Five Blissful Days in Antigua

We are back. We have been back for a week now.. and things have been busy. Can you believe it's December already? 

We spent five deliciously blissful days at St. James Club, Antigua.

But it didn't start out that way. This was our first time travelling internationally, it was our first time on a plane. And it all starts with a Covid test. I made an appointment at a local pharmacy that we recently had a really good experience with. They insisted all appointments must be made online. So I did, Sunday morning. And then we show up on said Sunday morning and turns out the pharmacy is closed on Sundays. Time to panic? Thankfully there is a near by urgent care we step in to. 

Do they have appointments available? Yes.. just a couple of people ahead of us.

Do they take our insurance? Sure, no problem.

Excellent. 

We are seen three hours later and are informed that there is a $75 co pay per person. Aren't these supposed to be free? Not in an urgent care. Couldn't you have told us this before we waited for 3 hours. Hahaha, where's the fun in that?  We begrudgingly pay the money.. and are now going to add call our insurance company to our endless chore list.

Its the day before we have to leave and the result hasn't come in yet. The urgent care is useless.. they give us the number of the lab, the lab says they can see our file but the results are pending.. can't do nothin about it.. and now a real panic sets in. We start to make calls.. M's assistant calls the airline and we discover that we don't need a PCR test. We can fly with a Rapid.. oh thank heavens! We scour the interwebs for an appointment.. get one.. test done and result in our hand in less than an hour.. phew. Stupid Urgent Care, I will throw imaginary dung bombs on you every time I drive by. 

The morning of, we are supposed to take an early morning Uber. Three cancel on us.. we are now forty five minutes late and by the time we make it to the gate we are minutes from boarding. No time to grab something for breakfast.. but we are on the plane. There is limited capacity so they check in our carry on's. Losing our luggage would just be a cherry on the hellish ordeal we have been through the last couple of days.. I am praying and crossing my fingers.. 

And then we land. Earlier than planned.. so that's a good thing. I will commend the government of Antigua for their Covid regulations. We all disembarked into a waiting area. Fill out a form and then sanitized our hands before proceeding to the next area. We have our temperatures checked, then someone verifies our vaccinations and Covid tests. Then we sanitized our hands again. Immigrations and thankfully our bags were waiting for us. 

On the flip, when we entered the US, no one asked us for anything. We were supposed to upload our documents on to the airlines website but other than that no one cared. Disappointingly expected.

Our hotel, the St. James Club was for vaccinated travelers only. They had booked rooms far below capacity meaning we never had to hurry to put a towel on a chair, there was always plenty of room every where. There were buffets, we were not allowed to serve ourselves. Everything was behind glass partitions. Very clean and safe. 

Now the pictures.

The weather, the water.. everything was perfect.  

       

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