Barbados or Antigua? A tale of two islands.

The check-in area at The Verandah Resort & Spa
in Antigua

After a lovely week on the Caribbean beaches of Barbados, we packed our suitcases and headed for Antigua.  It’s interesting how we are in the same area of the world, but there is a distinctively different feel to each island.

Barbados left an impression of an established colonial tropical paradise  - there is still plenty of visible history in the form of the old-style homes, the roads are narrow but well-maintained, and there seems to be good commercial activity that is not related to tourism.  We found the local Barbadians to be polite but, for the most part, they didn’t seem to want to engage in banter or conversation.  Conversely we were welcomed with a big smile and "Welcome to Antigua" at customs, and the people have almost all been extremely friendly with big smiles and readily interact with us.  Antigua does not appear to have the same thriving economy of Barbados, and we’ve noticed more barbed wire fences & alarm systems, dreadful roads with potholes the size of a car, and some of the villages we passed through were much more dilapidated than anything we saw in Barbados. 

A very splashy welcome in Antigua - this somewhat made
up for the long wait to get into our room.  They aren't big on early
check-ins here.

Not just the bed - the beach towels, the drinking glasses,
the bathroom towels & tissue - all decorated
with flower petals and leaves.  Quite lovely and
I guess it takes time to make the rooms beautiful.

We were tired from a 5 am wake-up, no breakfast and an early morning taxi ride to the airport.  (A ride that cost $58 in rush hour, and $80 in early morning - not sure how that works!)  The Air Liat check-in host roundly scolded us for not taking the proper access lane to her counter. (note: there was one other passenger checking in!)  Although I apologized, she continued to berate us and tell us that 'next time' we needed to do it properly.  We turned around, walked back in the ‘proper’ way, and went to another agent.  So long Barbados!

Our only negative so far in Antigua has been our ‘early arrival’ at the resort (which we made them aware of when we booked).  Although according to the bartender they are not at capacity, there seemed to be no way for us to get into our room prior to the 3 pm ‘standard’ check-in time.  We arrived here about 11 am, and had to wait about 3 1/2 hours to get into our cottage, which was a bit inconvenient.  However, all the staff were very pleasant and friendly, and so we passed the time with lunch and bevvies on the patio.  Island time, baby!

We've spent plenty of time walking around the area - there is another resort close by, and a very small village within walking distance.  Across the harbour are a number of grand-sized homes - about an hour round trip by foot.

I don't know what these curly-leaf beauties are called,
but I wish they grew at home.  Gorgeous.

These palm trees look like they are growing
out of their own pots.  

Around the corner from our resort is The Pineapple Beach Club,
another resort that has recently been acquired by the owners
of the resort we are staying at.  The beach is bigger and
has this pretty row of colourful little souvenir shops.

Cactus flowers just coming out - some yellow,
some red - all on the same plant.

A residence across the harbour from our hotel -
there are a number of them, including one
belonging to the French consul.  I noticed this
"New Zealand" pine here - so pretty against the sky.

It's a long hill up to the residences across from our
resort.  They are all large homes, accessed by
this very poorly maintained road.

The Verandah Resort & Spa is made up of a couple of hundred little duplex-style cottages.   We have a lovely large bed/sitting space, a private patio overlooking the ocean at the back,  a sweet little front porch overlooking the pool area, and it's a quick walk to the restaurants, beaches and activities.  There are two beaches here, and another at the next-door resort - but we are on the Atlantic side of the island, so there is also a lot of rocky shoreline making our favourite activity of walking the beach for miles a non-option.  The shoreline of Barbados is fairly straight all around, but Antigua is much curvier with many coves and harbours.  

A view of The Verandah cottages and beach
from the Devil's Bridge Road

The largest swimming pool and main patio area in front of
the restaurant.  Quiet during the day, but quite noisy at night
with music so if you prefer quiet, take a cottage a little father away.

The smaller beach.  There's a little cookshack for
lunch and snacks and a full service bar.  It's fun to sit here
and watch the pelicans dive-bombing for their lunch.  It's
easy to spot tropical fish from the dock - so it's a good location for
snorkelling as well.

The main beach with all the toys - kayaks, sailboats, paddleboards.
You can sit at the beach bar a few steps up and watch the breakers
at the head of the harbour.

Lots of fun, colourful paintings in the customer-service
areas.  

The harbour is very protected from the open Atlantic, and there are lots of beach toys here to keep us amused - stand-up paddleboards, kayaks, catamaran-style sailboats, floating docks and lots of beach toys for the kids.  As well, there is an 18-hole mini golf course, pool tables, ping pong, a full gym, tennis courts, shuffleboard and 3 pools including an adult-only pool.  There’s no excuse to be bored.  The resort is situated on a hillside, and there are a number of golf carts to help guests get around - but we decided we should really walk!  As with the resort in Barbados, there are no nasty little wristbands to wear.

One of several beautiful natural wood seats on the mini-golf
course at the resort.  Glen is trying to figure out how to get it home.

Mini-golf course.  A fun challenge for both of us, although
I think Glen would have preferred the real thing!

