obrien@randvax.ARPA (Michael O'Brien) (03/20/84)
A friend of mine is taking a package tour to Antigua in the Leeward Islands (near the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean). I'm curious about this place. Anyone ever been there? Is it a Good Place to Go? Any recommendations on what to see or do?
2141smh@aluxe.UUCP (henning) (03/23/84)
A couple years ago my wife and I did some island hopping and spent 4 days on Antigua. We went in the summer and found most of the resorts were down to skeleton crews. In driving around the island we stopped and at least had a drink at every resort on the island. We didn't have to drink very much either. The only place that was really nice was English Harbor. The Inn at English Harbour is a must for dinner. They are very colonial English. The English Harbor area is fantastic for fun, food, and sightseeing. The island as a whole is poor and very basic. The only city, St. Johns, is the capital and very interesting if you enjoy reading National Geographic. A woman there yelled RAPE! at me when I took her picture. If you like meeting the people St. John is nice but there are no 1st or 2nd class hotels. We stayed at a guest house which was a lot of fun. If you are into resorts and won't venture out at all it doesn't matter where you go. All resorts a basically the same. Some just charge more. To place Antigua in perspective, St. Maartin is definitely the place for shopping while Barbados is probably the showcase island of a proud people. Antigua is much more basic with lots of little children that like to sell fruit they pick up off the ground to tourists. You wouldn't want to go into one of their pubs. They are 4 walls with no windows or doors and just the 2x4's on the inside. People walk down to the neighbor hood water spigot to get water for their little tin shacks or small houses.