruit punch, which was a nice touch after a long day of travel. The "Village", where the villa units are located, is at least 1 mile from where you check in. There are several golf carts available to transport you; you only need to call the Porter. Upon arriving at our villa, which was nicely furnsihed, we discovered the phone didn't work. We weren't planning on making outside calls, however, you needed a phone to call for the golf carts to take you to the main building of the resort. We walked down to the restaurant, Piccolo Mondo, had dinner and used their phone to report the telephone outage in our villa. We were pleasantly surprised, upon returning, that there is daily maid service and nightly turndown; unusual for a timeshare.
The resort itself is very spread out and I wouldn't advise requesting an exchange here if you are mobility impaired or limited in any way. Aside from the distances to/from the main building and restaurants, each villa is set "into" a large hill, necessitating an average of 15 steps--often times more--to access your villa. In addition, in the 2 BR villa we had, you entered to a "landing" area, and then had to go up 8 steps to the kitchen, DR and LR area, and down 8 steps to the bedrooms.
On night #2, while sitting on the couch, I almost passed out when I saw a large mouse run across the kitchen floor and under the entertainment center.
DH instructed me to go to the downstairs bedroom while he attempted to catch it. As I waited in the downstairs Master BR, another mouse ran across the floor and behind the dresser. We still had no phone, so we had to walk over a mile to the main building to report this issue and request a move. The Guest Services manager on duty calmly listened as we described the mice issue and the inconvenience of the 2nd day with no phone. There was not much sense of urgency in terms of responding to our issues. She "wasn't sure" there was another villa to move to, so she sent us back to our villa while she worked on that. While packing everything up, we were visited by mouse #3; that was it. We walked back to the main desk, luggage in tow, demanding we be moved.
We were placed in a 1 BR villa--now approx. 11:00 pm--and upon arriving, the porter informed us that the air conditioning unit didn't work. (Obviously they knew before placing us in the villa, as they had called a maintenance person to come over to attempt to fix it). After 2 trips, he never did get the thing to work & DH and I basically just said forget it and fell into bed. I was awakened in the middle of the night by some weird type of sound & got up to investigate, turned on the light to see a very large cockroach or waterbug or something crawling up the wall by the doorway. At this point, I couldn't deal with any more--told DH about it--and fell back into bed, telling ourselves we would deal with that in the morning.
DH noticed that the threshold on the door was very high & could easily fit a thick paperback book through the bottom. An open invitation for pests of all kinds to enter. On morning #3, we called Guest Services to report our latest problem and informed them that we would need to be placed in another villa--one that had a working air conditioning unit and was pest free. What a nightmare! The Vacation Club manager called us and was clearly irritated and told us "we shouldn't be surprised by cockroaches in our villa; this is the Caribbean after all!". WHAT???
That must have explained why DH found the cockroach spray under the sink! 
Eventually we were moved into villa #3 and had no further pest issues whatsoever, but the apathetic attitude by the vacation club manager was totally unacceptable, in my opinion. We did speak with Jeff Lapointe, one of the guest service managers, and he was very responsive and apologetic.
In terms of the resort, it is located in the southernmost tip of the island and is very remote. It took approximately 40 minutes by taxi from the airport. There are 4 restaurants onsite, 2 or 3 open daily/nightly on a rotating basis. We were told there was a deli in the Village, so we didn't request a grocery stop from our taxi, but that was a mistake. The deli stocked only a very limited amount of provisions; we were able to buy a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, chips, etc., which helped for breakfast, but all other meals were in the restaurant. The casino was very small; 2 blackjack tables, 2 roulette, about 10 - $1 slots and maybe 20 - quarter slots. It didn't open until 8 pm in the evening. The "gift shop" was sorely lacking; a few t-shirts, some beach bags, sundry travel items and a newspapers/magazines, all British. Internet was available in the deli at a cost of $3 for 15 minutes; there is no in-room internet access anywhere in the resort. As far as cable tv, we got about 6 US channels, incl. CNN and Headline News and HBO. There were tennis courts and obviously, water sports. The pools and landscaping was very nice. The fitness center consisted of approx. 3 treadmills.
Overall, I was really disappointed in this exchange. We love the Caribbean and based on the website, thought we were exchanging into a 5-star property equal to others we've stayed at. At best, and considering the pest issues, I would only consider this a 3 star resort; certainly not what I *thought* I was getting when we requested this property. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask; I would be happy to answer.
