The main public holidays celebrated throughout the Caribbean, during which virtually all shops and offices close, are:

January 1 New Year's Day

Good Friday

Easter Monday

May 1 Labour Day

Whit Monday

Dec 25 Christmas Day

Dec 26 Boxing Day

Saba and St Eustatius also observe Queen's Day on April 30 and Ascension Thursday on the second Thursday in May.

Late July sees the Saba Summer Festival , a thoroughly enjoyable week of noisy parades, steel bands and colourful street parties, while Carnival is Statia's biggest party, taking place over ten days from late July to early August and finishing with a jump-up party at dawn on the last day and the crowning of the calypso king.