Conch Beach Cabins (Rumbus Beach) — Restaurant in Antigua

We stayed here for 11 nights in a standard cabin. Overall, we had a lovely experience here. However, there were some cons, too.

Pros: It’s a nice small place with just 5 cabins, great for anyone not keen about big all inclusive hotels. Amazing that you live literally on the beach. Going from your cabin to the water takes 10 seconds. The beach is clean and quiet. There are also a couple of decent snorkelling spots to the left and right of the cabins. The cabins are on the western coast of Antigua, meaning you’ll see incredible sunsets every day. Breakfasts are good and include soft drinks, omelette with cheese, fruit platter (mango was out of this world), toasts with butter, and banana bread. The restaurant is open till 5pm, with kitchen closing at 4:30pm. The food varied from decent to very good. There is also a bar if you fancy alcoholic / non alcoholic cocktails. The bartender is very nice. There is a cute cat living on premises. There is also a big green parrot. I wonder if he’s a bit lonely living in his cage all alone. There is an AC in all the cabins (just the bedroom, no ac in the toilet). You’ll very much need it. Outdoor shower is so much fun. Stars in the night are incredible. They are cleaning services provided. The cabins are simple but have everything needed for a relaxed stay.

Cons: There were water leeks in our cabin after heavy rains. We reported it after checking in and then again a week later when a particularly heavy rain caused the water to leak again in several places. The manager offered moving us to another, a better one, cabin. However, we decided not to move as it felt that with only two days of our stay left, that would be more hassle than it’s worth. There were two big cockroaches living in our bathroom. They appeared at nights and made an attempt to conquer the bedroom, too. They terrorised us for several days until my husband managed to kill them. The cabins are rustic and quite laid-back. For example, the front door in our cabin couldn’t be locked properly. There was a coffee machine but no coffee capsules/beans, and a kettle but no cups. The floor is super thin and sometimes you could see a glimpse of light from below it. The toilet got several times clogged with no apparent reason. Felt like an issue with local pipes because it unclogged by itself in most cases. The cleaning does not happen every day and sometimes we struggled with toilet paper shortages and/or had to ask the manager for it. We bought some toilet paper in the local supermarket though. There were four cases when there was no running water at all, meaning no shower / toilet flushing either. One time it was just for a couple of hours, but mostly for the whole night. One time there was no water for around 15 hours - from 7pm to circa 11am. I understand it’s something experiencing across Antigua, however, bigger resorts have more resources to manage the situation. There was a power shortage once for a couple of hours in the morning. I mentioned the food in the restaurant was good. The prices were quite high but that’s what you’d expect in many touristy places in Antigua (mains were around 25-30 US dollars on average). However, the waiting times were… long. Breakfasts typically would take at least an hour and lunches around 1.5 for one dish. There is no AC anywhere apart the cabins’ bedrooms. The outdoor showering can be significantly spoiled by vicious mosquitoes. You’ll struggle with with mosquitoes and midges across Antigua in the evenings so do bring a repellent. We really appreciated the traffic lights in the area are red to protect the sea turtles. But the Conch Beach Cabins has white lights at the night which is not ideal. Please consider switching to the red lights to protect the turtles.

As a tip for other tourists, there is a handful app delivery service called AllMart. Beware of attracting...

What a horrible experience I had in January 12th. First of all, staff is exceptional friendly but that's all good I've to say about this place. The Cabins aren't rustic, they're cheap with no interior at all. Made out of plywood or something, even the floor. They're not close to what the pictures show. They're directly next to each other, so no privacy at all. Mini fridge was on the floor and not cleaned from the last guest. The cabin still smelled overwhelming from the paint. Not even a garbage bin was in there. 10 hangers in the entrance. The bed sheets were marked with black marker. In the bedroom, there's not the large window like shown on pictures. You'll find a bed, an empty mini fridge, 2 nightstands, a commode, one desk with one chair in it. That's it. Not like promised any hotel amenities. You've one door going direction to the beach. You've a small table with chairs outside. Then you've a bench which can't be used because it's fixed on the floor and the table in the middle is so close that your legs won't fit in. No matt, so when you walk in you bring all the sand with you. The bathroom window, which was in direction of the sidewalk behind the cabin, had no curtain. Staff said guests use normally towels to cover it... Seriously??? I pay 300 USD to do so??? Beside the toilet and a table with sink and mirror it's empty. No place to put your stuff anywhere. Next to the outside shower are walking ways, no privacy. The bar and restaurant close at between 6pm and 7pm, from this time on you only have a security guard on the site. If there was Wi-Fi I don't know about it, nowhere written and nobody told us about it. In the middle of the night the water stopped working. At 7am in the morning when we really needed to get ready for work it still wasn't working. Fortunately the lady from the bar was on site by accident and after a few phone calls she could fix it. The breakfast was horrible. Saggy bread and my eggs Benedict were partly raw and not properly prepared. The guy from the reception told us we will get a refund, nothing up to today. Overall it was a horrible experience and that for 300 USD!!! That's scam at it's finest. Don't book there! You'll only waste money. Best thing there is the restaurant close by and the beach but you can get both without...

We cannot begin to express how amazing and pleasant our stay was at the Conch Cabins on Turner's Beach at Rum Bus. We were the second guests to stay in the cabins which were freshly renovated. Staff were beyond helpful, supportive, friendly and went out of their way to ensure we had everything that we needed during our stay. Do yourself a favor and book a stay at the Conch Cabins before there will no longer be any available bookings. This place is a hidden gem and is much more affordable than most other options in Antigua. Our cabin was right on the beach. There was a very small crowd and Turner's Beach was the best area we had experienced during our stay in Antigua. We had traveled to every popular beach that was recommended and Turner's was the most quaint, secluded and beautiful area that we had experienced. Overall our only complaint is that we did not stay long enough at Rum Bus. We like to give a shoutout to Clinton, Ronnie, Dede and all of the other staff members at Rum Bus. They truly went out of their way and above and beyond to make us feel welcomed and comfortable. You cannot get that kind of service via the big resorts in Antigua. Finally, the food was exceptional and we had a cute lil feline friend visit us every morning which just helped make our experience that much more outstanding. If you like having a unique experience this is the place to be. A definite 10/10 and 5+ star rating. Thanks for having us guys. We will definitely be back!...