Travel Channel and Beach Ratings

[Terry]

Since it's spring break time of year, the Travel Channel is going nuts on beach topics. Sexiest Beach, Best beach, etc. Yet none of the beaches on STJ made the list. Jost made the list with Foxy's and Soggy Dollar.

I know that this is a good thing, but how bad can their researchers be? A beach in Chicago made one of the top ten sexiests beaches! Several beaches in NJ made the list and of course Miami is "hot".

How do you folks attract so many folks but manage to keep it the best kept secret? You're doing a great job! Please keep up the good work.

This brings up a good question...how did you find out about STJ and how did you figure out all the "extras" that you now know? Was it this forum?

[samoka]

I was watching that today also - Caneel was on one of the shows and the Ritz on St. Thomas was featured too - I am soo glad they didn't include STJ - I haeard about STJ via the national park website.

[mindehankins]

We were watching the Travel Channel today too, and saw those! Foxy's and the Willie T made sexiest beach bars. I think they were rating on who you might see, at the beaches and bars... Wierd.
I was doing a residency in an ER when a doc told me he was going to St. John for the month of December. I asked him how he could afford a month on St. John, and he said Cinnamon Bay Campground. I stuck that phrase away in the back of my brain, for someday...

Someday came last Spring, when Blaine asked where he could take us, to bring me "back to life" after a stroke. I found this forum, and we both fell in love with St. John!

[Lindy]

My daughter told me about St John. She's a bartender in the French Quarter in New Orleans and one of the owners of the bar had gone there looking at villas to buy as an investment. The first trip was with two lady friends and we met up with my daughter. The women raved about the island SO much that the husbands and some other friends decided to join us the next year. My daughter is off to much more exotic places (China, Thailand....etc.)but several of us got "hooked" and like to go back to our happy place.

[sea-nile]

I found it myself by searching the internet. We almost went to a resort in STT but people on the other USVI forum talked me into STJ and boy am I glad.
I found STJ in 2005 and have been there 6 times and will go 2 times this year. I only missed 2006 and it was a sad year.

[Marcia (Mrs. Pete)]

I found an ad in the New Yorker magazine way back in 2000 for Pavilions & Pools in STT. We utilized the AOL USVI travel forum to learn more about STT. We went there for 10 days and never once set foot on STJ. We liked the idea of having our own private pool (at P & P) and read in various travel magazines while in STT that you can actually rent a whole VILLA in STJ. So, we returned home and logged back onto the AOL forum and started asking more questions.

In 2001 we went to Sea Turtle villa and fell in love with STJ. The rest is history, including finding this forum (way back when it was "the old" forum format) and returning every single year, sometimes twice a year, for two plus weeks at a time.

[bubblybrenda]

I first heard about STJ when Kenny Chesney made it famous by singing about the Islands on what has now become one of my favourite albums of all time. Despite owning the album I never tried to find out anything about STJ and never had a clue where it was located.

Then a couple years later I "met" a guy on line. He told me that had been going down to STJ for more than a decade, goes down twice a year and spends a good 4-6 weeks at a time down there each trip. Right away my mind says "St. John? You mean the same St. John that Kenny Chesney sings about?" (He didn't have a clue who Kenny Chesney was). (Frankly, I had never known of anyone who had even heard of the place except for on Kenny's album and I sure as heck didn't know of anyone who had actually been to that place). So after months of chatting the guy suggests that the time has come to meet one another and that we should meet up on STJ. Well, he didn't have to twist my arm very hard! So I fly 17 hours and meet up with the guy. No sparks flew but it didn't matter as I was in love... just not with the guy but with the Island. We spent 2 weeks there and he showed me so much that I would've never discovered on my own. I felt so comfortable with the "ins and outs" of that Island that when I returned home, it only took me 3 weeks before I booked my 2nd trip to STJ.