A Tale of Two Resorts: Antigua [Part 2]

The Royalton Chic Antigua or Our Eighth Circle of Hell

What would you expect from a hotel’s promotional literature that says, “an exceptional adults-only resort experience … our All-In Luxury® resort is the ultimate holiday escape for singles, couples, and groups. Enjoy poolside relaxation, pristine beaches, hand-mixed cocktails, chef-made cuisine … Royalton CHIC Antigua is unforgettable.”

Well, these discerning travellers expect luxury when a property is advertised as luxury, and this resort is not, in any way, a luxury experience—not even if you book a Diamond Club presidential suite as we did. But we do have to admit, the experience was, indeed, unforgettable. It’s a good thing that we can have a good time no matter what happens. True luxury travel isn’t just about extravagance; it’s about authenticity, privacy, and access to experiences that go beyond the ordinary, ensuring that every journey is as effortless as it is unforgettable.

As luxury travellers and Marriott lifetime Platinum members, we have certain expectations. After a week at a tranquil resort on Antigua’s southwest coast (Cocobay—read about it here), we decamped to the Royalton Chic on the northwest tip of the island ( a Marriott-branded property), where the tagline is, “Party your way.” Well, that would more accurately read, “Party our way.” It certainly wasn’t ours.

We suppose it depends on your definition of “party.”

Let’s take a moment to review what luxury truly means. Luxury is defined by several key hallmarks: exceptional quality, exclusivity, timeless appeal over fleeting trends, and an understated opulence that never veers into excess. It offers a flawless, highly personalized experience—white-glove service that feels effortless, with no friction at any touchpoint. True luxury is subtle yet undeniable, evoking a sense of exclusivity, sophistication, and refinement that engages both the senses and emotions. By these standards, this hotel falls short. To label it a luxury experience is not just misleading—it borders on false advertising.

So, let’s begin our journey. We arrived at the Royalton Chic resort at three p.m. on check-in day. We were careful not to arrive any earlier than this time so that we would not run the risk of our suite not being ready. After all, three pm is check-in time, and anyone who is checking into a resort realizes that that’s when you begin paying for your accommodation. We made our way into the Diamond Club lounge (which is the “exclusive” check-in area) that’s described as “a haven of elegance.” In reality, it is a glassed-in, air-conditioned part of the lobby that resembles the departure lounge at the airport. The people manning the check-in desks, however, were lovely—lovely as they told us our suite wasn’t, in fact, ready. So we cooled our heels in the lounge for a while until we decided to ask again. Still not ready. Finally, when we asked again, it was ready, but our butlers had stepped away. We told them we didn’t really need the butler to take us to our suite. Just point us in the right direction, and we’ll find our way. Suddenly, one of them materialized. Then two.

We arrived in our suite to find that we had moved from our previous week’s “cozy cottage” to a massive oceanfront suite with a bar, two bathrooms, and a double-sized balcony on the second floor of the newest building overlooking the beach. We loved it. If we could party OUR way, we would be fine. But then, we had yet to get the full experience.

The resort is bliss until 11 am. (Who are we kidding? Sometimes until only 10:15 am.) You can hear the surf, watch the pelicans dive for breakfast, listen to the birds. Then the hordes arrive, start drinking, and the unrelenting god-awful music starts. It reverberates throughout the acres. The so-called enclave they refer to as the Diamond Club is away from the main pool. Yet, the electronic bass line reverberates throughout the hotel unless you take refuge in the Oasis Beach bar, where the sound is a bit muted, or the “quiet” pool, where there is no service. Noise-cancelling AirPods are essential if one wants to enjoy any relaxation at all. We chatted with fellow guests who said they had complained every day about the noise level. We didn’t bother. We knew it wouldn’t help, despite having it regularly clock in at over 75 decibels on our balcony, 80 decibels at the Diamond Club pool bar and reaching 100 decibels at its source at the main pool. (We have an app for that.)

Over the course of our decades of travel, we have come to understand that a dress code is more than just a piece of paper. When that dress code is enforced (even if it is as simple as no ball caps or T-shirts in the dining room in the evening), the behaviour of the guests improves. This resort did, indeed, have a dress code. Enforced? Don’t make us laugh. Perhaps someone ought to have told the noisy, obnoxious lot next to us at their highest-level restaurant one evening where T-shirts, flip-flops and shorts seemed de rigeur. Is it too much to expect a resort rule to be policed?

We also prefer a non-smoking hotel whenever possible, but at least we expect some kind of regulation. We stay at Marriotts because their corporate policy is to be smoke-free. We know that not all international properties are smoke-free, but they are supposed to have designated areas. It even says this clearly on the nonsmoking policy screen on the in-suite television.

