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Published: March 25th 2007
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Sticky Wicket
What a great Pub so near to an Airport And then there were six! After a very early-to-bed Friday evening the six guys that were left all met for breakfast before 9am. We knew we had a taxi booked for 11.45am so after breakfast we headed to the swimming pool to catch the last couple of hours of sunshine of our wonderful holiday. There was a sense of dejection among the group as we all knew our time on this wonderful island in the Caribbean was coming to an end.
Our preferred taxi driver, Mr Sackville Grey, dually arrived at the 11.45am booked time, we said our final fairwells to the staff and other people we had met within our hotel and headed off on the 10-minute taxi ride to St Kitts International Airport. We were first in the queue but there was a reason for this . . . we wanted to make sure that our cases were on the plane to Antigua. If you have been reading all the earlier postings of the blogs you will be aware that two of the guys' cases did not appear on the Inter-Island Hopper from Antigua to St Kitts two weeks ago. The guy who checked us in
Clive Lloyd
They had a cricketing hall of fame outside this pub assured us that our cases would definitely get there because we had a connecting flight to London.
We had to pay a departure tax of $22 payable to the St Kitts Government. As we were very early in checking-in we headed to the departure lounge where we were lucky enough to find a bar that was showing the exellent South Africa V. Australia match.
After disembarking our 15-minute flight from St Kitts to Antigua we encountered total chaos!!! Immigration to gain entry to Antigua was a total JOKE and can be summed up as an utter SHAMBLES!!! There were various flights arriving at the same time and we had to fill in more forms to gain entry to Antigua albeit we were only staying there for a short period of time. All the guys had their shorts on as the sun was baking-hot, Pels had his combat trousers on, he was told in 'no-uncertain-terms' that he would be refused entry to Antigua unless he changed them. Rather than argue he put on his long trousers that were in his hand-luggage as he would need them when he got back to the UK (due to the freezing-cold temperatures
on London).
After eventually getting through Immigration we headed to the Virgin Airlines check-in desk where we handed our cases over for the long flight to London. Surprisingly there is an awesome sports bar some 400-yards away from Antigua International Airport, called Sticky Wicket, which has to be said is one of the best themed-sport-bars we have ever been in. It was covered in pictures of famous cricketers from around the world and looked over an absolutely fantastic cricket ground called Stanford.. It was totally air-conditioned and served cold beer and great food, a perfect pick-me-up after the shambles of trying to get into Antigua. After nearly 90-minutes and watching the end of the South Africa V. Australia match we had to leave and join the queue to board the plane to London. It ended up taking us an hour to board the plane and we all agreed that Antigua Airport is the worst airport that anyone of us has ever been to in our lives!!! With no-one knowing what they are doing and worst of all no air-conditioning for the passengers which proved extremely uncomfortable for all concerned.
The big iron bird left 20-minutes late as
Michael Holding
They had a cricketing hall of fame outside this pub we settle down for our eight-hour journey back to London Gatwick. Some of the guys managed to get a bit of sleep but as ever the flight seemed significantly longer homeward bound than outward bound. We arrived in London at 7.50am to 7 degrees and a power failure on all the caroussels bringing the bags from the planes. There were hundreds of people milling about waiting on the power to come back on, fortunately the power problem was fixed reasonably quickly and the bags started to come through.
As Pels was heading to Aberdeen and the rest of the guys to Edinburgh we said our fairwells to each other - we all agreed it had been a holiday of a lifetime and we were all glad we had experienced going to a Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean.
As a final footnote, thank you all for contributing to making this blog a success and feel free to make any other comments you wish.................................................. Cheers, The Linlithgow Loyal . . .
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Lorna at JustCaribbean
non-member comment
What a trip from JustCaribbean.com
Hi Guys, I have been enjoying your blogg, while sipping coffee back in the UK. I am so glad you all had a great time and that you got to St Kitts and back in one piece. It was a pleasure to deal with Alan, but I am none the wiser as to who he is in the group and what he looks like! If any of you want a return trip we would love to hear from you. Just mention 'Alan from Aberdeen'.