antigua part 1

For our honeymoon we went to my favorite place on earth- Jasper (and Banff), Canada. We didn't do the expected beach vacation, because, for the most part, we aren't beachy people. We like camping, mountains, big cities, and historical tours; of course we like beaches too- just not as much as those other things, or not enough to seek out a hot, sunny, ocean-centered vacation every year. That all being said, we knew we were always going to want to go on one relaxing, luxurious, lay-on-the-beah-all-day-and-get-fried vacation. We figured there's not time like the present, so last winter we booked a trip to Antigua for the middle of the summer. Ideally we could have taken this trip in the middle of winter as a reprieve from the snow and cold, but schedules would not allow any other time of year besides the school's summer vacation. At least this way we had some of the perks of traveling in the off-season including less crowds and less expenses (although this also meant a lot less flight options).

Once we knew we were headed to the beach this summer, and ideally an all-inclusive resort, we started to shop around the Caribbean (Hawaii was out as it would have probably been more expensive, and I have been there before- although mostly as a small child, which barely counts). We knew we wanted to go somewhere quieter, less touristy/ obvious, and somewhere below the main portion of the hurricane belt as we would be going during hurricane season. We (mostly I) narrowed it down to St. Lucia and Antigua. They each had their pros and cons- and it wasn't really til I ran across the website for Galley Bay, the resort we decided on, that my mind was made up. We were bound for Antigua and it's picturesque beaches.

Fast forward 5 months after having booked with a travel agent, having one of our flights cancelled and the trip threatened, rebooking airline tickets, renewing passports, and we were on our way!

We ended up having to leave a day before we wanted to (due to the original flight itinerary being changed from a cancelled flight), so we had to hustle to the airport from a Twins game (of course). We then flew to Charlotte, and then to Miami, where we stayed overnight before we finally boarded the plane that would take us to Antigua. It was a lot of airports but everything went surprisingly smoothly, with minimal waits, and it was totally worth it.

We arrived at the resort around 4:00pm local time after an interesting, shall we say, taxi ride through the city and along the coast. We were greeted by rum punch drinks and a porter loaded our bags, and us, on a golf cart and drove us across the lagoon to our room.

We had an upper unit, right on the beach. Being upstairs meant of course we couldn't walk out our back door directly onto the beach, which obviously would have been nice. Instead it meant we had a beautiful balcony with better views than the floor below (it also meant we got to enjoy vaulted ceilings and not hearing footsteps above use). All things considered, I would pick the upstairs unit again over the downstairs.

We did a little exploring before dinner, cleaned up, and headed down to the bar for pre-dinner drinks- wanting to be the first in line to be seated at 6:30 as we were ravenous from a day of travel with no complimentary snacks (thank you very much US Air/ American Airlines) and merely a granola bar for breakfast.

We probably should have realized this, but the sun set there right around 6:30, and it was dark by about 7pm. This means our beach-front dinner seats only provided really good beach front views for about 30 minutes. After that it was just appreciating the sound of the waves, and perhaps the glow of the moon on the water. Still nice, but not quite what we were expecting. If nothing else, it made getting our daily pre-dinner picture on our patio kinda hard to squeeze in when there was daylight (above is the fist of many of those pre-dinner pics).

Dinner was followed by more drinks at the bar and meeting some of the other resort- goers. We chatted with a highly entertaining couple from New Jersey who we ran into and chatted with throughout our trip. I'd like to point out now that I thought the age mix at the resort was pretty much a perfect balance of newlyweds (in their mid-twenties) to couples celebrating maybe 40 and 50 years together. I thoroughly enjoyed the range, although David would have preferred a slightly younger, livelier bunch I think.

And that was day one in the books. More to follow shortly....and it won't all be so verbose, I promise.