Royalton CHIC Antigua, An Autograph Collection All-Inclusive Resort - Adults-Only — Hotel in Antigua

My husband (Axel Ruiz) and I returned on 9/4/25 from a 7 night stay at the all-inclusive Royalton Chic location in Antigua. Unfortunately, our time at this resort was not the relaxing and enjoyable experience that we had hoped for. The first room provided was #1106. It smelled of sewage and mold. "Sammy" accompanied us to the room to drop off our luggage and he stated "I agree the room doesn't smell good". I immediately went to the front desk and spoke with Aja. She appeared irritated and annoyed and said "we have no other rooms in the price category you paid for". I told her I am allergic to mold and she didn't respond. She said "I will need to speak with the manager". I stood there for a few minutes while Aja spoke with the manager Cathy(I believe this was her name. I was told she was the reception desk manager). I tried speaking with Cathy and was ignored. At no time did it appear that Aja wanted to resolve the issue, rather she was rude and dismissive. My husband and I were "told" to sit down and wait to see if anything could be done. After a half hour we approached the front desk and spoke with Cathy. She said she would need to speak with her manager. My husband and I waited in the lobby for over two hours to get a new room. During that time, staff and hotel guests saw me visually upset and almost in tears. One female butler came up to me and asked me if I was ok and said I noticed you two have been sitting here for a long time. At 7pm, Teiquan, the hotel manager approached us and said he would have to look into the option of another room. We were notified by Cathy that Teiquan was preparing a room for us and it shouldn't take too long. At 7:30pm, my husband approached Cathy and requested an update. Cathy said she called Teiquan and the room will be ready in 15 minutes. At 8pm, my husband approached Cathy again because there had been no update. She once again said the room was almost finished. My husband asked to speak with Teiquan and Cathy said "he's on a call". Cathy was able to get Teiquan on the phone and we spoke with him. He said, "I am waiting on a few things for the room". I asked to see the room. A few minutes later, Teiquan showed up in the lobby. He debated with my husband and I about room availability and how much time it took for the room to be prepared. All of this was happening with multiple hotel patrons standing around. The hotel appeared less than half full. Since it was not "high season", I am confident that there were other rooms available that didn't smell like sewage and mold. The second room #1204 smelled better than room #1106 however by day two it smelled like a wet/damp basement. I told Tiequan that the room smelled "like a dirty mop". We noticed that the musty mold smell was worse when using the air conditioner. I tried to limit use of the AC, however when left off for too long the room became damp and the bed linens began to feel damp and the floor felt wet. There was also a strong mold smell when opening the dresser drawers near the tv. The room had one towel, no hand/bar soap, and no wine glasses. The ceiling fan in the room only operated on high and I asked for maintenance to take a look at it and no one showed up. The AC ran continuously and would not turn off once the set temp was reached in the room. After returning from the trip, I searched the internet to see if others had similar issues and found that a previous guest "Bobby Dickey" had the same issue with room 1204 12 weeks ago and requested to be moved because of mold in the room. (See attached photo)|-Buffet closed on 9/1 until we left on 9/4. Buffet was moved to Olympus specialty restaurant. There were limited food options at Olympus. No longer had the option to brick oven pizza. -Lunch and dinner buffet options were the same each day. It appeared the food was recycled. -There was no meat carving station like other all-inclusives. |-Food Truck- One two occasions, I stood in line at the food truck for 45 minutes when I was the third person in line. The guy making the food focused only on making food for the butters. Hotel patrons were complaining however the guy ignored us and continued to only make room service orders for Diamond Club members. This is horrible! I felt like a second class citizen. |-Large sections of missing tiles in all pools and on in-pool chairs at the swim up bar.