Antigua - November 2017
I booked it before the hurricanes hit the Caribbean. I was a little worried when I heard about the first hurricane and even more so when the second happened. Antigua was fortunate as it had hardly any damage. Other islands, such as Barbuda and St Kitts were badly damaged, as well as several other islands. This affected the cruise lines, as we understand that one day, Antigua had five cruise ships in port, as they were unable to visit places on their original itineraries. I don’t know where all these people would go, when leaving the ship, as Antigua is only 12 miles by 9 miles.
We stayed at Gatwick the night before, as we prefer to do this, rather than risk the possibility of being stuck in some traffic disaster and missing our flight! We flew out in Premium Economy and the flight was full.
On arrival, we collected our cases and then found our transfer driver. We walked into the hotel and were shown to a seat in the lounge, offered a cocktail and introduced to several people, amongst them the lady who organised excursions and the manager.
We were then taken to our room, overlooking the sea. It had a lovely big balcony where we relaxed and I read several books. The room was air conditioned and a large fan above the very comfortable bed.
We went for a wander around the resort and its beautiful tropical gardens. The main restaurant overlooks the gardens. There were other restaurants, for a change of venue and menu. All the restaurants needed to be booked in advance, as the hotel operated both on a bed and breakfast and an all-inclusive basis. I am a very fussy eater and the choice of menu in each restaurant wasn’t that great for me, but my husband enjoyed the food. I also heard other people say it was very good. All very subjective!
We went on an excursion with another couple, who we didn’t know. This was a tour of the island by a 4x4. We went to Nelson’s Shipyard, to Shirley’s Heights (named after a man, apparently) where we looked down on the most famous view of St Johns in Antigua. Part of the advertised excursion was a visit to a donkey sanctuary. Our driver said he didn’t believe it necessarily following the suggested itinerary and what would we like to do? None of us were keen on the sanctuary, so he suggested we could go to a tropical forest. There was a very sad slave story connected to the tropical forest. Our driver was very good at keeping us very well informed during the day.
Another day we did a helicopter trip over Monserrat to see the devastation caused by the volcano years ago and this is still rumbling on, after 22 years. We also went to an evening at Shirley’s Heights, for the experience. A steel band played which was good, but the place was packed.
We did try a banana boat, but this was just too much like hard work! We did try to take out a Hobie boat, but they were not keen on us doing this, as I hadn’t had any experience at all and my husband hadn’t sailed for a few years.
I asked if I could see some of the rooms in the property. The manager said he would let know me, as they were very busy. I was very lucky as a group of Gold Travel Counsellors did a couple of site inspections as part of a trip and were happy to let me join them.
Otherwise we were glad to go for swims in the sea and in some of the swimming pools, wander to one of the beachside bars for lunch and generally do very little. We flew back Upper Class, so we could sleep laying down.
We would go back again, as we really enjoyed the relaxation and the sunshine.