Umbrella Drink Tour - 2012

jayseadee · Post by **jayseadee** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 8:56 pm

Umbrella Drink Tour – 2012 was me and hubby on STJ from November 3–13. Normally the Umbrellas are over some yummy rum concoction, but due to my being in the middle of a nutrition challenge, it was often just a protein shake – oh well.

Rethinking our trip, it was kind of boring. Not a lot of drink-porn, food-porn or fish-porn. Wake up, workout, breakfast, beach, bar, pool, bar, dinner, bar – repeat – The End.

I’ll try to capture some of the highlights.

We stayed at AquaBay Villas in Frank Bay. We really enjoyed it here. There are 4 units, but we were the only ones there for almost a week. The owners are from Cape Cod and great to work with. We met them for dinner on the Cape after we made our reservations. The unit we were in was filled with Elaine Estern and Neil McAuliffe paintings and tiles. The walk to town was not bad and we enjoyed not having to drive to/from dinner.

Nice view to wake-up to

Sunset from the upper balcony (L’Isle Amour unit)

We only rented a car for 5 days and used C&C since they were offering a 10% discount. Have used them before and if you don’t need a space to park in town, give them a call.

Most days were spent at a beach – Trunk Bay (my first and favorite), Honeymoon, Cinnamon, Maho, Little Lameshur, Frank Bay, Jumbie and Solomon. The north swells were gone. The water was calm and clear.

Honeymoon – we taxied to Caneel

This was our first visit to Cinnamon where we didn’t get chased away by rain

Had a fun day at Maho visiting with Forum friends seanile, vagirl, Brenda and iProf – no forum porn this day either ☹

Snorkeling was pretty good at Maho – this was the biggest ray I’ve ever seen

Little Lameshur was new for us. Nice quiet beach – no more than six people at any time. The ride is a bit of an adventure, but not too bad now that much of it is paved.

A bit of a scare as we were leaving, the car wouldn’t start. Hubby opened the hood and banged on the battery case – voila – we had liftoff.

Jumbie

We hiked the Lind Point trail from the National Park visitor center out to Solomon. More crowded than I expected. Met P-600 and heard about her adventures as a new island resident.

We also did a full-day sail with Captain Phil. Snorkeled St. James and Christmas Cove. Both good, but not spectacular.

Being close to Cruz Bay, there was a lot of bar time. After beach, before dinner, after dinner.

Don’t want to get lost –

Beach Bar Bushwackers

Joe’s Rum Hut

Gecko Gazebo

High Tide, Castaways (to catch the Pats game), Motu, Spyglass, 420 to Center – so many bars, so little time.

Another special day was a morning photo workshop with Steve Simonsen. He taught me more about my camera in a morning, than I’ve been able to figure out in 6 months. He’s a great teacher and the morning flew by. The class was at the Hawksnest pavilion, then we went to the Trunk Bay overlook and Cinnamon Bay ruins.

Hawksnest

Cinnamon Bay ruins

Practicing

Got to enjoy some great music this trip – Inner Visions at High Tide, James at SpyGlass and a couple of nights of TreeHouse at the Beach Bar

Enjoying Treehouse with iProf, UF Prof and Mr. jayseadee

And of course, there was shopping ☺ New hook bracelet from Freebird, t-shirts and ice-scrapers from the Beach Bar, and quite a bit of Christmas shopping at St. John Spice.

We also enjoyed Elaine Estern’s Wednesday evening cocktail/sunset soiree. Patiently waiting for our new framed tiles to be delivered.

We enjoyed many good meals –
JJs, Jake’s, Joe’s Rum Hut, Tourist Trap (love Larry’s nachos and lobster roll), Beach Bar (no trip is complete without Tuna Down Now), Fishtrap (first time in awhile), Lime Inn (always a favorite), High Tide, Banana Deck, Tap Room (stick to the beer), Morgan’s Mango (very good), Fatty Crabs with forumites Jan&MikeVA

Sunday Brunch at Rhumblines (love the Bloody Mary Bar)

and last supper at Asolare. Surprising, this was the most crowded of all the restaurants. Food and service were both exceptional.

Sunset

Us (gorilla pods come in handy)

Since we only had a car for a few days, we did use taxi’s to get to the beach and back to the ferry dock. We called both the St. John taxi association and Paradise Taxi for a couple of pick-ups at the villa. Left our luggage at Connections for a couple of hours while we had lunch before catching the ferry.

Jet Blue non-stop from Boston is the bomb! We had to go through SJU on the return. We used Rachael to/from Red Hook.

Well, maybe it wasn’t so boring after all.

