usvi-on-line
Blue Papaya Trip Report - Part I
Blue Papaya Trip Report - Part I
Day 1, Nov. 9th - Travel day. This was my fourth annual trip to St. John and the second trip with a group of nine adults and one slightly juvenile Mr. Bill doll.
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/slide ... =snapfish/
I wasn't able to book all nine of us out of Hartford on the same flight at the bargain price I found so we had to split up. Three at 6:15 AM and the rest on the 8:20 AM flight. If everything went smoothly we'd meet up at our layover in Charlotte and then travel the rest of the way together. We had no frantic phone calls from the first group and the rest of us made it to our seats right on time. I had been planning this trip for an entire year - from the first week we returned from the last one. I had spent an inordinate amount of time researching, negotiating,and cajoling to get everyone to agree on everything which is NOT an easy task with nine adults who run the gamut from Democrat to
Republican, spendthrift to penny pincher, vegetarian to die-hard carnivore and borderline alkie to teetotaler! I was definitely ready for a week of fun and relaxation in my happy place.
I settled into my aisle seat and spent a good five minutes swabbing down all of the hard surfaces, arm rests and seat beat buckle with several antiseptic wipes. Not even the toddler screaming at the top of her lungs somewhere behind us was going to bother me. The plane took of right on time and I was completely blissed out and absorbed in my paperback when we reached our cruising altitude and the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign. That started the stampede to the bathrooms and I thought to myself: " Jeepers Creepers people......can't you take care of that BEFORE you get on the plane??!!! There's no excuse for adults not being able to control their bladders for a two hour flight." Just then my seat lurched as someone ran into the armrest and as I looked up with a look of irritation on my face a very tall, wild-haired man in a loud tropical shirt who looked like he was returning home after a three day bender in Tijuana stopped next to me in the aisle and proceeded to cough up a lung without even a feeble attempt to spew into his crooked elbow like all of the posters in the airport had illustrated. Somewhere Louis Pasteur rolled over in his grave but he simply continued to cough as he pinballed his way down the aisle to the bathroom. I could only hope that he was seated next to the screaming toddler and that his ears would be bleeding by the time we landed in Charlotte.
The rest of the flight went smoothly and we reunited with the rest of our group and landed on St. Thomas right on time. It was raining when we landed and the rum cart was closed, but Rachel's smiling face was there to greet us. The rain stopped as if on cue and Rachel did her engineering magic and somehow shoehorned nine people plus luggage, cooler, guitar, 2
CPAPs and one Mr. Bill into her van and we were off to Red Hook since the downtown ferry hadn't started up again yet. There were FIVE cruise ships in port that day and it was 5 PM by this time so downtown was jam packed and traffic was at a standstill. Rachel wound up going the long way around the island, but was still able to get us to Red Hook in time to catch the 6 PM ferry. We had plenty of time to chat and discovered that Rachel was originally from Nevis, had lived on St. Thomas for 47 years yet had never been to St. John! She's also a huge fan of country music and played some of her favorites for us during the ride.
A light rain started again just as we arrived at the ferry dock so we had to sit inside this time, plus it was our first trip in the dark. I kept passing around mint flavored gum because several members of the group were already sporting a slightly green tinge from the taxi ride up, down and around every high point on St. Thomas. We made it across without incident and were met at the dock on St. John by our villa greeter Eric. Someone had stayed late at C&C so we could get our rental cars and Eric took us up Centerline Road and then down Gifft Hill to get to our villa in Virgin Grand Estates. I was hoping that we'd be able to find our way back since we had usually travelled South Shore Road on previous trips. Eric gave us the tour of our fabulous villa and we unloaded our luggage. Fatigue and hunger set in at that point and the group fell into total chaos all talking at once and giving opinions on what needed to be done first.
After a little yelling and threats of bodily harm three groups were organized and sent off to Cruz Bay to make forays into Starfish Market, the liquor store and to Candies to pick up BBQ dinners that I had pre-ordered. We headed down Gifft Hill Road think that would be the most direct route, however, as we headed down the hill in the dark we discovered multiple areas where the heavy rains had caused mudslides and there were detours for road repairs. South Shore Road was also still partially closed at Guinea Gut after the second "Great Westin Flood" in as many months. Now it made sense why Eric had gone the other way - just would have been nice if he had explained that to us before he left. We eventually made it around all of the obstacles, completed our assigned tasks, made it through the round-about on the first attempt and found our way back to our villa unscathed. We had a few drinks, enjoyed our BBQ dinners and settled in for the night to watch the stars from the deck until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. Then we headed off to our beautifully appointed rooms for a good night's sleep.
