Finally booked something!

[jmhouse]

So I first went to St John in May 2007 as a college graduation present to myself. I could only stay 5 days because, well, I was just out of college and didn't have much money to work with. But those 5 days were enough to make me want to come back. I stayed at Concordia by the way. photos

2008 was spent doing a lot of backpacking locally and a week on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Camping on the beach every night with whales going by was amazing. If anyone here likes backpacking, I highly recommend doing the West Coast Trail out there. It's hard but worth every minute. photos

2009 I had an opportunity to use a grandparent's time share in St Croix, so I definitely jumped on that. After all that camping, the amenities of a resort type setting were kind of weird but welcome. It helped that it was a newly renovated unit. I really enjoyed St. Croix except that there was just too much to see in a week! I would definitely go back again if I have the opportunity. photos

But there was, as most of you know, something about St. John that just stayed in the back of my head almost all the time. Over the last year (or two or three) I had occasionally checked airfare from Baltimore, looking for the right price. I don't post much on here but I do visit and read trip reports quite a bit. It somehow kept me slightly sane by reading about other people's awesome vacations and then checking airfare to ensure myself that yes, it's still too expensive right now. Anyways, the snowstorms that hit our area this winter were enough to push me over the edge. I started researching a little more heavily. I actually tracked flight prices and worked out a bunch of different ways to get down there. I eventually found a flight out of DCA for $250 pp round trip. I've never seen a price like that around here. Flights out of BWI were double that for the same time period. Granted it's on Spirit but that is fine with me. I don't need more than a seat on a plane to get me where I'm going. I don't check bags, etc etc. Of course before booking the flight I made reservations at Concordia again. That place is just too awesome for the price. I had to go back.

The only 'big' thing left to book is a rental car. My last trip I was under 25 so I only had the option of renting on STT and driving over. But now being 25 I have the option of renting on STJ. So I am looking for some opinions. I'll search the forum in a few minutes but if anyone has any suggestions about renting on STJ vs STT that would be great. I guess I would mostly be comparing the price of taking a cab to/from the airport + the ferry + the rental cost or just the rental cost + the car ferry. Then there are conveniences that can't be quantified in dollars. Thanks in advance! I was so excited to book this trip that I completely forgot May came before June and thought I only had a month to wait. ugggh. It can't come fast enough.

ps - this post ended up way longer than I wanted

[Nancy_B]

Congratulations on booking your trip! When will you be there? We are on island May 5-22.

I recommend St. John Car Rental. They are good people and I love the convenience of parking in their lot. I've never rented on STT so I can't speak to the price difference.

Best of luck with your decision!

[jmhouse]

ahhh i thought i put it in that mass of text. june 1-10

[tipsy]

Good for you... sounds like you have some awesome vacations.

Your airfare is amazing,did you book thru the airlines directly or a website?

[jmhouse]

directly through the airline. for some reason i feel more comfortable booking directly. i use yapta to track flight prices though. they continue to track prices for you after you buy and notify you if you can get any sort of refund.

[Bigcheeze]

Matt, welcome to the 'Obsession'.

We now have rented on STT for the past 4 years and have found tangiable and intangiable factors make that decision easy for us to rent on STT. The one downside is not having the great ferry ride into Cruz Bay...

PM me for more details if you want.

Dave

[jmhouse]

Thanks for the reply. Does anyone have any updated info on the car barges? Mainly on the prices? I'm just trying to compare costs between taking the taxi to the red hook ferry and then stj car rental or stt rental and then car barge. Thanks! I know it's really only a few dollars here and there that I'm comparing, but what else am I supposed to do with my time until then

[c3p1]

jmhouse, first off THANK YOU! Because of your post, we went to spirit airline. We put off booking because the airfare was crazy, pushing $500 ($488 was the best we had seen in weeks). WE started looking at other places to go because of airfare.
Went to spirit and they had dates we could do for $250 rt. WOW! So we booked last night! Thank you we are making our 2nd trip down!

Here is some information on the barges and costs.
http://www.vinow.com/stjohn/getting_there/ I hope it can help. We rented from Dependable last year, but then again we stayed on St. Thomas and took the ferry over to St John several times. We plan on doing the same thing again for some costs savings and we really liked sapphire beach, which is where we will stay again.

Thanks! and good luck!

[jmhouse]

awesome! glad you got in on that airfare. i couldn't believe it when i saw it. hopefully it all goes smoothly.

and thanks for that link! i don't know how i didn't see that info last night. i guess i was a little burnt out from researching.