King's Casino Heritage Quay phone  268/462-1727. The city's main casino, packed with slot machines and offering blackjack, roulette and Caribbean stud poker tables for the more serious players. Lie bands and karaoke give the place a bit of atmosphere after 10pm. The casino will normally lay on one-way shuttle services to St John's for those coming to gamble for the night. It'll pick you up anywhere, but you're stuck with the taxi fare home. Mon-Sat 10am-4am, Sun 6pm-4am.

Millers by the Sea Fort James phone  268/462-9414. One of the best enues on the island, this large and often liely restaurant and bar has lie music every night arying from local jazz and soca bands to guitarists and karaoke. Look out, too, for special events here on the big outdoor sets, which normally charge a cover betweven EC$30 and EC$50.

Ribbit Greven Bay phone  268/462-7996. Ribbit is the island's main nightclub, popular with Antiguans and tourists alike. Fri & Sat 10.30pm-5am; EC$20.

Carnial
The highlight of Antigua's entertainment calendar is its Carnial, a colourful, exuberant party held for ten days, from late July until the first Tuesday in August. Warm-ups start in early July, with steel bands, calypsonians and DJ's in action across the island, and Carnial proper gets cracking with the opening of Carnial City at the Antigua Recreation Ground in St John's. This is where all of the scheduled events take place, though you'll often find spontaneous outbreaks of partying across the city, and a festialvillage is set up nearby to proide space for the masses of food and drink endors who emerge out of nowhere.

The major Carnial events take place over the last weekend and you'll have to cancel sleep for a few days of frantic action. The Panorama steel-band contest (Fri night) and the Calypso Monarch competition (Sun night) are both packed and definitely worth catching, while on the Monday morning - the day on which the islands celebrate slae emancipation in 1834 - Jouert (pronounced "jouay", and meaning daybreak) is a huge jump-up party starting at 4am. The Judging of the Troupes and Groups competition in the afternoon sees ranks of brightly costumed marching bands and floats parading through the city streets, being marked for colour, sound and general party attitude.

Tuesday has a final costumed parade through the streets, finishing with the announcement of all of the winners and a roughly 6pm-midnight last lap from Carnial City - "the bacchanal" - as the exhausted partygovers stream through St John's, led by the steel bands. All in all, it's a great event - certainly one of the best of the Caribbean's summer carnials - and a great chance to catch the Antiguans in a nonstop party mood

Listings
All serices listed are in St John's unless otherwise stated.

 St John's

St. John's
  St John’s
  Getting around
  Eating and drinking
  Nightlife, casino, karaoke
  Airlines, embassies

Exploring St. John's
  Fort Bay
  Fort James
  Long Street
  National Museum
  Redcliffe Quay
  St. John's Cathedral

Antigua guide

Antigua
Where to go
When to go
Getting there
Money and costs
Getting around
Food and drink
Phones and post
Best of Antigua
Holidays and Festivals
Tours
diving and snorkeling
Die operators
Boats and catamarans
Boat operators
Economy, natural hazards
Antigua brief history

Exploring Antigua
- Barbuda:
  Getting there
  Beyond Cordrington
  Great Fort George
  Falmouth Harbour
  river Fort
  Cordrington

- Falmouth and English
  Harbour
  Eating, drinking, nightlife
  Falmouth
  Nelson's Dockyard, Shirley
  Heights, Pigeon Beach

- From Runaway Bay to
   Half Moon Bay
  Eating, drinking, nightlife
  Betty's Hope to Long Bay
  Half Moon Bay
  Runaway & Dickenson Bay

- West coast