We stayed at the Jolly Harbour Villas over Easter 2005, travelling with Virgin Holidays. The Jolly Harbour complex is very large, taking about a 45minute brisk walk to go from one end to another. It’s split into two sections – North and South Fingers. The south finger is much nearer to the beach and slightly nearer the centrally located pool, shops and restaurants. Our Villa was in the South Finger – about five minutes walk from the beach and 10 from the pool. From the North Finger would take 30-40 minutes to the beach and 15-20 minutes to the pool. Most guests we met staying at the north finger had chosen to hire a golf cart for transport. The Villas have a large kitchen/Living room, downstairs cloakroom, 2 double bedrooms upstairs –each with shower rooms. Outside there was a patio area fronting on to the harbour.

I understand that Virgin is no longer taking bookings at this resort because of a change of ownership; this reflected in their representative service on-site, which was clearly scaling down. Also because of ownership changes there is a fair amount of building/renovation work taking place on the villa’s at present – say every 10th villa having some work done. However, most of this work is quite minor and not too noisy.

Central Complex
This contains the pool, tennis & squash courts, a well stocked supermarket, casino and around 5 or 6 restaurants and bars.

The pool is large (25 Metres) and not busy. We always found it possible to get a sun lounger, arriving there mid-morning or afternoon.

The supermarket looks band new and is about the size of a high street Gateway/ Tesco Metro in the UK. Prices are about the same as in UK “corner shops”.

We tried most of the restaurants at Jolly Harbour. They were as following:

Melini’s (Italian) – Very nice pasta and pizza – Reasonable prices
Peters BBQ Steakhouse – Good choice and meat dishes as name suggests, good service.
Castaways – Beautiful location on the beach, but a limited menu.
Steely’s Bar – Attached to the pool complex. Good basic food at the lowest price in the harbour.
Dogwatch Tavern – Truly terrible service! On the night we were there half the diners walked out feed-up with waiting! Also over priced.

Beaches
Jolly Beach itself is absolutely brilliant and has to be one of the best beaches on the island. The section by Jolly Harbour is uncrowded and very clean. The sand is brilliant white and the water is a gorgeous blue. Sun loungers are readily available and free of charge. The section further down by the Jolly Beach All Inclusive hotel is much busier but does offer water sports etc.

We visited two other beaches – Darkwood and Turners. Off these Turners is the better and has a nice beach bar of the same name, where you can enjoy and evening meal and watch the sunset. Taxi to Turners beach should cost no more than US $15 each way.

St. John’s
The capital city and well worth a half day trip. Visit Heritage and Redcliffe Quays for the best shopping, but don’t expect any bargains; prices are very similar to those on the high street in the UK. We ate at Hemmingway’s restaurant, which offers Caribbean and International food, a meal for 2 adults and 2 child cost just over US $100. Taxi to St. John’s from Jolly Harbour is US $15.

Excursions
Excursions do seem to be very expensive on Antigua. Expect to pay US $100 for a full day per adult, with some reduction for children 12 and under. We tried two.

Wadadli Cats – Triple Destination. This first goes to a small deserted beach on Green Island for snorkelling and a BBQ. Then on to English Harbour for a very brief guided tour then finally (by Taxi) to Shirley Heights to enjoy the sunset. A most enjoyable day and highly recommend. If you’re not a good sailor do take your sea sickness tablets – the Atlantic cost part of the trip does get rough!

Excellence – Day trip to Barbuda. A 2.5 hour journey to Barbuda, followed by 45 Minute trip to the Frigate Bird sanctuary, lunch on the boat, then 45 minutes on a beach including snorkelling. All this seemed very rushed. The boat journey is especially rough and a number of guests were sick on our trip. However, Barbuda is truly beautiful and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss seeing it.

Jolly Beach All Inclusive Resort
If you want to dip in the “All Inclusive” resort lifestyle, it possible to buy day passes. These include food, drink, and use of the water sports facilities. Costs are US $50/$25 (Adult/Child under 12) for a 9am to 5pm pass or $90/45 for an all day pass. We spent one day there and felt we had good value for money.