usvi-on-line
2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
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michigan girls
- Posts: 595
- Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2012 5:06 pm
- Location: West Michigan
2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
Trip report links:
Part one: http://virgin-islands-on-line.com/virgi ... =1&t=25215
Part two: http://virgin-islands-on-line.com/virgi ... =1&t=25219
Part three: http://virgin-islands-on-line.com/virgi ... =1&t=25226
Part four: http://virgin-islands-on-line.com/virgi ... =1&t=25256
A look back on the restaurants, services, etc from our April 2013 trip
Villa: http://satinwood-usvi.com/
We stayed at Satinwood, which is managed by Cimmaron. Won't go into detail here, other than we really liked it. I just finished a review on the villa reviews forum. The link to my review - http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... views.html. I found Cimmaron (http://www.cimmaronstjohn.com/)to be efficient and friendly. I am already working with them on reserving for our upcoming trip and they are super helpful there. Our villa greeter was Lewis and we really liked him as well.
Rental Car: http://www.conradcars.com/
We went with Conrad Sutton, our second time. We really enjoy them, and the cars are in great shape. I've read reports about them being grumpy there, but I've never seen it. They have nice rates and good cars, we'll use them again. This trip we had a 2 door Wrangler and a Dodge Nitro.
Getting there and home:
Airline - We always fly American Airlines. http://www.aa.com I love them and have never had an issue. They did change our flight times slightly this trip, but it got us in earlier and out later - it was like a gift
Taxi - We used Christopher Taxi http://www.watertaxi-vi.com/ to get to Red Hook. This was set up for us by Dohm's. They were there waiting for us with my name on a sign. We had the same driver both arriving and departing, and she was great.
Water Taxi - We used Dohm's Water Taxi again this year. http://www.watertaxi-vi.com/ They had a chilled bottle of champagne waiting for us for the trip over and were great with handling all our luggage. For a group our size, taking a private taxi is not that much more than taking the ferry and I really like their service. They were prompt in picking us up for departure as well.
Groceries - We did our main shopping at Starfish, http://starfishmarket.com/ as I really enjoy their selection and the parking is so easy there. We did do one supplemental trip to Love City Mini Mart http://www.st-john-map.com/grocery-stor ... -mini-mart in Coral Bay. This place looks dumpy on the outside, but they had a decent selection and pretty good prices. The staff there is also very friendly.
St John Ice - (no website) I intended to take a picture of the building, as I often see people asking how to find it (in fact, I've posted that question myself once), but I forgot to. It's actually pretty easy to find. It is in The Lumberyard - which is the same area as Cruz Bay Watersports. If you're looking at the roundabout from the main road from town (by Woody's), it's the next road on the roundabout to the left. You pull in where you see the sign for Jake's and Cruz Bay Watersports. It's kind of a weird lot, but spaces can generally be found, although you might have to go to the back of the lot. St John Ice is on the same side as Cruz Bay Watersports, a couple places down. It's a light turquoise color and pretty hard to miss, once you've managed to find the correct parking lot.
Restuarants -
Aqua Bistro - http://www.aquabistrostjohn.com/ always a favorite. If you're a tuna fan, go on Friday night for the Ponzu Tuna, it's so good. I really think they have the best conch fritters on the island also and the bartender makes a wicked bushwacker.
Miss Lucy's - http://misslucys.com/ Sunday morning Jazz Brunch is great. It starts at 10, but get there by 9:30 for a good table.
Iguana Grill - https://www.facebook.com/IguanaGrill reasonably priced with a pretty decent menu. The buffalo wings are super, and I'm not much of a wings fan.
Rhumb Lines - http://www.rhumblinesstjohn.com/ great menu, cool atmosphere. Kind of hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for. You walk through the Bayside mini mart to get to it.
High Tide - http://www.hightidevi.com/ Their drinks and shots are great. The staff is a lot of fun and the location is wonderful. The only food I had there was conch fritters. They weren't bad, but they don't measure up to Aqua Bistro's.
Ekaete Pink Corner - http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_R ... lands.html
We only had ice cream there, but that was really good, as was the service. I love soursop, and their homemade soursop ice cream did not disappoint.
