Beach club holiday in Antigua

This hotel is Italian owned and located on the northern tip of Antigua in Hodges Bay. A maximum of 190 staff are employed of which approximately 170 are local bring much employment to the island. Full training is offered to UK and local staff alike. This includes health & hygiene, and customer service training together with the option for local beach staff to gain RYA recognised sailing qualifications and the opportunity for progression to management. Our Assistant Sailing Manager, Raff grew up here and his Mum, Rose still works in our restaurant. Returning customers are delighted to be remembered by our local staff and constantly remind us that this is such an important part of their holiday experience.

The club is located close to St. Johns, one of the busiest sea ports in the area. Our flexible half board meal plan allows our customers to try Antigua's excellent local restaurants and bars.

Cricket is much beloved on Antigua, and last year the stars of the England and Sri Lanka cricket teams trained at our Fitness and Gym centre. We are also delighted to say that entertainment at the club is provided by a variety of local bands and this year we have been lucky enough to provide weekly, the band ‘New Dread and the Baldhead’ featuring cricket legends Ritchie Richardson and Curtly Ambrose! To further support the community local vendors visit us weekly to sell basket weaving, gifts and to carry out hair braiding for our customers.

The beautiful hotel gardens supply a small amount of produce and are John, our Antiguan Landscape’s Manager’s pride and joy. John runs a Garden tour twice a week, including a special kid’s tour, describing the amazing properties of the many indigenous plants and identifying wildlife; this has over the years become one of the highlights of the week.

Children taking part in our kid's clubs enjoy nature walks, learning about the local seaside and culture. The kid's weekly menu includes local dishes, served by local staff. The children are actively involved in learning about the local area and the marine life close to the club.

Our environmental policy includes the use of Eco Lab cleaning products for room and boat cleaning. Safety boat/outboard engines are 4 stroke, reducing emissions and fuel consumption. We have also recently introduced a number of revolutionary new Evinrude E-Tec outboard which is European Union 2006 Emissions Compliant, with Carbon Monoxide Levels up to 1/10th of competitive 4-Strokes @ idle.

We use energy saving room keys and light bulbs. Our hotels operate Bio Packs, biological sewage systems in order to treat sewage and reuse the water on the gardens. We offer customer tips on environmental responsibility in our brochure, website, pre-holiday information and during guest briefings. This includes advice on litter and waste disposal, water conservation, energy saving, and care for local flora and fauna. We are very keen to learn from our customers and invite their feedback and recommendations on our post holiday questionnaires.

We are committed to the marine environment surrounding Antigua and ensure that any diving, swimming and sailing activities protect the marine and coral life. Briefings are given to our customers in order that anchoring is carried out using the supplied mooring buoys without dropping anchors onto the sea bed. Other tips include, discouraging feeding of reef fish and other marine wildlife.

Our chosen charity is currently the Amazing Grace Foundation in Antigua. The foundation runs a small home on the island for homeless and severely disabled children. Last year thanks to generous guests we raised over £7000 for Amazing Grace which will be used towards the build of a new home for the children.

In addition to the above we support VISAR, Virgin Islands Search and Rescue (VISAR) a voluntary organisation dedicated to saving life at sea. It is the officially recognised search and rescue service in the British Virgin Islands and to date we have raised several thousands pounds for this worthwhile cause. Getting youngsters on the water is important to us and we have therefore sponsored RYA's OnBoard programme to introduce sailing and windsurfing as a sport for young people.

We maintain a close relationship with the local community in Antigua. The two most popular sports in Antigua are yachting and cricket. Our guests love to watch cricket at the famous cricket ground in St. John's and the club has sponsored aspiring young cricketers and the local football team for the past five years. Colonna also has it's own football team, part of the Antigua Business League.