Until the next time.

seagrape · Post by **seagrape** » Mon Nov 26, 2012 10:12 pm

Great trip report, Janet! Makes those 24 days in front of us seem like nothing. Can't wait! Glad you guys had a great time once again!

mbw1024 · Post by **mbw1024** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:36 am

Doesn't sound boring to me!

lprof · Post by **lprof** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 8:05 am

When your next time comes around, I hope that I am there. Meeting and getting to know you and Mr jayseadee and sharing some island time with you made our vacation one of the best!
Cheers!

sea-nile · Post by **sea-nile** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 8:31 am

It looks like a great time to me! It was good to see you again. Great pictures!!

mindehankins · Post by **mindehankins** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 10:29 am

Looks like another wonderful trip! Thanks so much for taking the time to post a report and photos

Loving all the trip reports coming in!

aemarino · Post by **aemarino** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 11:04 am

Thanks for posting this great report! Beautiful photos. We stayed at Aqua Bay Villas last January and really enjoyed our villa as well as Elaine Estern's party/open house.

toni · Post by **toni** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 5:48 pm

Hi

Since we are arriving in only 7 days!, a few questions if you don't mind:

1)love rhumb lines, but never been for Sunday brunch-what's the Bloody Mary bar and how was brunch

2)we often hang at the beach bar but since we are staying at lavender hill this time we plan to explore a lot more of the bars. How's joes rum hut? It's sad that we just bee line right for the BB and miss some other places in that strip along the sand.

3)taxis-plan on using these since we aren't renting a car, I know I've seen them lined up at trunk and cinnamon and hawksnest maybe but what if you want to go farther out? Do you just give them a return time or flag down one that's going by?

Thanks for any feedback-appreciate that you wrote your report-no such thing as a boring one!

jayseadee · Post by **jayseadee** » Tue Nov 27, 2012 7:12 pm

HI Toni,

toni wrote:
1)love rhumb lines, but never been for Sunday brunch-what's the Bloody Mary bar and how was brunch

It's a make your own Bloody Mary - several types of vodka and all the fixings - here is my hubby checking it out. It was $8 for one or $15 unlimited; they even offered to-go cups. Brunch was good - I had a veggie omelette and I think Don had some kind of eggs benedict.

I think Banana Deck has a similar Bloody Mary setup

2)we often hang at the beach bar but since we are staying at lavender hill this time we plan to explore a lot more of the bars. How's joes rum hut? It's sad that we just bee line right for the BB and miss some other places in that strip along the sand.

Sounds like us, usually head to the BB and no where else. We liked Joe's Rum hut - great bartenders and good food. We had a lite dinner there one night and lunch the last day. Spyglass bar was fun and Motu is nice after Low Key closes for the evening.

3)taxis-plan on using these since we aren't renting a car, I know I've seen them lined up at trunk and cinnamon and hawksnest maybe but what if you want to go farther out? Do you just give them a return time or flag down one that's going by?

We had a car for Cinnamon and beyond. I imagine you could arrange for a pickup time; we didn't have to do that.

Have a great trip!

toni · Post by **toni** » Wed Nov 28, 2012 10:06 am

jayseadee wrote:HI Toni,

It's a make your own Bloody Mary - several types of vodka and all the fixings - here is my hubby checking it out. It was $8 for one or $15 unlimited; they even offered to-go cups. Brunch was good - I had a veggie omelette and I think Don had some kind of eggs benedict.

I think Banana Deck has a similar Bloody Mary setup

Thanks so much for all the info-$15 unlimited bloody mary's? I don't know how to make them, but I'm sure I can learn quickly

Yum!

PaminMaine · Post by **PaminMaine** » Wed Nov 28, 2012 7:11 pm

Love the title of the post!! What a great idea.

Beautiful photos..

jayseadee · Post by **jayseadee** » Fri Nov 30, 2012 5:10 pm

PaminMaine wrote:Love the title of the post!! What a great idea.
.

Thanks. The title was coined by an old boss. After approving my vacation he said "are you going back to one of those places where you sip Umbrella Drinks all day"

Tracy in WI · Post by **Tracy in WI** » Fri Nov 30, 2012 9:51 pm

That was fun - not a bit of boring in there at all! I really enjoyed your photos and would love to take a class with Steve Simonsen some day. Thanks so much for sharing!

cindygad · Post by **cindygad** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 7:34 am

Loved your report and it is good to know how to get around without a car for a few days. It would be a good option to extend the vacation a little more. Also how did you find out about the class with Steve Simionsen? I would love to do that. Your pictures were great and not boring at all.

jayseadee · Post by **jayseadee** » Sat Dec 01, 2012 5:17 pm

I contacted Janet Simonsen about the workshop and gave her my dates. She was able to schedule one during our stay. I posted the date here and was able to get a few forumites to participate - they need a minimum of 5.

I believe they now have one of the workshops scheduled for every Saturday during the season. His website gives the descriptions, but I couldn't find a schedule there. It really is a very worthwhile morning. The workshop was $55 for the morning.

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