Hawksbill Bay, Hawksbill Beach Hotel Review

Overall Rating

We stayed for 3 weeks and got married at the Hawksbill Beach Hotel in Antigua. The place was fantastic! We bought 7 of the family with my wife and I. The hotel gave us a free upgrade to the main building for 2 weeks for all the party. We should have had a garden room. During the stay, I looked at the garden room and was very glad of the upgrade, otherwise the holiday may have been a disaster. Stay clear of the garden rooms if there is more than 2 of you in a room.

Honeymoon week, the family went home and we paid for the Air-conditioned beach front villa. These were superb. I wish I had booked these for the full 3 weeks. Wife didn't get bitten at night when in this villa.

The staff were wonderful. The hotel prepared our table every night, as there were 9 of us. Didn't get the same royal treatment though for our third week, as there was only 2 of us.

As part of the price you get Ala cart meals served to your table 3 nights a week and buffet self service 4 nights of the week. The food was excellent.
August was off season, and the hotel was fairly quiet. This suited my family and I, as there were times we were the only ones by the pool or on one of the 4 beaches. Beginning of August is however Carnival time for Antigua, and well worth seeing.

Biting insects. Make sure you go best prepared. Although they didn't touch me, the rest of the family suffered. It doesn't matter whether it's night or day, in the restaurant or on the sandy beaches, if you normally suffer be prepared to be bitten beyond what you have ever suffered before. It makes you insect paranoid. Even after getting home, I've been on constant readiness to splat. The hotel does use a fog in the late afternoon in certain areas. However, I personally thought that this drives the insects into your bedrooms or rooms.

Don't bother with the Good Health Centre. I paid for 2 treatments which should each have lasted 1 hour. I got 50 minutes the first time and about 42 minutes the second time. The staff there aren't trained like you would find in the UK. For the price they charge, I would recommend leaving it alone. I only had a second treatment as I was told it was with a different lady and would be half price. My wife also had a reflexology treatment, and being trained herself, said at best it was a foot rub that she got.

Kuoni tour packages. These cost a fortune and are priced at about $100 each per person and upwards. This price doesn't include transfers either!! I've never known this before. A round trip taxi to take you on your tour will cost upwards of $30 each. Complete rip off. Better off organising through the hotel directly. They are up to $30 cheaper per person than Kuoni, and tend to include transfers.

I had to complain once when someone used the same food tongs to put my flame grilled burger on to my bap that he had just used for putting uncooked burgers on the grill. I had no issues with any of the other chefs though, and he was very apologetic and replaced the burger at once.

Hire a jeep to see the island. We got ours through Kuoni. However, it would have been $10-$20 cheaper per day had we got one through the hotel. They drive on the same side as us. There are little if no road signs in Antigua, so you will need to use buildings and visual aids to navigate around the island. The petrol is really cheap, and you can see virtually all the island on half a tank of petrol. Vital to get an air conditioned jeep! Take $ dollars with you, as everybody accepts them and many shops actually just quote American Dollars for the prices. The exchange rates were about 2.7 eastern Caribbean dollars for 1 us $. You normally get your change in EC$ if paying in us $. If the price is quoted in EC$ you can roughly divide by 5 to get to £. I used my Visa Debit card to draw out money from the banks in Antigua, which you get out in EC$. My bank charged me £1.50, and the exchange rate was 4.976.

The locals are really friendly, and if you say you're not interested to anyone that approaches you selling things, they will leave you alone straight away and still be nice and friendly with you.

All in all, the hotel was excellent and Antigua was excellent.