It seems the designated area is wherever anyone wants. We watched a woman wander through the people on the Diamond Club beach, wafting her disgusting smoke around, stopping beside chaises while she chatted on the phone, then moving away to discard her butt in the sand. We saw people smoking in beach chairs, lounges around the pool, on their balconies, and I even saw a man smoking in the lobby. But let’s get back to the “luxury” experience.

At two pm on Monday (we arrived on Saturday), we went to the Diamond Club pool bar for our vacation treat. Pina Coladas, only to be told they had run out. Run out? What kind of resort runs out of pina coladas? “Beyond our control,” the bartender said while offering something vaguely strawberry. So we were curious about the “beyond our control” aspect of the pina colada dearth. So, Art decided to do a bit of investigating.

He went into the lobby to the next bar, which was a fifteen-second walk away from that Diamond Club, unparallelled-service bar, to see if the pina colada shortage was resort-wide or confined only to the guests who were paying the most.

Yup. Pina coladas. We wondered why the bartender could not have gone the fifteen-second walk to get what she needed or perhaps even have told Patty to go herself rather than implying that it was some kind of overall Pina colada supply issue. It may have been the first time that week that we discovered a pina colada shortage, but it was not the last. At least at the beach bar, the young bartender did go the distance to find us what we asked for.

Oh, and we need to show you the lovely (not) bracelets we were required to wear for the week. Yes, it was also our room key, but nothing says “all-inclusive spring break hotel” better than a wristband of some sort. Oh, we could be wrong about that. It might have been the “foam party” that cemented that. (We even captured that embarrassment in our video, which is linked at the end of this story.)

We had a lovely four-bottle bar in our suite with “premium” liquor and as much wine and cava as we wanted. But there was a glassware debacle at the outset. We had to be firm about our desire not to have to reuse the glassware in our suite. I suppose we could have washed them … if they provided a dishwasher or dish soap and a dish towel. But what kind of a USD $1500-a-day resort vacation suite with butler service would that be? And now for the lesson of the week.

On our first day at the resort, we told our butlers that they didn’t have to wait on us hand and foot. We could do much of the heavy lifting (like getting ice from the ice machine) ourselves. We had only a few requests but did expect those small requests to be fulfilled. “What liquor do you want?” they asked. “Grey Goose vodka, please,” we said. That would not be a problem, according to our butlers.

By day 4, we had asked three times, but we still had none. Each time, we were assured it was coming. It did not. We were supposed to have access to all the premium liquor, so said the list of amenities (four bottles in the presidential suite). The only reasonable conclusion we could come to was that if they put it off until the day before we left, we would imbibe less.

As the week wore on, we began to see that the problems with the butler service were not with the front-line butlers. It was with the managers. When we went to the Diamond Club to see what was wrong, someone who appeared to be our butlers’ boss recited some completely unhelpful line. When we asked a few questions, she returned to her recitation, which sounded like she had rehearsed it. So, we said we were getting nowhere and got up to leave. “I’m not finished,” she said. Seriously? You’re not finished berating your guests? We think you are.

A little later, we got a phone call in our suite that the on-duty senior manager would speak with us. She was lovely. She came to our suite, and we chatted. She took notes and said all would be taken care of. We would have exactly what we wanted. While she was there, the chief butler knocked on our door and rudely shoved our original bottle of vodka at us. We had only three days left on our stay and had assiduously avoided opening and drinking any of it (although vodka is one of our preferred drinks) so that we could await our actual choice. We had no idea what was going on. We only knew the duty manager said she’d make sure it was done. The following day: nada. Nothing. No Grey Goose vodka. No follow-up.

Overall, we learned so much. The primary lesson is this: never believe the literature a resort produces about their unparalleled level of service or their suggestion that it is luxury. Look beyond the advertising and read between the lines of the online reviews. Yes, we had a good time—the beach was long and soft, the sunsets were spectacular, and our suite was lovely—but we always have a good time regardless of the situation.

There is always something to laugh about. But will we return? Not a snowball’s chance in hell, as they say. Cheers from Antigua!

If you have a few minutes and want to get a better look at the resort, here’s our video.

A Tale of Two Resorts: Antigua [Part 1]

There is nothing more alluring in the dead of a Canadian winter than flying off to a dreamy Caribbean island. Over the years, we’ve had the good fortune to have travelled to many. In fact, when we did a recent inventory of our Caribbean adventures, we discovered we had missed very few. Bonaire and Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic) are the only ones.

This year, though, we chose to return to an island we’d spent time on twenty years ago and returned to more times than we can recall for port stops on cruises. That island is Antigua and Barbuda.

