ON MY FIRST visit to the Caribbean island of Antigua, in the late 1990s, I stayed at Jumby Bay, an expensive resort which was then poorly run, with slow service and uninspiring food. At breakfast, when I asked our waitress if she knew the weather forecast, she replied: “Honey, ah can’t say — ah ain’t slep’ wid de weatherman.”
Fast forward to this month, when I stayed at Carlisle Bay, Antigua’s stylish new resort. Service was prompt, the food stellar, and had I asked the same question of its perfectly trained staff, they would doubtless have looked up weather websites, printed details off, and pointed me to the nearest umbrella.
And there’s the rub. Because although I didn’t like Jumby Bay (it is now under new management and much improved), I thought my waitress’s reply demonstrated something of the charm and laid-back attitudes that sum up why many of us want to visit the Caribbean.
Lately there has been much talk of a style and service makeover in the Caribbean, and as we report in our focus on the region this week, much has improved. But I hope it does not mean an end to the cheeky chat in the bar, and the cocktail with an umbrella in it. When I popped in to Curtain Bluff on Antigua for a drink on my recent visit, the owner Howard Hulford, 83, who opened the hotel in 1961, was holding forth at a packed bar, surrounded by smartly dressed couples joking with the bar staff and enjoying excellent rum punches. Back at Carlisle Bay, trendy couples sipped martinis in isolated silence. I like both hotels, but for atmosphere and warmth I know which I’d pick.
BACK on home territory, I spent last weekend at Babington House, a country house hotel in Somerset. After a pummelling in the spa, a dip in the heated outdoor pool and a walk around the estate, I felt as if I’d had a week away.