| -Pool water was below the level that would skim bugs and debris which resulted in a disgusting layer of bugs on the top of water. -Paper napkins, straws, food, plastic cups and other items remained on the bottom of two pools for 5 days of our stay. On day 6, we finally saw someone cleaning the pools. We never saw someone testing the water during our stay. We see this daily at other resorts.| -Sewage removal truck on-site day. Sometimes twice per day (see attached photo). Lobby and entertainment smelled like sewage everyday. Spa--I had to ask for a towel. Staff said they were waiting on towels to be delivered. -Jets weren’t working in the large plunge pool on one entire side. I alerted Danielle and said she would alert management. |-Jets weren’t working in the hot tub. I alerted Danielle and said she was aware. She said she had a fix for the issue. She did get the keys to work however I don’t understand why I had to go to her for her to fix them. Hot tub water was lukewarm. |-There were two men working on fixing a ceiling light next to the locker room that has no door. I felt uncomfortable changing clothes with two men standing 3 feet away from me. |-Hot water for tea in the carafe was cold. I told the reception staff. It was replaced along with two other apparently cold hot water carafe. Customer Service:-No frozen drinks were available during the entire stay. None of the bar had the frozen drink machine operating.| -Swim up bar only served beer until around noon each day because they said “no one has brought us liquor yet”. |-Took two days to get two wine glasses and a bottle opener to be brought to room for the complimentary bottle of wine. Received the GM Welcome Letter two days after check-in. |-Breakfast staff was not attentive. Each day I had to stand up and walk to a staff member and ask for coffee. One day, I sat for 10 minutes and watched a staff stage each table around me and never once asked me if I wanted anything. My husband asked for orange juice one morning and the staff, "do you want me to bring it to you?". My husband said "yes". |-There was no drink service around the pools and no drink service at night during the shows. |-Special Celebration Beach Dinner--Teiquan offered me and my husband a "on the house" special celebration beach dinner to make up for the 2 hour check-in headache. We accepted and hoped for a memorable experience. I met with Teiquan and one of his staff in the concierge office and chose Option #3 menu which included: see attached photo; however I received a salad, tomato soup and shrimp not lobster (see attached). During the meal we immediately notified Oneika (our server) and Darion (Buffet Manager) that we were supposed to have lobster, not shrimp. Darion first stated "you told your butler that you wanted shrimp". I told him that we don't have a butler, he then said "Teiquan substituted lobster for shrimp". Approx 15 mins later, Darion told us that he would honor the lobster request. A half hour later, we asked for an update and were told by Oneika "the lobster is on the grill". Another 20 minutes later, we asked Darion for an update and he said "it takes time to cook lobster because they have to rest after coming out of the cooler". We explained that it doesn't take an hour to cook lobster. He then said it should be another 15-20 minutes. At this point we told him we were leaving. At this point we had to wait 45 minutes after we were told the lobster was on the grill. I spoke with Teiquan immediately afterwards and he said, "lobster isn't an option". I asked to see the menu options that I was shown when I chose option #3. I quickly pointed out that on the paper option #3 has lobster, not shrimp. He then said "well sometimes people substitute food". I told we did substitute anything for option #3. I then asked for a print out of what was entered in the computer for our special dinner. See attached. Every food choice was entered incorrectly! There was a lady in the office when I was speaking to Teiquan and she said "mistakes happen and maybe you received someone else's...

