Review & Things To Do | Pineapple Beach Club Resort, Antigua

Going into our Antigua and Barbuda vacation, my experience of all-inclusive resorts was pretty limited. And truth be told, the resort experience about as far away from my budget travel style as you can get. As excited and grateful as I was to be invited on such an incredible holiday with my partner’s (wonderful) family, I was slightly apprehensive about spending two weeks in one place. I guess I’ve never been one for sitting still by the pool for very long.

While my heart’s still in city breaks and adventurous escapes, our Antigua holiday is full of memories that will stay with me for a very, very long time. With some excursions and car rentals, we managed to fulfil our sense of adventure, but the resort itself was such an enjoyable experience. For the first time in a LONG time, I actually felt relaxed coming home from a trip. Wonders never cease.

Safe to say, then, I’m not the most well-versed in luxury, all-inclusive resorts. There are plenty of blogs and sites that specialise in that subject, so this is a bit of a departure from my usual content. However, I very much enjoy hearing about experiences from the viewpoint of someone who doesn’t experience this as a norm. From the perspective of someone for whom this kind of experience is new and special, settle in to a full review of Pineapple Beach Club, Antigua…

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Pineapple Beach Club – Key Info

Pineapple Beach Club resort is located on the east side of Antigua, just outside the small town of Willikies. As the name suggests, it’s located right on the beach at Long Bay, one of Antigua’s 365 pristine beaches.

It’s an all-inclusive, adults only (16+) resort, with five restaurants, three bars, four swimming pools, and a roster of day and night-time activities. To balance your all-inclusive indulgence, there’s a fitness centre, tennis and pickleball courts; as well as the Tranquility Spa. With 180 guest rooms, it’s on the smaller side compared to some resorts, with an intimate, relaxed feel.

Pineapple Beach Club is around 30-40 minutes drive from Antigua’s V.C. Bird International Airport, and a taxi will cost US$50-60.

Prices for one week at Pineapple Beach Club start at £1,150pp. You can book your resort stay independently and arrange your own flights, or look at a package deal.

On top of the hotel price, you’ll also be charged US$24 resort tax + $5 room levy per room, per night – bear this in mind when booking, as it does add up!

Food and Drink at Pineapple Beach Club

As a vegetarian, I was particularly apprehensive about eating at an all-inclusive resort. Thankfully, I was pleasantly surprised by Pineapple Beach Club’s vegetarian offerings. I managed to eat incredibly well. Probably too well, if I’m honest.

For the a la carte restaurants, you need to book in advance at the guest services desk. Bookings open at 8.30am every morning, and you can book for 48 hours ahead but not *exactly* (on Mondays, you can book for Mon, Tue and Weds evening.) For the buffet and snack grill, you can just turn up.

Topaz Buffet

Ah, the all-inclusive buffet. A much-scorned affair, conjuring images of soggy chips, watery pasta and limp salad. Luckily, Topaz Buffet didn’t deliver the cliches, and instead had a great selection of good quality dishes for every meal.

The breakfast buffet had enough to vary your morning meal each day. Hot food included classic English and American breakfast items, and a station where the chef made omelettes and poached eggs to order. French toast, pancakes and waffles were all available – my slight feedback here is that more toppings for these would have been welcomed. Some vegetarian sausages would have also gone down a treat…

Lunch was usually a mish-mash of all kinds of things, with pasta, salads, meats and fish on the menu.

For evening meals, each night at the buffet had a different theme, including Mexican, Asian, Sunday Roast and West Indies. Each night had a selection of 10-12 buffet items to build your meal with, alongside a large salad bar, cooking station, bread, sundries and desserts. Generally, the food was of good quality, and there was always a decent veggie option on offer.

Drinks service could be a little slow at times, and on the odd occasion, infuriatingly slow. A couple of times, we ended up walking over to the bar to grab our own drinks.

Pineapple Grill

Of the a la carte restaurants on site, Pineapple Grill is the most formal, with a smart-casual dress code. Shorts and flip flops, frowned upon. We visited twice during our trip.

While the starters occasionally fell short, the mains were good quality, and the Grill had some interesting dishes on offer for meat and fish eaters. However, out of all the restaurants, I felt it had the poorest vegetarian offering. They made me a sangria though, so big bonus points there.

