Tamarind Hills Resort & Villas

“Perfect beach”

A hidden treasure! Very quite, great food and great service.

“SLH for the win!”

Gorgeous location away from tourists/cruise passengers with a perfect balance of things to do and the perfect quiet of nothing to do. The atmosphere is tranquil without being overdone and had perfectly appointed rooms with ample space. Service was impeccable and the food was outstanding at each and… more

Gorgeous location away from tourists/cruise passengers with a perfect balance of things to do and the perfect quiet of nothing to do. The atmosphere is tranquil without being overdone and had perfectly appointed rooms with ample space. Service was impeccable and the food was outstanding at each and every meal we chose to dine on site.

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“Stunning Beach and Views”

The location of Tamarind Hills Resort is what makes it. Being located on Ffryes Beach, easily one of the Top 10 of the 365 beaches on Antigua, is the best benefit of Tamarind. The beach and water are just stunning and never crowded while we were there. Our villa was high on the hill, which made … more

The location of Tamarind Hills Resort is what makes it. Being located on Ffryes Beach, easily one of the Top 10 of the 365 beaches on Antigua, is the best benefit of Tamarind. The beach and water are just stunning and never crowded while we were there. Our villa was high on the hill, which made for just spectacular views of the sunset as the weather allowed. The staff is all friendly, engaging, and well-educated. Not all, especially the restaurant/bar service, was efficient, but I will get to that. Our unit, K39, was nice and spacious, although the kitchenette portion felt very dated. It was high on the hill, which made for some challenging walks up and down to the beach or restaurant, but it worked for us. The resort will give you a ride any time you want it, but not always immediately, depending on staff availability. The restaurant on site, Wild Tamarind, was hit and miss. Some of the food was very good, other, like pizza night, not so good (my pizza was cold, and the wife's gluten-free pizza was pretty pathetic looking and tasting). The restaurant is on the pricey side, so we expected better. The breakfast terrace was nice. Bar service on the beach was handy if slow. Each time we went to sign our bill before leaving the beach, it was as if they were doing it for the first time, and you ended up standing there waiting for 5 or 10 minutes while they tried to figure out how to present your bill. There are some excellent restaurants nearby, but they do require a car. We ate at Sheer Rocks one night and The Fox House on another night; they were both excellent, especially The Fox House. Our stay did end on a sour note as we returned from the beach on our last day to shower for dinner, only to find we had no running water. It took about 3 hours to fix; we missed our dinner reservation and the music, only to eat much later than we liked. Things happen that we get; how a resort handles these mishaps is the true measure. We've been lucky to stay at places that very proactively address issues that occur, and unfortunately, have stayed at places that either consciously or unconsciously ignore the issue, hoping we didn't notice or weren't bothered. Well, Tamarind was the latter; other than the maintenance worker, no one from the resort contacted us or apologized about it either before, after, or during the situation. When I called the front desk to ask them to help move our dinner reservation, and asked her if they would be buying us dinner for the inconvenience, she literally laughed at me. The great inconvenience to us was not addressed until we were checking out, and the manager on duty happened to ask how our stay was (they knew what room we were in, so they knew what happened, but again did nothing proactive to compensate us or even just apologize to us). After hearing our story, they did comp us a little on our total bill, but had we not brought it up, they would have said and done nothing. It was an unfortunate way for our 1-week visit to end. Overall, we enjoyed our stay because of the beach and views far outweighing some of the challenges. The beach and views make this resort worthwhile.

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“Beautiful location but the resort was lacking for us”

We stayed at this resort recently and had a mixed experience. We payed a lot for our stay and with that comes certain expectations. If the resort had been priced what I think it should have been, this review would probably read differently. The room: We chose to stay in a villa and that was a m… more

We stayed at this resort recently and had a mixed experience. We payed a lot for our stay and with that comes certain expectations. If the resort had been priced what I think it should have been, this review would probably read differently. The room: We chose to stay in a villa and that was a mistake. The villas are privately owned, are not as nicely appointed as the hotel rooms, and do not come with the same level of service. The villas are not cleaned every day and there are no extras, like gowns, refillable water bottles (meaning we had to keep purchasing water), resort bags, etc, that are provided when you have a room. Even the outdoor chair pads are different - ours were thinner and plastic-y. We were provided with only two thin bath towels for each bathroom which seemed absurd given the limited room servicing. They did give us more towels and some gowns when requested but it was made very clear that they were making an exception for us. The villa itself was nice except it felt like we were staying in an Air B&B (i.e. someone's house with some of their things around) rather than a hotel. There was a small pool but it was shaded so too cold to use. The beach and pool: The rest of the resort was pleasant but was not high end. Again, if I’d paid half of what we did, I would have said it was money well spent. The beach is lovely nice but the deck chairs are cheap feeling. It rained on and off while we were there and the umbrellas (if you can get one) were not big enough to keep things dry. They constantly ran out of towels which was particularly a problem when the towels kept getting soaked. One of the toilets in the beach bathroom was blocked one day and was still blocked when I came back hours later - not a good sign. There is a beach bar down the beach that plays loud music all day which somewhat distracts from the peacefulness of the place. The pool area is very small and quite far from the beach so we did not end up using it at all. The restaurant: Again things were mixed when it came to the restaurant. I think the chef is very good and we had some really tasty meals (with the exception of the barbecue night which is far too expensive for what it is). The breakfast buffet was the one meal that was not good - the offerings were minimal and pretty poor. The restaurant service was inconsistent - we had some lovely attentive servers and at other times it was like we were invisible. We had meals when we couldn’t get silverware, placemats, couldn’t order, and once had a wait time of 45 minutes for a simple omelette. We enjoyed the sushi in the smaller restaurant but when we went back there a second time, we were told there was no sushi available. Location: It is very expensive to leave the hotel if you do not have a car. If the hotel ran a periodic shuttle into town it would be a much appreciated added service. We used the public bus which was a short walk away. Gym: The gym is dated but usable. It could be improved with a proper exercise bike and better ventilation. There were frequently no towels available which was frustrating and the bathroom is used by anyone in the lobby so it is not a private space. I could go on but I’ll end this by saying that this hotel could be lovely with some serious attention to detail and some more clarity regarding the villas. Something doesn’t quite work right now, at least it didn’t for us.

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