Enjoy Christmas Caribbean style in Montserrat

As the nights draw in and thoughts turn to Christmas festivities, why not exchange the grey winter weather of the UK for a colourful Christmas Carnival on the Caribbean island of Montserrat? Montserrat’s December Festival is one of the event highlights of the year and is an opportunity to showcase the island’s culture and performing talent.

The Festival begins on 12th December 2008 and climaxes on New Years Day with a big street parade involving the whole community.

Montserrat’s version of the traditional Caribbean carnival has its own unique flavour due to the island’s mixed cultural heritage and also because of its occurrence over Christmas. Festival is very family-oriented, offering smaller, more intimate activities in a relaxed, friendly and safe atmosphere.

Amongst the many events taking place are masquerade performances, informal street dancing, a night of steelpan, pageant shows, a Calypso competition and also carol singing on Christmas Day.

Visitors to Montserrat during Festival will be able to experience Caribbean traditions and find themselves welcomed into the local community. This is because the island only 40 square miles in size and has a close-knit community of around 4,500 residents. As Christmas is one of the most popular times for Montserratians living overseas to return home, the whole island pulsates with a spirited vibe at this time of year.

The island has a limited number of hotels and guesthouses but there are many rental villas available for visitors wishing to create a homely atmosphere on their Christmas abroad. Many of Montserrat’s rental villas are set in landscaped gardens and have swimming pools and patios or terraces with panoramic views of the mountains and ocean.

Villas are available at highly reasonable prices, especially when compared to accommodation prices in other Caribbean destinations. As a guide price, a four-bedroom, four-bathroom villa with a housekeeper, swimming pool, wet bar, cable TV, CD player, washer and dryer can be rented for between £815 and £1,090 per week in peak season and £410 to £815 per week in low season.

There are no direct flights from the UK to Montserrat. Visitors from the UK should fly to Antigua with British Airways, Virgin Atlantic or BMI, from where connecting flights to Montserrat are available with Carib Aviation (carib-aviation.com). The flight time between Antigua and Montserrat is less than 20 minutes.

For further details on Montserrat’s Christmas Festival, log on to Visitmontserrat.com.