Having booked a superior room, on checking in we were given room 609, however they didn't have a key for the room. We took a look at the room and weren't entirely happy with the room - it definitely didn't appear to be a 'superior' room, so we asked to be moved. We were advised that there wasn't another room, so we requested to speak to the manager - who to be perfectly honest was as much use as a 'chocolate teapot'. After hanging around reception for about an hour, the best he could offer us was a 'time share' room just off reception, which for a family of three was totally unsuitable. In the end we accepted room 609 on the understanding that a key would be cut the following morning. After a tiring day from travelling we retired to bed to be woken in the early hours by someone playing 'chop sticks' (very badly) on the piano and we realised that the room was situated immediately above the lobby bar. We were then woken at 5.30 a.m. by a sound of smashing glass - we went out of the front door to find that we were overlooking the road and the garbage truck was emptying the bins. We also found that the air conditioning unit was broken and most of the room was under water, the shower didn't work and when we looked out over the balcony, our surrounding rooms appeared to be empty with lots of rusting airconditioning units stored on the balconies. We realised then that this certainly wasn't a superior room. AFter breakfast we requested for someone to let us back into our room - as we still didn't have a key, and a very helpful receptionist couldn't understand why we had been put in the room and organised for us to be moved. So finally, later that day we moved into a very acceptable room. 5 days into the holiday, I was talking to a lady who had just arrived at the hotel and it transpired that she had been given room 609 and they still hadn't sorted out a key. In my opinion room 609 is a room they use when they have run out of rooms - however, the simple task of sourcing a key appears to beyond the hotel's capabilities. On the whole, we thoroughly enjoyed our one week holiday. Weather was great, lovely beach. Luckily we hadn't booked 'all inclusive', if we had I think we would have a totally different opinion of our holiday - we did each in the hotel a couple of lunchtimes and one evening - lunchtime menu was very limited and I would imagine if you were all inclusive you would have got sick of the food very quickly. Evening buffet was ok for one evening, but I couldn't imagine eating it for the entire holiday. Breakfast was very good and good value for money. Location of hotel a little remote and restaurants close by are limited. Try taking a taxi into St. Johns the taxi drivers will take you to good restaurants - we had very good meals in Hemingways - lovely food and the staff there were great, also we went to Home, which was very nice, but Hemingways by far our favourite. I would return to Antigua, but definitely wouldn't stay at the Rex Halcyon Cove - we travelled with friends who were on their 5th trip to Antigua and they didn't particularly rate the Rex Halcyon Cove compared to the other hotels they had stayed at. The final nail in the coffin, having been home from holiday for 2 weeks, the hotel have charged around 250 EC dollars to our credit card after we had cleared our bill with cash before leaving - we think it could be that as we didn't leave the hotel until the evening, we handed in our beach towels to reception before we left rather than to the towel lady poolside - we reckon they have charged us for the beach towels - nice scam if they can get away with it!!!!

After a long run of being a great hotel, then falling into disrepair, the Rex is starting to come back. Long, long overdue renovations are in progress and the best beach on the island still is great. Rooms are nice as they can be considering this is an older property. Location is wonderful, close to many restaurants and St. John's. Water sports are great at Tony's. Food at the hotel still needs work, but the staff generally is very helpful as they go through this process of upgrading.