I know you’re all dying to hear about our vacation in Antigua, at least I’m dying to relive it through the written word. So here it is:
As previously mentioned, we had been looking to book a vacation for this Spring. This vacation had two requirements: It had to be cheap, and it had to be somewhere we’ve never been, which turned out to be a pretty tall order. Unless you want to spend 5 days in Ohio (no offense to Ohio-ans, I'm sure Ohio is breathtaking, it’s just not where we were thinking), you have to leave the country to save money, but you can't go too far as flights are ridiculously expensive at the moment. Months ago we found the perfect vacation via CheapCarribean.com. It sounded almost too good to be true. Five all-inclusive days in Antigua (flights and transportation to and from the resort included) for less than 2 flights to Europe? We were in. Then I started to panic. In my experience, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. My mind started reeling: The food will be inedible. The room will be tiny and dirty. The island will be dangerous. It must be the rainy season. I worried for naught. Everything about our vacation was practically perfect. I’ll give you that we’re not hard to please, but I can’t imagine many people finding fault. The weather was perfect; not too humid or hot, with the most perfect island breeze. It rained a bit on the first day we were there and poured on the morning of our departure (while we laughed and pointed at all the sorry tourists having to spend their last day in paradise packing inside), but otherwise, we had sunny and somewhat overcast skies (I’ll tell you, those clouds ended up being a godsend. Whenever the sun came out of the clouds, the temperature rose about 15 degrees and I could feel my pale half-Irish skin burning quickly).
When we arrived at the island, we found our way to our car service and loaded our bags into the van (not before being told about a departure tax that we had to pay if we wanted to leave the island, which I confirmed to be truth and not scam with every other tourist we met). Here’s the thing about the drive to the resort: As Antigua was once a British colony, Antiguans (or at least our driver) drive on the left side of the road, while hugging the center line, passing everyone they can, while pedestrians, goats, chickens, and stray dogs walk along the road. So as not to panic every time we almost hit a dog/car/pedestrian/chicken (which was about every 5 seconds) I focused on the landscape for most of it. Driving on the left blew my mind. I’ve been to England before and for some reason it didn’t faze me as much. Maybe the streets in London weren't so narrow or the taxi drivers weren't so liberal with their interpretation of driving laws, I don't know. What I do know, is it's a good thing we hadn't decided to rent a car. On our way to the hotel, there were a few 5 road intersections at which Kurt and I both admitted not knowing who had the right of way.
We arrived at our resort, Jolly Beach Resort, an hour before check-in and were encouraged to leave our bags at the front desk and explore the resort. Mostly we explored the bar at the pool where I discovered my favorite drink for the rest of the trip: Antigua Kiss - a combo of pineapple juice, peach Schnapps, and white rum. When it was time to check in, we were driven to our room, a junior suite. The entire resort featured white concrete walls and our room was no different. At first glance, the bed seemed hard and uncomfortable, and the room seemed a bit sparse, but we quickly realized we were in paradise and couldn't care less what the room looked like. The room was clean, had all the amenities we needed including 2 balconies with beach views, and the bed turned out to be more comfortable than our own. We quickly (but carefully) threw on sunscreen and our swimsuits and headed to the beach.
Never in my life have I seen water so blue. It was amazing. I spent the majority of our time on the beach just staring at it, mesmerized. The shade of blue, coupled with the soft sand and green mountains on either side of our beach's little cove made for the most amazing scenery. We spent most of our time on the beach, relaxing and reading. Every once in awhile, a local entrepreneur would show up and try to sell us jewelry, fresh aloe (even though we weren't sunburned yet), a jeep tour of the island (and some illicit drugs), and massages. We turned down every proposition, yes including the illicit drugs (do you not know me at all?) and each would-be vendor bid us good day and walked away.
