Gen­eral Infor­ma­tion on Antigua and Barbuda

BANKS
Antigua and Bar­buda Devel­op­ment Bank, Antigua and Bar­buda Invest­ment, Bank Antigua Com­mer­cial Bank, Bank of Antigua, Bank of Nova Sco­tia, Bar­clays Bank PLC, Cana­dian Impe­r­ial Bank of Com­merce, Caribbean Cor­po­ra­tion Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, Swiss Amer­i­can National Bank of Antigua. Bank­ing hours are Mon­day through Thurs­day from 8:00am to 1:00pm and again from 3:00pm to 5:00pm; Fri­day from 8:00am to 12:00pm, and 3:00pm to 5:00pm.

CELL PHONES
Many tri-​band phones work in Antigua – check before com­ing if your cell oper­a­tor has an agree­ment with any of the providers in Antigua – Cable and Wire­less, A.P.U.A., P.C.S. or Cin­gu­lar. If you plan to make a lot of local calls or spend a sig­nif­i­cant amount of time in Antigua it may be worth get­ting a pay-​as-​you-​go deal here. As long as your phone is unlocked (ED$50locally) you will be able to get a SIM card and local tele­phone num­ber. You can then buy phone cards locally to top up your phone.

CUR­RENCY
Antigua uses the East­ern Caribbean dol­lar (EC$), whose fixed rate is fixed to the US dol­lar at an aver­age of US$1 to EC$2.65. It is advis­able to ver­ify exchange rates prior to your trip. US dol­lars, major credit cards and trav­ellers cheques are also wel­come everywhere.

DRI­VING
Cars drive on the left-​hand side of the road in Antigua.

EMER­GENCY NUM­BERS
For police, fire and ambu­lance call 911 or 999.

LAN­GUAGE
The offi­cial lan­guage of Antigua is English.

MED­ICAL FACIL­I­TIES
There are sev­eral gen­eral prac­ti­tion­ers and spe­cial­ists on the island, a hos­pi­tal and a pri­vate clinic. No vac­ci­na­tions are required unless the vis­i­tor is arriv­ing from an endemic area. Recom­pres­sion cham­bers are avail­able by air ambu­lance at nearby Saba and in St. Thomas. Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal ser­vices are widely avail­able. Health con­cerns are few in Antigua, and are almost all com­pletely avoid­able. Unfor­tu­nately some peo­ple vis­it­ing the island tend to stay out in the sun too long with­out real­is­ing the inten­sity of the suns rays. The sun that beats down on the Lee­ward islands is very pow­er­ful; if you lounge on your pool deck or on the beach unpro­tected you are very likely to end up with bad sun­burn, if not sun­stroke. Antiguan health author­i­ties advise every­one vis­it­ing the islands, espe­cially those who are fair-​skinned, to apply sun­screen fre­quently. Phar­ma­cies are wide­spread on the island, usu­ally only a short dis­tance from wher­ever you are stay­ing, and are ideal for treat­ing mild med­ical issues like sun­burn and stom­ach upset.

NEWS­PA­PER
The Antigua Sun is the island’s major daily pub­li­ca­tion. The online edi­tion of the Antigua Sun is refreshed each day to cor­re­spond to its printed ver­sion. In both, you’ll find all of the lat­est local news, includ­ing polit­i­cal, enter­tain­ment, and sports fea­tures. The Antigua Sun also pub­lishes a com­mu­nity cal­en­dar for the island, fea­tur­ing upcom­ing events on the island. The Antigua Sun releases a week­end edi­tion of its news­pa­per as well, which is also put online and updated weekly.

PASS­PORT REQUIRE­MENTS
Entry require­ments vary for each des­ti­na­tion; it is your respon­si­bil­ity to ver­ify you have the cor­rect doc­u­ments prior to travel. A valid pass­port is required for travel to all the Caribbean and Mex­ico. Nation­als of the United King­dom and other Com­mon­wealth coun­tries (except Bangladesh, Cameroon, Gam­bia, Ghana, India, Mozam­bique, Nige­ria, Pak­istan, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka), Other EU Coun­tries (except nation­als of Cyprus, Czech Repub­lic, Latvia and the Slo­vak Repub­lic), USA, Canada, Aus­tralia & Japan do not require visas for stays of up to 6 months. Tran­sit pas­sen­gers con­tin­u­ing their jour­ney within 24 hours, by the same or next con­nect­ing air­craft, pro­vided they are hold­ing valid onward or return doc­u­men­ta­tion and not leav­ing the air­port, also do not require visas. Note: cruise ship pas­sen­gers do not require a visa pro­vided that they arrive in Antigua and Bar­buda in the morn­ing and depart the same evening. Trav­ellers need to ensure that pass­ports are valid for at least six months beyond period of stay.