On certain nights of the week, the Grill closes to accommodate the Orchid Steakhouse, a fine dining a la carte restaurant for a $40 surcharge.

Chef Pietro’s

Situated beside the Topaz Buffet, next to the beach, Chef Pietro’s is an a la carte Italian restaurant. We only visited Chef Pietro’s once during our stay, and although the spinach gnocchi I had was fantastic, the service was very slow. But if you’re happy to have a leisurely dinner and to wait a little longer for your meal, there are some great pasta and pizza options on offer.

The Outhouse

Location and vibes wise, my absolute favourite a la carte restaurant, with a relaxed attitude and gorgeous views out to sea. Situated just up the hill from the main resort area, it’s a 5-minute walk uphill, but the resort offers buggy transport there and back for those unable to do the walk.

The Outhouse itself is pretty much a shack, with covered areas adorned with signs from previous visitors. Sipping a cold beer here, we spent much of our time poring over the signs, wondering if ‘Brenda and Paul’ were still happily married, and if the Humphries family were still having ‘the time of their lives’.

Food here is served daily from 12.30-4pm, and on Wednesday evenings. It’s a BBQ and salad bar affair, and although the vegetarian options were limited, I fell in love with the Southern potato salad, chilli beans and gorgeously sweet corn on the cob.

Pelican Snack Bar and Grill

For a quick bite by the pool or a late-night snack, you’ve got the Pelican Snack Bar and Grill. Here, you can grab counter-service plates including burgers, wraps, pizza, chicken wings and fries. I enjoyed the vegetarian burger here, and the portions for side dishes were very generous. Service was fast, and there’s a deli-style ticketing system for busier times of the day.

Cafe 1761

Can’t function without your morning dose of caffeine? Cafe 1761 is open all day serving coffee, iced drinks and cakes. We got OBSESSED with their Dragonfruit and Lychee refresher drinks…

Bars at Pineapple Beach Club

The resort has three bars on site. The main bar, Sly Mongoose, is in the entertainment and activity area. The Aqua Bar is next to the beach, and the Tickled Turtle bar is next to a smaller, quieter pool area.

With your all-inclusive package, drinks are unlimited, including cocktails. There’s a wide range of spirits on offer to make all kinds of cocktails with, including the rotating ‘Cocktail of the Day’. As you can probably guess in the Caribbean, rum cocktails are very popular. Beer, wine and soft drinks are available at all the bars.

The beer served at Pineapple Beach Club comes from a local brewery built to supply the multiple resorts in the area, and it’s a light, refreshing brew that hits perfectly on a sunny day by the pool. The bars are mostly well-stocked, although there were quite a few occasions where they ran out of certain wines, spirits and cocktail ingredients.

Resort Facilities

The resort is the perfect location for beach lovers, literally ON the beach of gorgeous Long Bay. A white sandy stretch with calm waters sheltered by the bay, it’s the exact thing you’d expect from a Caribbean beach. Half of the bay is part of the resort, with the other end being public. 24/7 security ensures safety in the resort.

There are four pools at Pineapple Beach Club – two are in the area next to the beach, and there’s a quieter pool a little further away. In the middle of the resort, there’s an infinity pool next to the beach, which was absolutely gorgeous in the evening golden hours. All of the pools are relatively small, and more suited to relaxing with a drink than full on swimming.

You can also take advantage of the facilities at the sister resort, The Verandah, which is basically next door – and boasts a pretty good 18-hole mini golf course. I preferred the larger pool at Verandah; but the beach at Pineapple is much nicer.

Trips & Excursions

Like most resorts in Antigua, Pineapple Beach Club promotes a range of excursions, including trips to St John’s and Shirley Heights; as well as activities including Antigua boat tours and rainforest zip lining.

We booked the Pink Panther Safari, an all-female jeep tour that took us to Devil’s Bridge, Nelson’s Dockyard and Shirley Heights. I’ll write some more about this soon, but I’d really recommend it as a good way to get out of the resort and see a bit of the island. Our hosts for the tour were absolutely lovely and full of interesting information about Antigua.

