Our Irish experience and recommendations for a 14 day holiday on the Caribbean Island of Antigua visiting the various tourist attractions and soaking up the Sun, Sea and Rum.
Link to still image montage of our Antigua visit:-
Link to our How to Sail for beginners video, made in Rodney Bay, St Lucia.
Our suggestions about how to fill a typical day in any all-inclusive resort during your stay in the Caribbean Islands.
Antigua Island, Caribbean
We visited the island of Antigua for a 14 day vacation. The climate was tropical and ideal for open air trips, sailing and excursions. The official currency in Antigua is the Eastern Caribbean Dollar, which is fixed to the US Dollar. If you do as we did and stay all-inclusive at Sandals resorts, you will be currency free as all of the on-site facilities are free, along with a no tipping policy. There is, however, a $28 US departure tax per person, payable at the airport when leaving.
Antigua is one of the 2 major islands that make up the Caribbean nation of Antigua and Barbuda. At English Harbour is the restored Nelson’s Dockyard, which Admiral Horatio Nelson made his base in the 1780s. The dockyard includes a marina and the dockyard Museum. Trails lead up to Shirley Heights, a former military lookout. It is the ideal place to get panoramic views of the island. Antigua is surrounded by coral reefs and the island is known for its many sandy beaches - it is said that there are 365 beaches, one for every day in the year.
A sense of Antigua Island
Our general experience of Antigua is that the people are extremely friendly. There is a complete cultural difference between our existence in Europe and their laid back Caribbean life style. In our experience, based on our many visits to various Caribbean islands over the years, staying at one of the all-inclusive Sandals Resorts of equivalent is the most comfortable and enjoyable way to experience the Caribbean Islands. Sandals have sixteen adult only (over 18s), resorts and three Beaches (family) resorts dotted all over the Caribbean. In Antigua we stayed at the Sandals Grande. All onsite facilities were included in the package and these included all water sports, sailing (Hobie Cats, canoes, kayaks), diving (if qualified), snorkelling, windsurfing and paddle boarding.
All trips outside of the resorts were offered at extra cost by the hotel tours advisors.
Guided tours via coach transportation around all of the Island, were available. For the silver surfer adrenalin junkies you can do zip-lining, segway tours, Island buggies, boat cruises, cycling or hill walking.
Do not drink un-bottled water. This is not unique to Antigua. It’s good advice when travelling in many developing nations. Hydrate yourself with sealed bottle water only, and use it to brush your teeth as well.
We flew from Dublin to London and got a return direct flight to Antigua.
Recommendations for Antigua Island
There is no language barrier, if you only speak English. So it lends itself to undertaking guided group tours or self-guided tours if you prefer.
We visited a great cross section of the local tourist attractions. We also visited some of the local restaurants and bars and these left us with a genuine appreciation of their laid back culture. The street food in all of the towns is fantastic to look at and superb to taste, however, if you have a delicate stomach, you should take extreme care when partaking in street food.
Our must see recommendation for a trip to Antigua Island.
(1) Sailing offshore, be it a small hobie or a large yacht, the snorkelling is excellent.
(2) Our second choice would be a guided tour of the island.
(3) Our third choice would be a helicopter trip around the nearby island of Montserrat.
As always, the people we met on the trip, enriched the whole experience.
The cost of this type of holiday is €1.75k per person/per week, inclusive of flights (economy fare).
“You should travel away from home, you really appreciate the value of what you have at home, on your return.”
“The route to happiness is in the journey and rarely in the destination alone.”
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