It was tricky getting past this anchor to the hole.

Ping-pong and pool tables, rocking adirondack chairs alongside the
golf course for those who want to stay out of the sun.

Loved looking up to this ceiling at the beach
bar.  The bits of palm frond wave around in the wind.

Directly across from our resort is the Devil’s Bridge national park - it’s a 10 minute walk out to an interesting rock formation in the form of a bridge over the huge Atlantic swells, as well as an entertaining blowhole.

The Devil's Bridge - looks harmless enough from a distance.

Hmm, on closer inspection, stay left!

I'm told people actually cross on the right side,
but we didn't see anyone brave enough to
try while we were out there.  

The waves and blowhole in action.

Abandoned cook shack at Devil's Bridge park.  

Walking out to Devil's Bridge from the resort

Looking across to homes on the cliff at the entrance to
the harbour.  The Atlantic is pretty wild here, but the breakers
show a reef at the head of the harbour that keeps the water
calm around the resort

We've had a few conversations with ourselves about which place we've preferred.  We've enjoyed both experiences.  The people in Antigua are friendly and polite where in Barbados they were merely polite.  It was easier to get around Barbados with their $2 bus fare, and reasonably-priced tour packages from the hotel.   In Antigua the tour packages were more than double those of Barbados, so we opted to just enjoy the areas we could walk to as there is no bus service where we are.  

We enjoyed the smaller size and neighbourly atmosphere of The Club in Barbados, but also appreciated the extra amenities and wider variety of food choices at The Verandah in Antigua.  The food was delicious at both resorts, but the Verandah chefs win in my book!  The beaches in Barbados were beautiful and we could walk for miles - but they were more unprotected from the wild blue ocean.  Antigua has smaller beaches and there are no worries about undertows and currents in the protected harbour.  

Our room in Antigua is a more generous size, but the maintenance and room service in Barbados were definitely superior.  We brought two problems to the attention of guest services in Antigua on our second day (the ceiling fan is too noisy to use at night, and the toilet takes forever to flush).  They finally sent someone to fix the toilet on our fourth day, and we still can't use the ceiling fan.  They are just so darn nice though, that I can't be upset about it.  We leave the screen door open which is a nicer way to sleep anyhow.  

We have a few days left here - time to enjoy the wildlife, the plant life and the deliciously warm sun.  I'm looking forward to being at home, but can't say I'm looking forward to the cold weather.  Hopefully spring and summer are on the way!

These cheeky little birds are everywhere.  Always
looking for an opportunity to grab some food -
including flying into our room if the screen is open.
They know exactly where the sugar packets are kept!

Pelicans on the prowl all over the place - love to watch them
dive-bombing for food, but it's hard to catch a picture of them
in action.

Love these tropical spidery flowers.  I don't know what
they are called though.

Palm berries I guess?

Birthday Barbados Style!

Typical colourful 'Chattel House' seen in Barbados

I’ve always liked volunteering.  It’s a win-win-win-win - especially when I work on events with my good friend Dawn Donahue.  She creates an atmosphere where the charity raises much-needed funds, participants in the event get ridiculously good value for their money spent, sponsors get high visibility before, during and after the event, and the volunteers who make it all happen are treated like gold and get to have as much fun as everyone else.  There is almost always some form of auction - live, online, silent . . . or all three!  Last year at a fundraiser for an autism centre in Vancouver, I participated in the online auction where I was the winning bidder for an Elite Island Resorts gift certificate in the Caribbean.  

It's been a crazy winter on the west coast - where we might get a couple of snow episodes that last for two or three days each winter.   This year it seems like we've had a steady diet of snow from well before Christmas right into March.  And it's still coming.  So we left this behind:

Winter 2016/17 in Union Bay - there's been a LOT of this!

and used my gift certificate to fly to Barbados and do some pre-tanning for the summer we hope will arrive soon.  

Flying in to Barbados - I always love seeing shoreline
from the air.  Looks pretty good so far!

Love airports where you exit the plane on to the tarmac.
That first blast of heat is so much better than air-conditioned blandness.

The Club Barbados is a polite-sized resort about a half-hour drive from the airport.  No giant towers of anonymity here.  Just four stories of a pretty little collection of buildings surrounding three pools, colourful tropical gardens, and curving pathways sitting on the beautiful sandy shoreline of St. James Parish.  

This was a VERY nice welcome to our room!  We
are going to save it for Glen's birthday.  I think my
dear friend Dawn may have had a hand in this.

Looking down on the pool area from our deck on the third floor.  

Pretty room - comfortable, clean and feels like home.

The best part of our room is this spacious, covered patio with a bar
area and tv!  We spend a lot of time out here nursing our sunburns. ;-)

 In addition to the pool area, there is a huge covered common space with loads of comfy seating, a book exchange, a good selection of board games along with a giant Jenga game, a floor-sized chessboard and a pool table.  So it's a common sight to see groups of strangers meeting up over a game and a rum punch.  At night it comes alive with the piano bar, karaoke or a local music group.  It feels more like someone's big living room than a hotel, and so conversations and new friendships all happen readily - lots of chatter and exchange of e-mail addresses being heard in British, Canadian, American, French & German accents.  

