The Good, The Bad & Air Canada

We're back from a wonderful week in Antigua. Leo really needed some down time and we certainly got lots of that - lying in the sun and reading - but to be honest, I was bored to tears. It's been a long time since we had a vacation where we did absolutely nothing and I really missed Ben, my quilting and the Internet!

Sandals in Antigua has received a lot of bad press lately on some of the travel forums - some of it justified, a lot of it wasn't, in my humble opinion. The location is hard to beat with miles of beautiful clean white beaches literally outside your room. This location recently added a Mediterranean village which more than doubled the size of the resort.

This is the new pool - one of 6 on the resort. The grounds are beautiful with flowers everywhere and hibiscus to die for!

I didn't enjoy the food. It was very bland, everything tasted the same and I don't think they have ever heard of herbs. There are a lot of Brits who vacation there so maybe they cater to their tastes? Speaking of Brits, below are Samson & Delilah the resident parrots - they do speak - in fact they both say 'Hello' with an English accent.

Those of you who know me, know I'm not much of a drinker, but I did find something I could get very used to - a Banana Sip Sop - dark rum, grenadine, a banana, coconut milk and ice. Here I am enjoying the last one before we left.

Now we get to the ugly Air Canada. We were supposed to fly home on Saturday on a flight that left Antigua at 4:30 P.M. We arrived at the airport at 2 P.M. to be told our flight had just left Toronto and would be about 4 hours late leaving. We then lined up for a physical inspection of our bags (they don't have bag X-Ray machines there), then lined up to pay the departure tax, lined up some more to go through customs and a final line up to go through the metal detector. After sitting in the Airport for hours, Air Canada then announced that our flight had been cancelled as the crew needed a layover.

Fine, I can understand that, but they knew that when the plane took off late - why didn't they tell us before we went through all that hassle? Then came the waiting while they had to find at least 100 rooms for the night to accommodate the passengers and crew. More line ups, more waiting for room and taxi vouchers and finally we arrived at our room for the night. We were sent to The Verandah Resort & Spa and it was very nice.

I wouldn't have wanted to stay here - it's built on a cliff, (not good for the old arthritic knees) - this picture of the small beach was taken from our room. However, we did have the best meal of our vacation here!

That night, Leo was already asleep and I was lying in bed watching American Idol Rewind (Season 2 with Clay & Reuben - quite entertaining). Then I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye.

Yup, one of these guys crawling up the wall. Well, I did what any self-respecting damsell in distress would do and screamed and turned on the light to wake up Leo. Now I know these lizards won't hurt you but I DO NOT want one crawling over me in the middle of the night. So, you have to picture Leo getting out of bed and running around the room with a towel in hand to try and catch this thing. I didn't want him to kill it, I just wanted it outside. He finally did catch it and I hope it is enjoying it's freedom in the great outdoors.

Of course, after this, I didn't sleep all night as all I could picture was one falling from the ceiling and landing on my face so I spent the night scanning the walls and ceiling.

Anyway, we're home now and I was so happy to be reunited with my baby and he was very happy to see us.