Check-in went smoothly, with guest service manager greeting you with a refreshing fruit punch, which was a nice touch after a long day of travel. The "Village", where the villa units are located, is at least 1 mile from where you check in. There are several golf carts available to transport you; you only need to call the Porter. Upon arriving at our villa, which was nicely furnsihed, we discovered the phone didn't work. We weren't planning on making outside calls, however, you needed a phone to call for the golf carts to take you to the main building of the resort. We walked down to the restaurant, Piccolo Mondo, had dinner and used their phone to report the telephone outage in our villa. We were pleasantly surprised, upon returning, that there is daily maid service and nightly turndown; unusual for a timeshare.
The resort itself is very spread out and I wouldn't advise requesting an exchange here if you are mobility impaired or limited in any way. Aside from the distances to/from the main building and restaurants, each villa is set "into" a large hill, necessitating an average of 15 steps--often times more--to access your villa. In addition, in the 2 BR villa we had, you entered to a "landing" area, and then had to go up 8 steps to the kitchen, DR and LR area, and down 8 steps to the bedrooms.
On night #2, while sitting on the couch, I almost passed out when I saw a large mouse run across the kitchen floor and under the entertainment center.
DH instructed me to go to the downstairs bedroom while he attempted to catch it. As I waited in the downstairs Master BR, another mouse ran across the floor and behind the dresser. We still had no phone, so we had to walk over a mile to the main building to report this issue and request a move. The Guest Services manager on duty calmly listened as we described the mice issue and the inconvenience of the 2nd day with no phone. There was not much sense of urgency in terms of responding to our issues. She "wasn't sure" there was another villa to move to, so she sent us back to our villa while she worked on that. While packing everything up, we were visited by mouse #3; that was it. We walked back to the main desk, luggage in tow, demanding we be moved. We were placed in a 1 BR villa--now approx. 11:00 pm--and upon arriving, the porter informed us that the air conditioning unit didn't work. (Obviously they knew before placing us in the villa, as they had called a maintenance person to come over to attempt to fix it). After 2 trips, he never did get the thing to work & DH and I basically just said forget it and fell into bed. I was awakened in the middle of the night by some weird type of sound & got up to investigate, turned on the light to see a very large cockroach or waterbug or something crawling up the wall by the doorway. At this point, I couldn't deal with any more--told DH about it--and fell back into bed, telling ourselves we would deal with that in the morning.
DH noticed that the threshold on the door was very high & could easily fit a thick paperback book through the bottom. An open invitation for pests of all kinds to enter. On morning #3, we called Guest Services to report our latest problem and informed them that we would need to be placed in another villa--one that had a working air conditioning unit and was pest free. What a nightmare! The Vacation Club manager called us and was clearly irritated and told us "we shouldn't be surprised by cockroaches in our villa; this is the Caribbean after all!". WHAT???
That must have explained why DH found the cockroach spray under the sink! Eventually we were moved into villa #3 and had no further pest issues whatsoever, but the apathetic attitude by the vacation club manager was totally unacceptable, in my opinion. We did speak with Jeff Lapointe, one of the guest service managers, and he was very responsive and apologetic.
In terms of the resort, it is located in the southernmost tip of the island and is very remote. It took approximately 40 minutes by taxi from the airport. There are 4 restaurants onsite, 2 or 3 open daily/nightly on a rotating basis. We were told there was a deli in the Village, so we didn't request a grocery stop from our taxi, but that was a mistake. The deli stocked only a very limited amount of provisions; we were able to buy a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, chips, etc., which helped for breakfast, but all other meals were in the restaurant. The casino was very small; 2 blackjack tables, 2 roulette, about 10 - $1 slots and maybe 20 - quarter slots. It didn't open until 8 pm in the evening. The "gift shop" was sorely lacking; a few t-shirts, some beach bags, sundry travel items and a newspapers/magazines, all British. Internet was available in the deli at a cost of $3 for 15 minutes; there is no in-room internet access anywhere in the resort. As far as cable tv, we got about 6 US channels, incl. CNN and Headline News and HBO. There were tennis courts and obviously, water sports. The pools and landscaping was very nice. The fitness center consisted of approx. 3 treadmills.
Overall, I was really disappointed in this exchange. We love the Caribbean and based on the website, thought we were exchanging into a 5-star property equal to others we've stayed at. At best, and considering the pest issues, I would only consider this a 3 star resort; certainly not what I *thought* I was getting when we requested this property. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask; I would be happy to answer.