Backgammon on the beachfront - our favourite activity!

It's fun to watch people take a move as they are walking by.

Another of the 'make a move as you walk by' games

The beach is about a 1-minute walk from our room.  I love the size of this resort - no long walks to get anywhere.  Although the swimming area in front of us is very small, we can turn right and be on a lovely beach within half a minute.  And then we can walk for several miles along a continuous string of pretty little beaches.  None are crowded, and the water is clear and warm.  There are plenty of areas for snorkelling close to shore and most of the beaches have a reef in front that creates a safe and protected area for swimming.  We walked a little too far our first day and got a bit too much sun.  Typical of us!  But it's so tempting to keep going and see what's around the next corner.

There's always a 'next corner' when walking along these beaches.

Rock . . . I mean Coral piles everywhere.  So pretty.

In my mind, these sand sculptures are better than the 'perfect' competition types.
I like to think about people having fun building them together.

These colourful crabs are everywhere on the beach.  

The ocean waves are slowly eroding this wall.  I wonder how long
it's been here?  We can walk all the way past that far point, and the
same distance in the other direction.  So being bored is not an option.

An anchor seen on one of our walks along the beach.
How long was it under water?  What boat did it come off?
So many questions.

A bit of wild shoreline - what I imagine it might have looked
like before all the people arrived.

Loved this green gate with the orange flowers
growing above.

No shells on the beaches here, but
plenty of this pretty coral.

If I had a few million extra dollars . . . 

No vacation is complete without good food.  And there's no lack of that here.  The main eating area is a covered, open-air oceanfront space with buffet breakfast and lunch, and full service in the evenings. The local birds know a good thing - they are frequent visitors to recently-vacated tables, despite the mesh netting that surrounds the dining space.  I'm sure it drives the staff crazy, but it's entertaining to watch them.  We haven't had the same meal twice, and everything has been delicious so far. Of course, I think any meal that I don't have to prepare is delicious!  The best part of all this is we don't have to wear one of those horrid resort 'bracelets' that identify us as a guest, even though it's all-inclusive. 

Cheeky little bird sitting INSIDE on the mesh surrounding
the dining room.  A good spot to keep an eye on tables being vacated.

Looking towards the beach bar from the dining room

A second option for dinner is Enid's Caribbean Restaurant - open
five nights a week for dinner.

If you like to eat early, you can get the best seat in the house!

Our favourite dining pavilion - there are only 6 or 7 tables
so we need to arrive early!

The birds like to visit us here on the deck - this little guy came looking for food, but all he found was a couple of good books:

Little yellow-breasted bird visitor.  Lots of these
around the resort.  

He checks back regularly though - and found some
bits of fruit juice clinging to the side of this glass!

Every morning the gardeners rake up these piles of flowers that
dropped from the trees the previous night.

We still see the cell phones, but they are mostly
used as cameras.  People actually talk to each
other here. 

Flowers fallen into the pool look so pretty
floating there.  

Sign at Enid's Restaurant.  I keep pondering this.  It's driving me crazy.

Yesterday, we took a mini-van tour around to the very wild north and east coasts on the Atlantic side of the island.  We considered renting a car and driving ourselves, but I'm glad we had someone to tell us what it is we were looking at!  Besides, some of these roads are very narrow.

Somewhat reminiscent of the Bay of Fundy - huge coral
formations at the little village of Bathsheba

This coast has big water, and strong currents.
We didn't see any swimmers, although we were
told it's a popular picnicking area for the locals.

Loved this little garden made of coral

Today is Glen's birthday - the day he finally starts to collect back all that money he's paid to the government in CPP over the years - yahoo!    We started our day with champagne and orange juice, breakfast in our fave eating spot, then went for a walk into Holetown to find the local museum.  We walked along the beach and boy was the surf up!  Almost knocked us off the beach, and soaked us a couple of times.  No swimming today!

We went to the grocery store for unsweetened
orange juice.  All they serve at this resort is
sweetened and I think I've gained about 5 pounds!

The birthday boy popping the champagne!

Selfies are not one of our strong points!

Church in Holetown - about a 10 minute walk from our resort.  
This was established in 1629.

The spot where the first Europeans entered Barbados
at Holetown.  Either they had a really small ship or the water
was a little deeper back then.

Tomorrow we leave for a week in Antigua at the Elite Resorts Verandah Resort and Spa there.  Full disclosure - I'm writing this blog as a thank you to Elite Island Resorts for their generous donation of not one, but THREE gift certificates to the autism fundraiser last fall.  I think it's a good example of the win-win-win.  Glen and I get a nice holiday.  The charity raised some much-needed funds.  And the resort gets a few more links to their website.  Hopefully someone reading this will decide to visit one of their resorts vs. another.  Charities need donations and they need volunteers.  So thank you to all the companies that donate goods and services, and to all the people who donate their time and effort.  The world is a better place for it.