How crowded in mid-April?

[sunlover]

For those of you who have traveled to STJ in mid-April (in time to get the discounted accommodation rates) -- just how crowded is it? I saw on "news of st john site" that it is as crowded as Christmastime! Wow -- is that what you all experienced? I have noticed a lot of trip reports lately...(which has been great, btw!) We usually go in November and March, and of course March is more crowded, but next year, we'd like to try mid-april. We can take the rain, but not the crowds. Any input you all have would be greatly appreciated.[/i]

[Diana2]

We have usually gone in late April or early May and have only gone once in high season (February). I think the first couple of weeks of the reduced/low season rates are busier than May but not like high season or spring break weeks. I think it's a great time to go.

[Bug]

We just came back last week (April 21-28) and I didn't think that anything was crowded. We didn't run into any situations where things (i.e. restaurants, activities) were too booked to accomodate us. It was a lot of fun because most of the forum people travel between April and May and there is always a chance to meet the people you talk to daily. And, as you know, the rates are cheaper!!

[pswlrw]

This year was my second trip in April (got back last Saturday). While the villas all fill up pretty quickly, we never experienced any "crowded" feeling on the island. Because we were a large party (up to 11 for dinner) we had to make dinner reservations for the nicer restaurants, but they were easily able to accommodate our group of 6 or 9 at the more casual places (Fish Trap, Cafe Roma) without one.

[Berlingirl]

We were on island April 13-21, 2007. I think after a few trips that same week now...five I believe, that the week after ours is when it really slows a little on St John. St Thomas of course due to Carnival is booked into May with higher rates. It was the most crowded we'd seen it in all our trips over the past 10 years. Trunk, Cinnamon and Hawksnest Beaches were all wall to wall people it seemed . I so do understand that it comes with the territory. The news of St John is out and we can't have things all to ourselves anymore...LOL. It's still as beautiful, but we may be back to the real off season ourselves just to find parking spots. I'm in the travel business so April is still prime and REAL off for the USVI isn't until Aug, Sep, Oct...those monthes are when the good rates and bargains tend to be found. Oh and the almost deserted beaches we used to find might still be there at those times.

One night we waited 1 1/2 hours for a table at Lime Inn and another night Joes was sold out and closing at 7:30. Parking wasn't bad for us as we had an economy car and it fit just about anywhere and the one night it didn't we parked at the new lot for $10. A bargain after driving around for 10 minutes...

[flip-flop]

We've always gone in May and its never been crowded at all. But my perspective of crowded might be a little different than others. We've had a couple of days where we thought, oh we'll do Hawksnest and it was a bit busy for us in the parking lot so we just continued on the North Shore road to another less "crowded" beach. Turns out the day we were thinking of Hawksnest was the Beach swim thing day.

We've never had a problem getting into any restaurant we wanted to go to or reserving anything.