As previously mentioned, we had been looking to book a vacation for this Spring. This vacation had two requirements: It had to be cheap, and it had to be somewhere we’ve never been, which turned out to be a pretty tall order. Unless you want to spend 5 days in Ohio (no offense to Ohio-ans, I'm sure Ohio is breathtaking, it’s just not where we were thinking), you have to leave the country to save money, but you can't go too far as flights are ridiculously expensive at the moment. Months ago we found the perfect vacation via CheapCarribean.com. It sounded almost too good to be true. Five all-inclusive days in Antigua (flights and transportation to and from the resort included) for less than 2 flights to Europe? We were in. Then I started to panic. In my experience, if something seems too good to be true, it usually is. My mind started reeling: The food will be inedible. The room will be tiny and dirty. The island will be dangerous. It must be the rainy season. I worried for naught. Everything about our vacation was practically perfect. I’ll give you that we’re not hard to please, but I can’t imagine many people finding fault. The weather was perfect; not too humid or hot, with the most perfect island breeze. It rained a bit on the first day we were there and poured on the morning of our departure (while we laughed and pointed at all the sorry tourists having to spend their last day in paradise packing inside), but otherwise, we had sunny and somewhat overcast skies (I’ll tell you, those clouds ended up being a godsend. Whenever the sun came out of the clouds, the temperature rose about 15 degrees and I could feel my pale half-Irish skin burning quickly).
When we arrived at the island, we found our way to our car service and loaded our bags into the van (not before being told about a departure tax that we had to pay if we wanted to leave the island, which I confirmed to be truth and not scam with every other tourist we met). Here’s the thing about the drive to the resort: As Antigua was once a British colony, Antiguans (or at least our driver) drive on the left side of the road, while hugging the center line, passing everyone they can, while pedestrians, goats, chickens, and stray dogs walk along the road. So as not to panic every time we almost hit a dog/car/pedestrian/chicken (which was about every 5 seconds) I focused on the landscape for most of it. Driving on the left blew my mind. I’ve been to England before and for some reason it didn’t faze me as much. Maybe the streets in London weren't so narrow or the taxi drivers weren't so liberal with their interpretation of driving laws, I don't know. What I do know, is it's a good thing we hadn't decided to rent a car. On our way to the hotel, there were a few 5 road intersections at which Kurt and I both admitted not knowing who had the right of way.
We arrived at our resort, Jolly Beach Resort, an hour before check-in and were encouraged to leave our bags at the front desk and explore the resort. Mostly we explored the bar at the pool where I discovered my favorite drink for the rest of the trip: Antigua Kiss - a combo of pineapple juice, peach Schnapps, and white rum. When it was time to check in, we were driven to our room, a junior suite. The entire resort featured white concrete walls and our room was no different. At first glance, the bed seemed hard and uncomfortable, and the room seemed a bit sparse, but we quickly realized we were in paradise and couldn't care less what the room looked like. The room was clean, had all the amenities we needed including 2 balconies with beach views, and the bed turned out to be more comfortable than our own. We quickly (but carefully) threw on sunscreen and our swimsuits and headed to the beach.
Never in my life have I seen water so blue. It was amazing. I spent the majority of our time on the beach just staring at it, mesmerized. The shade of blue, coupled with the soft sand and green mountains on either side of our beach's little cove made for the most amazing scenery. We spent most of our time on the beach, relaxing and reading. Every once in awhile, a local entrepreneur would show up and try to sell us jewelry, fresh aloe (even though we weren't sunburned yet), a jeep tour of the island (and some illicit drugs), and massages. We turned down every proposition, yes including the illicit drugs (do you not know me at all?) and each would-be vendor bid us good day and walked away.
On our third day on the island, we decided to splurge and buy two tickets for a catamaran tour around the island. The tour was to be 7 hours long, included lunch, snorkeling, and drinks. It was the best thing we did.
Since we'd only had 1.25 days to get any sun, we decided to sit under the awning so we didn't get burned. We made our way around the island with about 40 other passengers (including some old German men in speedos - and I don't mean the racing speedos that offer a bit more coverage where it counts, I mean high-cut, bikini speedos that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. And believe me, these men were not the type of men you want to see in speedos.). For about 20 minutes, we crossed the Atlantic in open water and I felt incredibly seasick. For the longest 20 minutes of my life, I sat in silence, staring at the horizon, willing myself not to vomit, while people on the front of the boat held up their arms and screamed while we rode the 10-foot swells like a roller coaster. Once we got back into calmer waters though, the seasickness subsided. We pulled into a little cove with a private beach and those who wanted to go snorkeling (me!) were given masks, flippers, and flotation devices.