We also took advantage of the resort’s car hire, and grabbed a vehicle for two days to explore the island in – including checking out the capital city of St. John’s and a lovely visit to Antigua’s Donkey Sanctuary. The process was super easy, and we had no trouble with the car (apart from a satnav that only spoke in Japanese…). The resort also arranged a taxi for us when we wanted to visit Betty’s Hope later in the week.

RELATED POST: Find out more about driving in Antigua!

Daytime Activities

Most of the organised daytime activities at Pineapple Beach Club are pretty simple and straightforward. ‘Coconut Bowling’ involved rolling a coconut to knock over bottles (harder than it sounds), and ‘Champagne Pong’, where getting balls into consecutive buckets wins you a bottle of champers. The casual, low-effort style of the activities actually fit the relaxed vibe of the resort well, and it’s a good way to get chatting to other guests.

The resort offers some arts and crafts activities during the day, and I took part in the jewellery making workshop. Again, it’s a simple one – threading coloured beads onto a loop of elastic, but it was a fun, free way to spend half an hour with a cute souvenir to take home at the end.

Other arts and crafts activities on offer at the resort include a tie-dye workshop ($20 surcharge for materials) and aloe vera class.

Water Activities

Being so close to the sea, watersports are firmly on the agenda. Pineapple Beach Club don’t have the biggest array of water activities on offer, but use of their kayaks and stand-up paddleboards are free of charge to resort guests. They also have small catamaran boats that you can sail around the bay in.

If you’ve never sailed before, the resort offers morning sailing lessons to get to grips with the basics. Unfortunately, ours were cancelled due to unsuitable conditions so we didn’t get to try out the boats. A shame, as this was something I really wanted to have a go at – it also wasn’t well communicated by the resort that they weren’t available.

Fitness and Wellbeing

Okay, it’s an all-inclusive, so you’d be forgiven if fitness falls off the wagon in favour of second helpings at the buffet and being on your second Pina Colada by 2pm. For those who want to keep on top of their gains and PBs while away, there’s a fitness centre on-site. It’s well-stocked with some older but perfectly functional equipment, and when we went, we had the place to ourselves. The dream.

If you fancy a little less full-on than hurling kettlebells around, there are tennis and pickleball courts available for use. The resort team also run a daily aqua aerobics session in the pool, and occasional yoga sessions.

At the end of the trip, I treated myself to a gorgeous massage at the Tranquility Spa. It’s definitely not the cheapest massage I’ve ever had, but my therapist did an amazing job loosening up my muscles the day before flying home. Total relaxation, achieved.

Evening Entertainment

If you’re craving a big party atmosphere, Pineapple Beach Club might not deliver – but for more relaxed, laid back entertainment, there’s something on every night. Across the two weeks, the entertainment did vary in quality. Some nights felt a little lacklustre and low energy. Alongside DJs and singers, guests could also take part in movie and music quizzes, as well as a karaoke night (which was mostly led by the resort staff, as willing singers seemed to be in short supply).

On Fridays, the entertainment team pull out all the stops for a full-on experience. For our first Friday night experience, we were swept up in the vibrant energy of a ‘Mini Carnival’ parade, accompanied by a talented steel band. Fun, lively and entertaining, it was the liveliest I’d seen the resort in the evening all week.

Our last night in the resort ended up being the best, when the resort team took full advantage of the magical location with a beach party. In an epic feat of logistics, the resort team managed to fill the beach with tables, chairs, BBQs and buffet containers. An incredible live reggae party band got everyone dancing on the shores, for a special night that’s etched into my memories.

Summary: Should you book Pineapple Beach Club for your Antigua vacation?

I had a truly wonderful two weeks, and the resort played a huge part in making it a holiday I’ll remember for a very long time to come. The food and drink was mostly excellent, and I still can’t stop thinking about that big cosy bed…

While there were a few elements such as the slow service that did let the experience down, I’d recommend Pineapple Beach Club for an all-inclusive resort in Antigua. Long Bay beach is absolutely stunning, and being able to walk from my front door to the sparkling sea in under a minute was an incredible feeling.

Book your Pineapple Beach Stay here, or check out package deals here.