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/slide ... =snapfish/
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/slide ... =snapfish/
I wasn't able to book all nine of us out of Hartford on the same flight at the bargain price I found so we had to split up. Three at 6:15 AM and the rest on the 8:20 AM flight. If everything went smoothly we'd meet up at our layover in Charlotte and then travel the rest of the way together. We had no frantic phone calls from the first group and the rest of us made it to our seats right on time. I had been planning this trip for an entire year - from the first week we returned from the last one. I had spent an inordinate amount of time researching, negotiating,and cajoling to get everyone to agree on everything which is NOT an easy task with nine adults who run the gamut from Democrat to
Republican, spendthrift to penny pincher, vegetarian to die-hard carnivore and borderline alkie to teetotaler! I was definitely ready for a week of fun and relaxation in my happy place.
I settled into my aisle seat and spent a good five minutes swabbing down all of the hard surfaces, arm rests and seat beat buckle with several antiseptic wipes. Not even the toddler screaming at the top of her lungs somewhere behind us was going to bother me. The plane took of right on time and I was completely blissed out and absorbed in my paperback when we reached our cruising altitude and the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign. That started the stampede to the bathrooms and I thought to myself: " Jeepers Creepers people......can't you take care of that BEFORE you get on the plane??!!! There's no excuse for adults not being able to control their bladders for a two hour flight." Just then my seat lurched as someone ran into the armrest and as I looked up with a look of irritation on my face a very tall, wild-haired man in a loud tropical shirt who looked like he was returning home after a three day bender in Tijuana stopped next to me in the aisle and proceeded to cough up a lung without even a feeble attempt to spew into his crooked elbow like all of the posters in the airport had illustrated. Somewhere Louis Pasteur rolled over in his grave but he simply continued to cough as he pinballed his way down the aisle to the bathroom. I could only hope that he was seated next to the screaming toddler and that his ears would be bleeding by the time we landed in Charlotte.
The rest of the flight went smoothly and we reunited with the rest of our group and landed on St. Thomas right on time. It was raining when we landed and the rum cart was closed, but Rachel's smiling face was there to greet us. The rain stopped as if on cue and Rachel did her engineering magic and somehow shoehorned nine people plus luggage, cooler, guitar, 2
CPAPs and one Mr. Bill into her van and we were off to Red Hook since the downtown ferry hadn't started up again yet. There were FIVE cruise ships in port that day and it was 5 PM by this time so downtown was jam packed and traffic was at a standstill. Rachel wound up going the long way around the island, but was still able to get us to Red Hook in time to catch the 6 PM ferry. We had plenty of time to chat and discovered that Rachel was originally from Nevis, had lived on St. Thomas for 47 years yet had never been to St. John! She's also a huge fan of country music and played some of her favorites for us during the ride.
A light rain started again just as we arrived at the ferry dock so we had to sit inside this time, plus it was our first trip in the dark. I kept passing around mint flavored gum because several members of the group were already sporting a slightly green tinge from the taxi ride up, down and around every high point on St. Thomas. We made it across without incident and were met at the dock on St. John by our villa greeter Eric. Someone had stayed late at C&C so we could get our rental cars and Eric took us up Centerline Road and then down Gifft Hill to get to our villa in Virgin Grand Estates. I was hoping that we'd be able to find our way back since we had usually travelled South Shore Road on previous trips. Eric gave us the tour of our fabulous villa and we unloaded our luggage. Fatigue and hunger set in at that point and the group fell into total chaos all talking at once and giving opinions on what needed to be done first.
After a little yelling and threats of bodily harm three groups were organized and sent off to Cruz Bay to make forays into Starfish Market, the liquor store and to Candies to pick up BBQ dinners that I had pre-ordered. We headed down Gifft Hill Road think that would be the most direct route, however, as we headed down the hill in the dark we discovered multiple areas where the heavy rains had caused mudslides and there were detours for road repairs. South Shore Road was also still partially closed at Guinea Gut after the second "Great Westin Flood" in as many months. Now it made sense why Eric had gone the other way - just would have been nice if he had explained that to us before he left. We eventually made it around all of the obstacles, completed our assigned tasks, made it through the round-about on the first attempt and found our way back to our villa unscathed. We had a few drinks, enjoyed our BBQ dinners and settled in for the night to watch the stars from the deck until we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. Then we headed off to our beautifully appointed rooms for a good night's sleep.
http://www2.snapfish.com/snapfish/slide ... =snapfish/
-
Xislandgirl
- Posts: 4163
- Joined: Tue Aug 08, 2006 4:03 pm
- Location: Slightly left of center
