Trip report - part 2 - Caneel

[Maggy]

Thanks for the trip report. Your photos are great as usual. Nice turtles.

[KatieH]

I'm really enjoying yout TR and photos! I especially love the turtle pic. I think we need to stay at Caneel next time. Mr H and the remora both love bacon.

[Bob & Anita]

Great reporting and beautiful pictures as usual. It was joy to finally meet you and your family at Honeymoon, especially after all of our past correspondences.

Likewise! Special thanks to Anita for the college advice. And if I hadnt recognized you in the parking lot, we wouldnt have made it over to Honeymoon to meet the forum peeps. I know you took photos - will you post?

We will be posting photos and trip reports soon. We arrived back late Tuesday night. We are starting to go through all our pictures to pull out the best ones; a long a tedious process - we must have taken over 1,000 pictures during our 11 days!!!!!

[AquaGirl]

jmq - I love your pictures and your report. What a sense of humor - the comment about trying not to act like the Clampetts and enjoying the free stuff and other amenities reminded us of ourselves. My husband loves "free stuff" when we stay at nice places and will eat ridiculous amounts of bacon when we stay at places with breakfast buffets (only eats bacon once in a while at home, but when its free and good, well....).
I have always wanted to stay at Caneel, but usually too expensive and we've gotten hooked on staying at villas. The $325/night with breakfast is a good price for it, especially with those beautiful beaches. I am going to start working on my hubby for a trip in the fall to take advantage of the special offer.
Thanks for taking the time to post.

[AquaGirl]

Forgot to ask a couple questions about Caneel:
- is there an extra charge for having a mini-fridge in the room? Is it big enough to keep some sodas, fruit and cheese for snacks?
- I have never seen a picture of the pool at Caneel. Is it a good size and in a nice setting? Normally we would swim at the beach, but once in a while we like to cool off and swim in a pool. Just curious.
- do you know how much it is for a taxi to Cruz Bay? I was thinking we could do without a jeep for a couple days and just enjoy Caneel's beaches. Then rent a jeep for the last part of the trip to visit our favorite spots.
Thanks

[Robin in NC]

jmq, great report! Well written, beautiful photos, lots of personality. Great fun. Only, now I want a cup of coffee on the beach more than anything in the world...

[jmq]

Forgot to ask a couple questions about Caneel:
- is there an extra charge for having a mini-fridge in the room? Is it big enough to keep some sodas, fruit and cheese for snacks?
- I have never seen a picture of the pool at Caneel. Is it a good size and in a nice setting? Normally we would swim at the beach, but once in a while we like to cool off and swim in a pool. Just curious.
- do you know how much it is for a taxi to Cruz Bay? I was thinking we could do without a jeep for a couple days and just enjoy Caneel's beaches. Then rent a jeep for the last part of the trip to visit our favorite spots.
Thanks

> No extra charge for the std size mini-fridge, but you do have to request. It is actually a separate unit from the built in mini-bar reefer unit that is full of the ridiculus priced items that you dont even want to touch.

> Never even went to look at the pool. Think its over by the tennis courts and I believe it is a std size simple olympic style pool. Probably if we had one of the "garden view" rooms that are also over there we might have checked it out. Since the whole property is nicely landscaped, I imagine it would be nice enough, but certainly nothing like one of those super pools that other resorts are built around. Much of Caneel is built to blend into the landscape, not dominate it.

> Taxi is $5 pp. We were without the jeep for the last day and a half. The idea for us was to minimize jeep time and maximize beach time since this was a short trip of only 6 nights and it worked perfectly.
Plus, the added bonus for us of being walking distance to the beach is for things like this: my wife really enjoys the beach in the morning, I like it in the late afternoon.
So if we are on the beach in the late afternoon, just about the time the lighting is getting real interesting for photography, she starts squirming and saying I gotta get out of this bathing suit, etc.
Well, here (and on Spring Bay beach when we stay at Guavaberry on Virgin Gorda), she picks up and says I going back to take my shower. Great, I'll be up soon, and the getting ready to go out for the evening gets nicely staggered.
Also, one morning I was up extra early, peaked outside, sunrise looked promising, grabbed the camera, slipped out, coffee is set up at 6am at the beach bar, grabbed a to go cup, walked over to the other side of the Caneel peninsula to watch dawn break.

[jmq]

If I wasn't in vacation mode at Honeymoon I would have remembered what an AMAZING photographer you are and insisted you take family portraits for me on the spot!

Thanks Flip but the best people and especially kid shots are not the posed ones but the ones you are grabbing on the beach while they are doing whatever, just like the ones you have been posting in your TRs, or you have the camera in hand and say Hey You! and they look up. Snap! Those are 10x better than posed stuff. The only posed stuff that looks good are those taken by those portrait pros who specialize in those family beach shots.

[flip-flop]

If I wasn't in vacation mode at Honeymoon I would have remembered what an AMAZING photographer you are and insisted you take family portraits for me on the spot!

Thanks Flip but the best people and especially kid shots are not the posed ones but the ones you are grabbing on the beach while they are doing whatever, just like the ones you have been posting in your TRs, or you have the camera in hand and say Hey You! and they look up. Snap! Those are 10x better than posed stuff. The only posed stuff that looks good are those taken by those portrait pros who specialize in those family beach shots.

I usually literally take about 600-1000 pictures and typicaly end up with 1 I ADORE and about a dozen that I really like and a bunch that are not so great.

This year's Adore is:

[LMG]

jmq- Great report! Thanks for sharing. It was great meeting up with you guys a bit. Guess I did miss my chance for a photography lesson (and I even had beer with me!).

Flip- I LOVE that photo!