Our first taste of the island came on a stop-over when we were making a connection from St. Kitts and Nevis. At the time, there were no direct flights to St. Kitts, where Art’s medical school class was having a reunion (because one of his classmates hailed from St. Kitts and wanted to have the reunion there to show off his island—not a bad plan). Someone had arranged for a three-hour island tour while we waited for our connection so that we didn’t have to sit in the airport. We fell in love with it and promised ourselves we’d return for a more extended visit. We did that the following year.

The following winter, we flew to Antigua with great anticipation, only to find that our plane was unable to land. Evidently, the old airport had rudimentary landing capabilities, and it was a foggy night. Given that the runway is between hills, it was tricky. Our pilot tried three times and gave up, taking us to Guadeloupe to refuel before trying again. Still unable to land, we ended up spending the night in Barbados but had success the following morning. Twenty years later, we landed in Antigua at their brand-new airport. This one even has air conditioning! So began our latest adventure from which we have just returned.

We had two weeks on the island. We have never been fans of staying put on a single resort for more than a week, so, like two years ago, when we spent a week in Barbados, followed by a week in St. Lucia (read about that trip here), we wanted two different experiences—this time on one island. So, we set up our criteria for selecting resorts.

First, they had to be adults-only. We’re grateful that there are places for families (we’ve been there and done that), but at this stage of our lives, being around other people’s children (or grandchildren) is not our idea of fun in the sun. This was a must, and we were delighted to find that Antigua has an excellent selection of adult-only places. However, when reading the fine print on several of them, we discovered that some of them permit children during school break time. We couldn’t risk it, so those ones were off the table.

We finally landed on two wildly differing experiences. The first one we chose was Cocobay, which bills itself as the “most romantic” resort on the island. We also chose their “Starfish Experience,” which gave us one of their best cottages (they have only cottages) at the water’s edge with a large veranda that included a private plunge pool. The second week, we decided to try a Marriott property because we’ve been loyal Marriott guests for years and have significant status. We chose their adults-only offering on the island—the Royalton Chic. To make it the kind of experience we would want, we chose a Diamond Club Presidential Suite. We have so much more to say about that one. That’s the topic of the next post, so stay tuned. But let’s talk about a week in Cocobay.

Located on the southwest coast of the island, the 65-cottage, adults-only resort is situated between two beaches five minutes from Jolly Harbour Marina. The property is one that includes everything from accommodation to meals and drinks, so some might call it an all-inclusive. The problem with that label is what it conjures. We wish there were categories of these properties. The fact that it includes everything in no way should conjure the images of the typical March break, all-inclusive. The place is quiet and dignified. Need we say more?

Cocobay Resort from the water – you can see all the cottages and the main buildings to the right

When we arrived at the property, our airport transfer (included in our “Starfish Experience” package) dropped us off outside a small, island-style lobby. Our personal concierge wasn’t immediately available—we were told we’d meet her in the morning. She turned out to be a lovely, personable young woman who ensured that everything about our stay was as we liked it.

When we got to our cottage, we found ourselves in a quaint—slightly rustic—cottage that we came to see as a notch up from so-called “glamping.” The promotional literature for the resort refers to the cottages as cozy and charming. They are, however, bordering on shabby. For the price, we expected better bathrooms and possibly more cleanliness. With the original dark wood floors and all that rusticness, it was hard to tell. The two main problems with the cottage for the (high) price we paid were the bathroom, which was just short of disgusting and had dreadful lighting, and the severe lack of closet and storage space.

The cottage had a built-in corner banquette that was severely wasted space. The tiny closet wasn’t even deep enough for hangers to hang properly. There wasn’t a single drawer in the place. But then there was the veranda.

The highlight of the cottage—and of the week, to be honest—was that lovely, large verandah hanging at the water’s edge with its comfortable seating and plunge pool. To tell you the truth, though, the pool was ice cold, and Patty plunged only twice. Art begged off. It was quiet and private and we spent many an hour there relaxing in the hammock or on the Bali bed, listening to the wind in the trees. Oh, and drinking Antigua rum.

The week was relaxing, and the food was surprisingly good for such a small place. The highlight of the food was lunches at Cliffside. This was a small (cliffside) spot with only five or so tables for people who had purchased that “starfish experience.” The food was made teppanyaki style and presented beautifully. Although the service was spotty (we almost left one day because the bar staff/server failed to show up), the experience was fabulous overall.

A highlight of the week was the private dinner we had as part of the “Starfish Experience.” Replete with tiki torches and lots of flowers festooning the table set on a private spot at the water’s edge, the dinner was served by a private server. A romantic interlude, indeed!

