First things first….shout out to my husband for having me think we were going to Aruba for months, until he sent me the flight information 3 weeks before the actual trip. As I mentioned in my last post, this was a work trip for him, so every single thing was taken care of by our awesome host Diandra of KaiDiGlobal. I didn’t ask any questions about this trip, which is unusual for me. Normally, I need to know all details ahead of time, but I know Diandra is about her business. I had no worries at all! From the flights, to the resort, to the covid testing…. Diandra was ON POINT!!
No host has ever put my husband in an upgraded room. Diandra made sure that we had ALL of the upgrades. This included diamond club membership which meant swim out pool, butler service, 24 hour room service and being catered to while we were there. Any problems that came up, Diandra just made that call or sent that email. She had the hotel manager on speed dial.
We spent most of the trip on the resort, which was great, except for our last day when we went into town. This was actually an extra day because of our delayed flight due to a snow storm in NY. Most shops were closed because of covid, but fortunately for us, we ended up at a restaurant called Hemingway’s, which was open for takeout. You know resorts never really have authentic food, so this was my chance to experience some “real” Antiguan food.
Let me tell y’all about my dinner. I had saltfish and ducana. I’ve had saltfish before but this was the first time I’ve ever heard of ducana, (an Anitguan dumpling made with sweet potato). I am a picky eater and when I say it was delicious….it was DELICIOUS!! I ordered the garlic shrimp for later and had planned to ask room service to warm it up so that I could eat it as a midnight snack. Guess who did neither? It was well before midnight and the food was room temperature when I decided that I needed a taste. I couldn’t just eat one, I ate all. It was some of the best shrimp I have ever eaten.
On to the covid testing. Of course everyone had to be tested prior to the trip. My husband and I got tested the Friday before and got our results on Monday. We left for Antigua on Thursday. We printed out our negative results, which we had to show at the airport at the ticket counter. That was easy. Now, as of January 26th, you must have a negative covid result in order to return to the U.S. This is where Diandra and her negotiating skills shone for me. She was amazing the entire trip, but this was a matter of if we would be able to return home on schedule or not and you know I had to make it back home to my babies…and my job!
Originally, we were told that we would have to leave the resort and head to the clinic to be tested, which would cost us $250 per person. Diandra, did what she did, and not only got the nurses to come onto the resort to provide the testing, but she also got the cost down to $100 per person,(which your insurance company should reimburse you for). We took the rapid antigen test on Saturday morning, and got our results on paper on Sunday. We then had to download an app call Verifly, to be used as an “airport pass”, where we uploaded a pic of ourselves, names, flight information and our negative results. Again, thanks to Diandra for making this process simple for everyone.
All in all, Antigua is a beautiful country, with good food and friendly people and it was one of the most relaxing trips I have ever been on. I’ll definitely go back with my family when outside opens back up.
I hope this helps for anyone looking to travel to Antigua or anywhere outside of the U.S. soon, but if you prefer to travel stress and worry free, I highly recommend you contact Diandra at https://www.instagram.com/kaidi_global/ kaidi_global on instagram.