My wife and I went to Antigua on our honeymoon 35 years ago and so we decided to go back to Antigua to celebrate for the first time since then. For context, we have been to many all-inclusive resorts over our years in various locations throughout Mexico and the Caribbean so we are not first timers to the way these resorts operate. ||We chose Royalton Chic based on some basic criteria in terms of location, cost, and a travel agent recommendation. We stayed there for 5 days so we got some time to experience a lot of the environment and activities they provided. Based on our Agent recommendation, we opted to purchase the Diamond Club level experience just for reference on this review. One more note, as we learned being there, this is the "slow" time of year so the resort was maybe about half full with guests which seemed like a good thing in terms of not being overwhelmed by people for access to amenities but as we learned it also means that they are not staffing the resort very well during this time and give lots of time off to employees evidently based on what we heard from the staff themselves. This seems to be true through the end of November into early December before they gear back up. Also, it is a pretty new resort property (a year or so) so it is not well established. OK, with all that being said for contextual reference, here are some personal impressions from our experience there...||The Location is beautiful, the property itself aesthetically is amazing, nice buildings and landscaping, beautiful pools and the beach/ocean area is gorgeous. Our check-in process was fairly smooth and after filling out some minor paperwork we were shown to our room as Diamond Club members - however we were not given a full tour of the facility and not everything we came to learn later was explained up front. Not terrible but just not what you would hope for given the extra cost for Diamond Club.||The Atmosphere for my wife and I was fine overall, we were not looking for a Spring Break party vibe and it was never that - the main pool had music going and activities but the other areas were quieter and more chill if you wanted that, all good with those options. Security was not overly obvious at any point, but we did see some on occasion walking around but it was very subtle if present at all. However, we never had any safety concerns during our stay at any point so all was good. Again, it is a slow time of year so with not many guests the overall resort felt very "quiet" and lacking in energy at times.||We had a Diamond Club first floor swim out suite and it was a perfect room for our trip. It was clean and the house keeping service was excellent. Fair options in the mini bar but no hard liquor other than the Diamond Club complementary bottle of your choice (one day after you arrive).||Overall, the staff for the resort was extremely friendly and helpful if you ask for anything. The "Butler" service for us felt very odd and was not really what I would have preferred. In order to communicate we had to use What's App and so constantly checking the phone and texting back and forth made us feel like we were still working - was hoping to just get rid of the phones and have staff check with us from time to time as we received that service at many other nice resorts. The Butler approach needs to be rethought in our opinion, we would rather just have staff help those in person at the pool all day or the beach that are in a certain area and then provide separate concierge services for the other needs on reservations, excursions, etc. Instead, it felt like we were "working" to coordinate info on our phone too much with the butler - by the way, the Butlers we had were very nice but just not always around physically when you needed something. ||The resort, even being half full, still had two VERY distinctive smells that you could not avoid most of the time - parts of the resort smell like raw sewage very strongly, fortunately our building was not one of them but several others did and I can not imagine how you could stay in that section without gagging. Second, marijuana smell was almost everywhere, frequent enough that you noticed it several times an hour throughout the day. Quite a few guests and some of the off property vendors were openly smoking weed day and night. I am not a prude or against getting high but it was non-stop and prevalent.||Most bartenders were very nice however there were two bartenders, males, at the Diamond Club bar that were at best rude and worst they were downright ignorant to some of the guests. We were trying to figure out if had to do with not tipping enough or at all or if it was motivated by other factors but certain guests got treated much differently than other guests. My wife asked for a mojito and was told there was no mint that day so she switched to something else yet 10 minutes later another female guest ordered a mojito and got it with plenty of mint from the same bartender - that guest was tipping heavy as we had noticed. I was told on one day by one of these gentleman that I had had 3 drinks already that day and that he would not serve me anymore. His demeanor was not friendly and then tried to embarrass me in front of other patrons while doing it. Totally out of left field comment, not sure who he was or what he was smoking, felt like he was trying to get me to pay him some cash to stop - didn't fall for that. To add, my wife and I did tip all staff regularly, but not overly generous however, honestly for an inclusive resort tips seemed far more relevant here. Again, just the two male bartenders otherwise the experience was fine.||Food at the resort is at best fair. The Food truck was excellent for lunch most days. The buffet meals were the best as you had options to choose for yourself and most were decent. Breakfast was always good. The Steakhouse, Italian and other restaurants were only open once in a while (slow season) and the food was similar to a low-end franchise chain in the US. They often did not have several things on the menu available. The bars and restaurants ran out of things constantly by the way so it was hard to know what was ready to order. ||Also, if you are on the beach anywhere on the resort, you are fair game for the local vendors down the shore line to come and solicit you for a variety of things from jet ski rides, fishing trips, hats, bags, etc. all day long so don't plan on enjoying your peace and quiet or that book too long as you will be interrupted every 20 minutes or more. They are not allowed up on the pool area but of course they then come up and stand at the edge of the hedging and yell over to you while laying out and up to the people on the balconies to see if they can sell you something. It turns into something like a Wall Street stock market floor at times and ruins a relaxing scene quickly.||The property is beautiful, my wife and I made the best of it knowing that other resorts cost much more which we were not willing to spend on this particular trip so it was "OK" for us but we would not go back to this property. We got what we paid for I suppose. It feels like a Brand that either does not know who they are and/or does not no how to train their staff properly to delver a consistent brand experience to their clientele across all the touch points they have. Felt more low end and inconsistent than we were expecting based on the marketing. Most of the people we met there and spent time talking to all felt similar to these comments. Hopefully they are listening and it will improve over time for them and the people who...