The beach was small …

… but two larger beaches were a short walk away. We do love a beach walk, so we did venture to the two others. One of them is where they bring boatloads of cruisers from the port of St. John’s for the day, so it is to be avoided, but Big Ffrye’s Beach was worth the walk.

As we like to do, we couldn’t spend a week there without chartering a boat for a day. Our concierge arranged it for us, and we were off to explore the island from the ocean side (this was the first of two such events over the two weeks). We’ll tell you about that wonderful day in another post. And part 2 of the resort story is yet to come—we spent the second week at a much larger resort, the Royalton Chic. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, in case you’d like to tour Cocobay with us …

Link to Cocobay: https://cocobayresort.com/

Taking That Bucket List Cruise: The Amazon River

What do you think of when someone says Amazon River? Words like mysterious, wild, natural and untamed beauty come to mind. The Amazon is more than a river, though. It’s something of a world unto itself. And for many of us, it’s kind of a bucket-list thing. But what’s the best way to experience it? That was the question on our minds a while ago when we started planning our adventure.

First, we considered flying into Manaus, the city 1500 kilometres from the Atlantic and the spot beyond which you can travel only in a small riverboat. In the end, we decided to book a cruise out of Rio (so we could visit Rio before the cruise), up the coast of Brazil and into the river to Manaus. It then turned around and travelled back, ending in Miami three weeks later.

So, how did it go?

The day our ship turned left from the southern Atlantic Ocean into the Amazon River, the heavens opened up, and the rain started to fall. The rain was so intense for a while that the decks of the chip were almost ankle-deep in water. Once the rain stopped, we were left with a stultifying, leaden humidity along with the searingly hot temperatures.

As we slowly made our way into the river (which is miles wide at this point), we passed hundreds of kilometres of shoreline showing dense rainforest—or, to be more precise, the tops of the trees of the rainforest canopy. Although the river was not extraordinarily high at that time, it was still high enough that we saw only the canopy as we glided by.

Our first stop on the river was the village of Alto de Chao. This stop gave us a real sense of the kinds of beaches along the river. Although the river water, owing to its colour, doesn’t look suitable for swimming, we were assured that it is clean.

The following day, we got a better sense of how the local people live in the village of Boca de Valeria. We took the tender from the ship to the heart of the village, where the local children were the greeters. Each one offered something: an opportunity to hire them as guides, a photo op with a young girl in traditional dress, or a chance to get up close and personal with a pet toucan or sloth. We chose the toucan.

The village was small, with houses built on stilts to withstand the vagaries of the rise and fall of the river height. It didn’t take long for us to tour the entire space.

After 1500 kilometres of river cruising, we reached the port of Manaus. The port of Manaus, which is actually located on the banks of the Rio Negro near where it meets the Amazon River itself, is a vital hub in the heart of the Amazon rainforest. As the largest city in the region, Manaus acts as a gateway to the rainforest, and its port reflects the unique blend of urban life and wilderness. The first thing that stuck with us, though, was the extraordinary amount of industrial development and the massive amount of garbage that floated in the river near our dock. It was shocking.

Yes, all that green stuff and such is garbage.

During the rubber boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Manaus flourished as a wealthy trade center, and its port became a symbol of that prosperity. The city itself has a wide variety of colonial buildings that speak of a much more prosperous era in the past. It even has an opera house.

Since we were in Manaus for two days, we had a chance to have several experiences. First, we took a riverboat to January Lake, an eco-reserve, where we sped through the grasses in a motorized canoe to see the giant water lilies. We hoped to see wildlife, but other than a few egrets, we saw none. On our way back to the port, we were treated to “the meeting of the waters,” where the dark water of the River Negro reaches the murky brown of the Amazon and travels that way for six kilometres before mixing.

The ‘meeting of the waters” where you can clearly see the demarcation between the water of the River Negro and the Amazon River

Differences in temperature and composition keep them apart for that distance. It was an interesting phenomenon.

The following day, we toured the city on foot by ourselves. It would have been easy to get lost among the myriad streets where vendors sold everything from Chinese-made cosmetics to housewares and clothing to (obviously stolen) smartphones. We were told to keep our valuables hidden and our phones close to the body. We did.

On our way back out of the river, we stopped at the port of Santarem. There, we boarded a rattle-trap repurposed (but not refurbished) city bus with no suspension or air conditioning for the hour-and-a-half drive to the Tapajos Rainforest. Once there, we made our way into the rainforest on foot for an hour-and-a-half hike. It was incredible and worth dodging the extraordinary volume of ants. Again, we saw no wildlife, but we learned how rubber is harvested from rubber trees.

