Click here to book Sandals Grande Antigua from £1649pp

Chris & Diane at the Lookout

On Saturday 26^th March I set off with my husband for a much looked forward to holiday to Antigua. The holiday was for my husband Chris’s 40^th Birthday. I had previously been to Antigua with work and loved it so much that we decided to take our own holiday there. We were flying with BA and the flight went really well. The food was great and the cabin crew were fab, really friendly.

On arrival into Antigua we made our way to the Sandals check in desk where we were allocated our minibus to be transported to the resort. Once at the resort we were met by one of our two butlers, Cosi. He checked us in to our room which was amazing. We had the “Mediterranean Honeymoon Penthouse One Bedroom Ocean View Suite”, now that’s a mouthful!

The room was outstanding and had the most amazing views. We could also see the weddings from our balcony.

Steel Band at Shirley Heights

We did go away for a completely chilled out holiday but decided that we could not miss the spectacular sunset and party at Shirley Heights on the Sunday. The views are fab and the atmosphere is brilliant. All afternoon there are steel bands and then the reggae bands come on after the sunset. There is also a BBQ and bar. This is a weekly party every Sunday.

Our days were spent lazing around the massive pool with a cool box which our butler filled with drinks for us every morning and put with our loungers for when we went down. There were pool waiters around as well just in case we needed anything else. We could have called our butler to bring us our lunch everyday, but we thought with all that food and drink we needed to walk to the restaurants ourselves!

We had some wonderful meals and our favourite was in Kimono’s, which was the Tepanyaki where the chef cooked right in front of you.

Me & my Butler, Cosi

We also had some great nights in the Cricketers Arms (the English pub), it was quite amusing to see the Americans trying to play pool and darts (Chris became quite a celebrity as he was teaching them all to play).

We also did the complimentary snorkelling trip with Sandals where they took us out on their own boats and we stopped off and snorkelled off the reefs. Chris did this a few times during the holiday, but I was quite content to laze on my sun lounger.

We went up to the room around 4 in the afternoon to be greeted with rose petal baths, champagne and fruit which the butler had organised for us.

We met some really good American friends whilst we were there (so if you are reading this, hi to Jason & Courtney and John & Abby). We all went to the casino on our last night where we found, to my husbands delight, that our room number had been pulled out in a drawer for $50usd casino credit; this was gone within 3 minutes!

All too soon our week was over and we were heading back to the airport for our BA flight home. Before we boarded we made a quick trip across the road to Sticky Wickets, the original cricket ground for Antigua, where the Stanford 20/20 games were played. After bending the ear of one of the locals for 15 minutes about cricket, we made our way back to the departure lounge. I think this is worst we have ever felt about having to leave an island and go home, so I am sure that we will be returning as soon as we can.

You can read more about Sandals Grande Antigua on our hotel page here.

Or you can see more of Diane’s holiday snaps on our Facebook page here.

This was a trip that I was really looking forward to. I had visited Antigua only on a cruise ship before and liked what I saw. I flew out from London Gatwick with Virgin and was really surprised that the flight only took us 7 hours and 50 minutes. The heat hit us as we disembarked the plane and I couldn’t wait to check into our first resort. continue reading…

I boarded the plane at London Gatwick on June 13th 2010 for my first trip back to Dominican Republic since my wedding way back in 1996. After a long flight I was not really looking forward to arriving into Punta Cana and having to wait for long periods of time at the airport. I was pleasantly surprised, we arrived at the same time as 3 other flights and they all seemed to be feeding into 2 queues. We got past the photos with the Dominican girls and expected to be waiting for about 2 hours. The queue went down really fast and within 20 minutes we had our visas and gone through a very friendly immigration. Our cases were there waiting for us once we arrived at the baggage carousel. I was then really excited about the rest of the trip. continue reading…

Click here to book El Dorado Royale from £1049pp

This wasn’t the first time I have been to Mexico; however it was the first time at this hotel.

El Dorado Royale is a lovely 5* adults only hotel. We arrived at the resort having been transferred from the airport by Jumbo Tours to be greeted with a fab glass of cold champagne. After checking in we were given an Ocean Front Suite at the furthest end of the resort. We were taken by golf buggy and at the same time given a tour of the property. continue reading…

Click here to book Dreams Riviera Cancun from £989pp

The infinity pool at Dreams Riviera Cancun

I arrived into Cancun airport on October 8^th very tired after a long flight. I was not quite sure what Dreams Riviera was going to be like as it had only opened a few days previous to my arrival.

We arrived at the hotel and were instantly greeted with cool towels and champagne. Upon walking into the lobby area it was quite obvious that they had really taken the time in the design of the property as it was stunning and looked very oriental in style. Once we had checked into the hotel we got taken to our room, we had a preferred club Ocean View room with outside Jacuzzi and our own plunge pool. I was really surprised how big the plunge pool was but wouldn’t recommend it for families with very young children as there is no guard around the pool. continue reading…