Worst Customer Service in Over 40 Countries – Avoid Royalton Chic Antigua

As a seasoned traveler who has vacationed in over 40 countries and several Caribbean islands, I can confidently say that Royalton Chic Antigua has the worst customer service I have ever experienced. I paid for an oceanfront Diamond Club room, and the customer service was an epic failure! Marriott should be ashamed to call this a “luxury” resort as part of their Autograph Collection!

When I checked into my room, I didn’t immediately notice the hair in my shower until my first use. Disgusted, I reported it to the Diamond Club front desk, who assured me housekeeping would address it. Later that day, my room was “serviced,” but the hair was still in the exact same spot. If the shower was thoroughly cleaned, how is the hair still there? If you were informed about the hair, why is it still there?

I escalated the issue to the assistant manager, who called the executive housekeeper. The manager assured me it would be taken care of and promised to call me once it had been resolved. Yet, when I returned to my room at 6:00 PM, the hair was STILL there, in the exact same spot. Worse, housekeeping left a dirty cleaning brush on my sink—adding insult to injury.

When I tried to escalate further, the manager was “unavailable.” The assistant manager apologized profusely and assured me she would contact housekeeping again and call me back in five minutes. Twenty minutes passed without a call. When I followed up, she couldn’t provide an exact timeline for resolution—despite knowing I needed to shower before my 7:00 dinner reservation. She kept repeating, “They are on the way.” Ultimately, my butler (a Diamond Club perk) removed the hair and the filthy cleaning brush himself because housekeeping never arrived before I had to leave for dinner.

When I informed the assistant manager that my butler resolved the issue because housekeeping never came, she didn’t even apologize. The next day, I met with the executive housekeeper, who apologized and asked how she could make it right. The best she could offer was a late (1:00 PM) checkout. Bottom line: what others have posted about the lack of cleanliness here is not an exaggeration!

To make matters worse, housekeeping turned the AC off twice after cleaning, leaving the room unbearably hot upon my return. After the first incident, I left a note requesting they leave it on. Even after the note, they turned it off again the next day.

My 7:00 dinner reservation at the overwater restaurant was another debacle. After being seated, I had to ask for my waiter. I waited over 75 minutes to receive my food—including the appetizer—despite escalating to the restaurant manager. The food was lukewarm and mediocre at best. The waitress who took my order didn’t return to my table during the entire 75-minute wait. I only saw her again when I left my table to inquire about my food and when she finally brought it. The long wait times mentioned in other reviews are NOT exaggerated—they’re spot on.

When the hostess checked me in for dinner reservations at Olympus, they asked if I had any allergies or dietary restrictions and wrote them down. My waitress asked the same question. However, when my main entrée arrived, it included a sauce containing the very ingredient I had explicitly mentioned I could not have. I wouldn’t have known unless I asked before tasting it. Given the incompetence I had experienced, I was wise to ask.

Every restaurant had at least two items on the menu that were unavailable. As many others have posted, the food is just okay—not the flavorful, high-quality cuisine one expects at a luxury resort. Both breakfast buffets had several dirty plates and glasses.

The majority of the employees I experienced were incompetent and the overall resort customer service was abysmal. Additionally, the lack of accountability at all levels was astonishing. From unresolved cleanliness issues to outrageously long wait times, this experience was unacceptable for any traveler, let alone one paying for a premium Diamond...