The experience was nothing if not inspirational. In fact, when we got home, Patty began writing the sequel to last year’s book We Came from Away. If you were to pick up Meet Me in Miami, you’d get the luscious details of that Amazon River cruise—armchair travel at its best, along with a story of second chances for the characters.

Oh, and you can get an even greater sense of it by watching our video. Happy travelling.

Rio de Janeiro: One for the Bucket List

Part 2 of The Discerning Travelers Marvellous Adventure in Brazil and the Amazon series

Have you ever seen a movie or watched an online video and thought, “I have to visit that place before I die?” Art had kept an image of the statue of Christ the Redeemer in his mind for decades, always hoping that circumstances might one day propel him to visit it for himself. That image was one of the driving factors behind our bucket-list trip that started in São Paulo.

After two days in that megalopolis and a road trip along the south coast of Brazil (you can read about that leg of our journey here), we arrived after dark in Rio de Janeiro to see the twinkling lights along Copacabana Beach, where we checked into our hotel, the J.W. Marriott Copacabana, to begin a couple of days of memory making before embarking on a cruise that would take us into the Amazon and beyond.

When the sun rose the following morning, we were finally able to take in the breathtaking beauty of the city. You can almost feel the beats of the samba and bossa nova as you meander through this city, which is one of the most visited cities in the southern hemisphere.

We were up bright and early to meet Michael, our private guide, for a full-day tour of the highlights. When you don’t have a lot of time, you must pack a lot into a day or two. We would spend a day seeing tourist sites with our guide and then a day exploring on foot on our own.

We began our tour with the crème de la crème. According to Michael, early in the morning is the best time to see Christ the Redeemer (before the crowds), so we made our way to the ticket booth and boarded the tramway train car to get to the top of Corcovado Mountain, home to this impressive and iconic statue.

Michael was a bit concerned as we made our way to the top that it might, as it had been in recent days, shrouded in fog. We were lucky that day. The massive face of Christ moved in and out of the mist as our morning visit progressed. It was very atmospheric.

Opened in 1931, the Art Deco statue is 30 metres (98 feet) high, and Christ’s outstretched arms span 28 metres (92 feet).

Despite the early hour, the crowds on the top of the mountain were already beginning to gather. Once we had seen the monument from every possible angle, it was time to get back on the tramway train and go back down so we could reach the top of the other icon that makes Rio so recognizable in photos: Sugarloaf Mountain.

Getting to the top of Rio’s Sugarloaf is a two-stage trip on two gondolas. What we would have missed if we hadn’t been with a private guide was the stop halfway up. Instead of immediately boarding the next gondola, we took a walk through the lovely garden. We were able to appreciate the views from there before ascending to even more spectacular views of the beautiful city.

Once back at sea level, Michael took us to another site he suggested was a must-see: the Escadaria Selarón—a set of steps covered with tiles. He insisted we weather the crowds and see the Canada tile. Well, we did, and we found it odd. If anyone were to ask us if we thought they should visit, we would have to say it was seriously underwhelming. It was hot, crowded and not particularly interesting as Brazilian sights go. But we can say we were there.

Our last stop was the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Sebastian. Michael thought we might enjoy seeing a church that wasn’t at all what we might expect to see. It wasn’t, and it wasn’t at all like the European-style churches we would see as our Brazilian adventure continued. (Churches are not really our thing, but when in Rome… or Rio …)

Once back at our hotel on Copacabana Beach, we wandered out into the evening buzz and found ourselves an outdoor restaurant right on the Avenida for dinner.

Dinner anyone?

The following morning found us up and out to walk the beach to get a feel for the Copacabana vibe, after which we took a walk into Ipanema to search for that girl—and a Brazilian bathing suit for Patty!

Art, ever the musician, had a chance to walk with guitarist and composer Antônio Carlos Jobim, who wrote “The Girl from Ipanema,” that iconic song, and we both concluded that we liked the vibe on Copacabana Beach better. Ipanema is much smaller, although if you’re a surfer, that’s the beach for you.

It was a hot day, so we went to a restaurant at Fort Copacabana, an old military establishment with a to-die-for view of the beach and two restaurants. We were ready for a local beer—Hocus Pocus.

We had only three nights (and two full days) in Rio before we boarded the Oceania Marina to head north along the Atlantic Coast and into the Amazon. That’s a story for part three!

If you want more of a taste of our days in Rio, here’s a little video.

Saying goodbye to Rio as we sail away to the Amazon River. Stay tuned.

The Discerning Travelers

A discerning guide to amazing experiences…

Tag: travel