I nervously jumped in the water and followed our tour guide around the coral reefs. I thought it would be a little scary or at least unnerving, but it was beautiful. The fish were gorgeous, colorful little things that didn't even seem fazed by the 20 enormous humans hovering above them. At one point, I looked up and saw a tiny long-snouted fish right in front of my mask. On our way back to the boat, our tour guide called out, "Quick! Get over here! There's a stingray!" Naturally, assuming he meant we needed to hurry up and GET AWAY (I mean, one of those things killed Steve Irwin!), I swam as fast as I could to catch up to him. When I arrived (panting), he said, "Look! It's right underneath us!" Heart pounding, I looked down and about 20 feet below us was an eagle ray, with a tail longer than I've ever seen on a sting ray. And it was beautiful. Seriously. It looked like a bird flying through the water. I watched it until I couldn't see it anymore, and we headed back to the boat for lunch and a 2-hour stay on the private beach.
I think this is as good a time as any to mention the food. I was beyond impressed with the food on our trip. It was spectacular. While I'm not a picky eater, I know good food and prefer it. And this was good food. There were 4 restaurants on our resort: a buffet place called Hemisphere's for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, an Indian restaurant called Utsav, an Italian restaurant called Bocciolo, and a seafood restaurant called Lydia's, and we ate at every single one (Utsav was so good, we ate there twice). I was so impressed with the food. I couldn't believe how good it was. My main concern with an all-inclusive resort was the food. I had read many, many customer reviews of other all-inclusive resorts and they all mentioned the food and that it wasn't good. The reviews for our resort mentioned good food, but I had no idea how good. At Jolly Beach, it was fresh, flavorful, tender, all the good food adjectives you can think of. Even the lunch on the private catamaran tour was fabulous. Plus, while eating on the patio at the buffet, we could watch the birds face-off. About every few minutes or so, two birds (or Carib Grapples as we would come to learn) would face-off over a piece of food and for all intents and purposes, dance at each other. Whichever bird danced better, won...like West Side Story...at least in my mind.
The day after the catamaran tour, we ventured off the resort, something I was longing to do. I'm not the kind of person who is content going to a foreign country and not actually seeing it. We chose Antigua because it didn't come with a "don't leave the resort" disclaimer. We walked to the little harbour town near the resort, explored a bit, and walked around the grocery store. If we had been there for more than 5 days, we would have explored a little more. I would have liked to have done a jeep tour of the island or gone to St. John's for the day, but the beach was just too appealing. Next time. Because there will be a next time. I would go back to Antigua, back to Jolly Beach, in a heartbeat.
The resort had plenty of activities throughout the day, though we chose to relax instead of joining in. At night, there were dance shows, dancing, and a bonfire with limbo and fire-breathing.
We made a few friends over the duration of the trip: a quintet of sisters from Canada and their husbands, some Italians with whom I got to practice my language skills, and a few other couples. We learned early on that not everyone was part of the all-inclusive package, which meant there were tip jars at the bars. Kurt and I being overtippers to begin with and seeing the poor countryside, felt weird not tipping the staff, so we periodically visited the front desk for change for our twenties. Tipping wasn't necessary I guess, but we figured, why not?
All in all, the trip was near perfection. The island was beautiful, the locals were friendly, we felt safe the entire time, and the food was FABULOUS. The only thing we wanted more of was time to further enjoy the island.
The day after the catamaran tour, we ventured off the resort, something I was longing to do. I'm not the kind of person who is content going to a foreign country and not actually seeing it. We chose Antigua because it didn't come with a "don't leave the resort" disclaimer. We walked to the little harbour town near the resort, explored a bit, and walked around the grocery store. If we had been there for more than 5 days, we would have explored a little more. I would have liked to have done a jeep tour of the island or gone to St. John's for the day, but the beach was just too appealing. Next time. Because there will be a next time. I would go back to Antigua, back to Jolly Beach, in a heartbeat.
The resort had plenty of activities throughout the day, though we chose to relax instead of joining in. At night, there were dance shows, dancing, and a bonfire with limbo and fire-breathing.
We made a few friends over the duration of the trip: a quintet of sisters from Canada and their husbands, some Italians with whom I got to practice my language skills, and a few other couples. We learned early on that not everyone was part of the all-inclusive package, which meant there were tip jars at the bars. Kurt and I being overtippers to begin with and seeing the poor countryside, felt weird not tipping the staff, so we periodically visited the front desk for change for our twenties. Tipping wasn't necessary I guess, but we figured, why not?
All in all, the trip was near perfection. The island was beautiful, the locals were friendly, we felt safe the entire time, and the food was FABULOUS. The only thing we wanted more of was time to further enjoy the island.
No comments:
Post a Comment