--- title: At 77, King Charles III Packed Around 36 Engagements Into a Nine-Day Caribbean Tour description: At 77, King Charles crossed the Bahamas, Guyana and Antigua in nine days, met cricket legends and Idris Elba, and opened the Commonwealth summit. author: Dr Marina Nani (Editor-in-Chief) date: 2026-11-04T09:30:00.036Z updated: 2026-11-04T09:30:00.042Z canonical: https://www.richmanmagazine.com/article/king-charles-caribbean-tour-36-engagements image: https://cdn.nanimediahouse.com/unsplash-9cjtrf-hnlu.webp categories: Royal & Society, Culture content_type: Feature region: Caribbean publication: Rich Man Magazine about: - type: Person name: King Charles III --- On Sunday 1st November a tropical downpour broke over the Independence Day parade at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in St John's, Antigua, just as King Charles III and Queen Camilla arrived. The rain lasted about five minutes. His Majesty went on to inspect the troops under an umbrella, and afterwards joked that he had started 'growing watercress on my trousers'. The same evening the King tossed the ceremonial coin for a Commonwealth cricket match in front of a crowd of about 5,000, and met four knights of West Indies cricket: Sir Viv Richards, Sir Richie Richardson, Sir Andy Roberts and Sir Curtly Ambrose. Sir Viv was announced as an ambassador for the King's Sustainable Markets Initiative. Two days later, His Majesty opened the summit of the Commonwealth's 56 member countries. ## From Nassau to Georgetown and St John's The tour began in the Bahamas on 27th October, where the King [spoke at a youth rally in Nassau](https://www.richmanmagazine.com/article/king-charles-caribbean-tour-partnerships) on the ground at Clifford Park where he had stood for the Bahamas' independence in 1973. The Bahamian government gave students time off school to attend, and His Majesty told them it gave him enormous hope to see how generations of Bahamians have carried the legacy of their ancestors with pride. From Nassau the King flew to Guyana for a two-day state visit marking 60 years of relations between the two countries. President Irfaan Ali held talks with His Majesty and hosted a cultural evening, where the King sat in the front row for dances by Guyana's Indigenous, Chinese and Indian communities, and for Scottish pipers from the National Piping Centre in Glasgow playing alongside Guyanese drummers. Offered a glass of a limited-edition rum distilled for the visit, he tasted it, laughed and pronounced it 'very good'. The tour ended in Antigua and Barbuda, where Queen Camilla joined him for the nation's 45th independence anniversary and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, which closes on 4th November. Across nine days the King carried out around 36 engagements, and he did the first two legs on his own. ## The causes the King has backed for half a century At Nelson's Dockyard, the historic naval base that is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, His Majesty set an engraved stone into a wall. There he ran into Sir Idris Elba, who was hosting the One Commonwealth Night concert at the site. The two greeted each other like old friends, and when the King asked what he was doing there, the actor joked that he gets around. Sir Idris is a goodwill ambassador for the King's Trust, the charity His Majesty founded as The Prince's Trust in 1976 to help young people into work, education and training. The meeting was a reminder that much of the King's tour ran on causes he has championed for decades: young people, the environment and the communities that look after it. In Antigua he also toured Agave Gardens, a drought-resistant garden and seedbank, where he met seedworkers, coconut leaf weavers and basket weavers from the Workshop for the Blind, and in Nassau he told the youth rally about his five decades of campaigning on climate change. ## A message about the future for Commonwealth leaders At the opening ceremony of the 28th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in St John's on Tuesday 3rd November, His Majesty spoke about the history that links many Commonwealth nations, and about what they can build together. 'We cannot change the actions of those who came before us,' the King said. 'We can, however, learn from the past.' He told leaders that 'evil need not have the last word', and that character and courage can overcome even the worst injustice, as they did in the campaign to end the international trade in enslaved people, in which, he said, the Royal Navy played a leading role. Both the King and Prime Minister Andy Burnham have spoken of using the Commonwealth to meet present needs, with support on climate change, education and health, and the summit's theme is partnership and investment for a prosperous Commonwealth. At 77, His Majesty crossed three countries in nine days, joked his way through a downpour and gave his time to students, cricketers, craftspeople and heads of government along the way.