No matter how long a holiday lasts there is always the dreaded day when you have to come home. Even those enterprising souls on the Round the World Rally will face the holiday end blues in 16 months time. We did expect five weeks on the same, quite small, island to drag a little but not a bit of it, we have had an enjoyable and fairly active time.
However last night was something to wind me up. We have come home from foreign parts on five occasions since covid kicked off and each time, so long as you carefully read the Government Instructions, it was quite straight forward. Perhaps we were over confident but completing the latest version of Passenger Locator form was a nightmare.
An example question:
“Have you visited, or will you visit, any islands in this country or territory during the 10 days before you arrived in the UK”.
Well we visited Antigua so put “Yes” but apparently that is the wrong answer. On another page when you put in your contact details the same page is displayed again implying you have done something wrong, no you haven’t, you just have to hit “save and continue” twice! We would like to think we are of at least average intelligence but it took us an hour to complete one form last night, I was getting very cross, picture of me about to smash my PC.
Having done all that we still could not check in, it seems it takes an hour for the fact you have completed all the tasks before the BA web site is updated, we had lost the will to live by then and went to the bar for a drink.
Eventually, at midnight, I managed to complete all the necessary paperwork, previously it has never been as bad as this.
We started this holiday five weeks ago with a couple of weeks in the Buccaneer Beach Club, right on one of Antigua’s 365 beaches although I don’t believe this statistic. We came across perhaps 30 or 40 beaches which were all very nice but where the other 320 are goodness knows unless they include the inside of hire cars, ours has about an inch of sand in the foot wells.
Why it was called a "Beach Club" I don’t know, it was just a group of 16 nice chalets in a very pleasant garden next to the beach. It took us a while to slow down to WI speed, nothing is done in a hurry but everyone is so nice and cheerful it seems bad form to complain although on one occasion when we had to wait two and a half hours for two snacks we gave up and walked out, that was extreme even by Antiguain standards. Notice Gill is wearing her mask, the rules are quite strict and everyone seems to abide by them. Our only complaint during the first two weeks was the limited range of places to eat. This was solved for the last three weeks where there were so many restaurants we did not manage to test them all.
The chap shown is typical of all the staff, his job was to mind our bit of beach to make sure the sun beds were in good order, that litter was cleared and the swimming pool was clean. He was always joking, cheerful and helpful.
By the time we arrived in English Harbour for weeks 3,4 & 5 we were definitely running at WI speed and whilst heading off to do something most days and always spending a couple of hours on the beach swimming (in Gills case) or not drowning (in mine) we just enjoyed pottering around the historic dockyard and chatting to locals and yachties.
That is a good example of what Antigua is all about, lots of different little communities / villages where everyone seems to get along without any hassle. I don’t think we were under any threat or the target for any scams and no one tried to sell us anything unless we started the conversation, which makes Antigua a very nice place to stay. Quite a lot of Brits live on the island or keep their boats here and we can see why. Our favourite island is Dominica, but it is far less developed and being small it would be very frustrating trying to get something fixed or a sourcing a spare part so Antigua offers a good compromise between laid back and practical, getting things done is quite easy (so long as you are not in a hurry).
Our last day was spent by a nice swimming pool with an excellent lunch in a posh, well run hotel overlooking the harbour. It is pictured at the top of the page and below where Gill is having her last dip of the holiday.
So we had a very enjoyable five weeks, it is the second Christmas on the trot we have spent away from home, I think it might become a habit.