Types of Visas: Single-​entry (US$45. Valid for 3 months from date of issue); Multiple-​entry (US$45. Valid for 6 months from date of issue).

It is advis­able to check this infor­ma­tion with your rel­e­vant embassy prior to travel.

PER­SONAL SAFETY
Antigua and Bar­buda are rel­a­tively crime free, but nor­mal pre­cau­tions should be exer­cised, so please do not leave valu­ables unat­tended in rental cars or on the beach.

SECU­RITY AND HEALTH
Antigua is gen­er­ally a very safe island, but that does not mean that you should not take basic pre­cau­tions when hol­i­day­ing in Antigua. If you are rent­ing a villa do not leave valu­ables unat­tended when tour­ing the island, remem­ber to close doors. Please also avoid dis­play­ing wealth, espe­cially in the evenings and on deserted streets. With com­mon sense pre­cau­tions such as these you should feel noth­ing but safe and secure dur­ing your hol­i­day on Antigua.

SHOP­PING
Stan­dard shop­ping hours are Mon­day to Sat­ur­day 8am to noon and 1pm – 5pm.

TAXES
Antigua and Bar­buda has a US$20.00 air­port depar­ture tax, a room tax of 8.5% and ser­vice charge of 10% (in lieu of tipping).

TELECOM­MU­NI­CA­TIONS
Antigua and Bar­buda are con­trolled by a divi­sion of the com­pany that oper­ates the sys­tems of most islands in the Caribbean, Cable and Wire­less. They sell pre­paid phone cards (in dif­fer­ent denom­i­na­tions) for local, regional, and inter­na­tional call­ing, while per­sonal phone cards that con­nect to your long-​distance provider will also work on the island. Addi­tion­ally, there are sev­eral spe­cial­ized “CALL USA” phones located across the island from which direct credit-​card calls can be made to the US. Tele­phones in Antigua are the same as those in North Amer­ica, using a three-​digit area code (268) for long dis­tance call­ing into and out of the island in addi­tion to the seven-​digit local num­ber. The inter­na­tional dialling code for Antigua & Bar­buda is +268. To dial over­seas from within the islands, dial 011 fol­lowed by the rel­e­vant coun­try code and phone number.

TIME ZONE
Antigua is on Atlantic Stan­dard Time, one hour ahead of the East­ern time zone when it observes Day­light Sav­ings (Antigua does not).

TIPPING/​GRATUITIES
Some restau­rants and hotels will auto­mat­i­cally add a 10% gra­tu­ity. If in doubt, just ask. Give porters and bell­hops 50 cents per bag, taxi dri­vers 10 – 15% of the fare.

TOURIST INFOR­MA­TION

Antigua and Bar­buda Depart­ment of Tourism, Cor­ner of Nevis Street & Friendly Alley, P.O. Box 363, St John’s, Antigua W.I.
Tel: 268−462−0480. Fax: 268−462−2483

VOLT­AGE
Parts of Antigua use 110 volts and some 220 volts. Many accom­mo­da­tions have both available.

WEATHER
Being sit­u­ated in the Caribbean, the islands expe­ri­ence the typ­i­cal cli­mate of the trop­ics. This means that tem­per­a­tures are usu­ally quite warm and rain­fall is to a min­i­mum for most of the year. Aver­age tem­per­a­tures range, year round, between 80F/​26C (Feb­ru­ary) to 85F/​28C (August) allow­ing light sum­mer attire suit­able wear at all times (with wet weather gear rec­om­mended from October-​December). There is just enough rain­fall to main­tain the cool green­ery while the gen­tle trade winds help cre­ate an ideal cli­mate through­out the year. Novem­ber is by far the wettest month, with approx­i­mately 25cm of rain. Humid­ity remains at around 80% through­out the year. Trop­i­cal storms and hur­ri­canes can occur between June andNovember