JJ's Texas Coast Cafe - http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_R ... lands.html We had smoothies here one day and breakfast there on our departure day. It was good, and reasonable. The wandering chickens with their babies trailing behind were cute to watch while we waited on our food.
Retail:
Cruz Bay Watersports - http://www.divestjohn.com/ we had to buy a full snorkel set this year, as one of our people didn't think he needed his own, then changed his mind. They were about $30 more expensive than I paid for the same set for my daughter on Amazon, but it was a very nice set, and I didn't think that was too bad. The staff there was very helpful. They also helped us arrange parasailing.
St John Spice - http://stjohnspice.com/ always my favorite stop. The smell in that store - if they could bottle that I would buy it by the gallon. This years purchases included Kiss of Jumbie coffee, Cruz Bay Grill Rub (I put that s**t on everything), some t-shirts, a new coverup, a new hat and the Cruzan sampler with 8 different flavors.
The Soggy Dollar gift shop (Jost Van Dyke) - http://www.soggydollar.com/ cool stuff there, I bought the ring game, a hat and a t-shirt. It was pretty reasonable and the guy working was so funny, we were cracking up.
BVI trip - Island Roots - http://www.islandrootsusvi.com/ I've said it a whole bunch of times on this forum, but I'll repeat it again here. We LOVE captain John at Island Roots. He is so efficient, professional, knowledgeable, and fun. He never fails to make our day awesome. This was our second day trip with him, and it most certainly will not be the last. He's just great, nuff said.
Westin - http://www.westinresortstjohn.com/ As I may have mentioned a few (several) times, I am not a "resort" type girl. However, if I were to stay at a resort, the Westin would be it. We went there for parasailing, and also spent some time in the pool and at the pool bar. Everyone we dealt with there was super nice, like above and beyond kind of nice.
Part one: http://virgin-islands-on-line.com/virgi ... =1&t=25215
Part two: http://virgin-islands-on-line.com/virgi ... =1&t=25219
Part three: http://virgin-islands-on-line.com/virgi ... =1&t=25226
Part four: http://virgin-islands-on-line.com/virgi ... =1&t=25256
A look back on the restaurants, services, etc from our April 2013 trip
Villa: http://satinwood-usvi.com/
We stayed at Satinwood, which is managed by Cimmaron. Won't go into detail here, other than we really liked it. I just finished a review on the villa reviews forum. The link to my review - http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/v ... views.html. I found Cimmaron (http://www.cimmaronstjohn.com/)to be efficient and friendly. I am already working with them on reserving for our upcoming trip and they are super helpful there. Our villa greeter was Lewis and we really liked him as well.
Rental Car: http://www.conradcars.com/
We went with Conrad Sutton, our second time. We really enjoy them, and the cars are in great shape. I've read reports about them being grumpy there, but I've never seen it. They have nice rates and good cars, we'll use them again. This trip we had a 2 door Wrangler and a Dodge Nitro.
Getting there and home:
Airline - We always fly American Airlines. http://www.aa.com I love them and have never had an issue. They did change our flight times slightly this trip, but it got us in earlier and out later - it was like a gift
Taxi - We used Christopher Taxi http://www.watertaxi-vi.com/ to get to Red Hook. This was set up for us by Dohm's. They were there waiting for us with my name on a sign. We had the same driver both arriving and departing, and she was great.
Water Taxi - We used Dohm's Water Taxi again this year. http://www.watertaxi-vi.com/ They had a chilled bottle of champagne waiting for us for the trip over and were great with handling all our luggage. For a group our size, taking a private taxi is not that much more than taking the ferry and I really like their service. They were prompt in picking us up for departure as well.
Groceries - We did our main shopping at Starfish, http://starfishmarket.com/ as I really enjoy their selection and the parking is so easy there. We did do one supplemental trip to Love City Mini Mart http://www.st-john-map.com/grocery-stor ... -mini-mart in Coral Bay. This place looks dumpy on the outside, but they had a decent selection and pretty good prices. The staff there is also very friendly.
St John Ice - (no website) I intended to take a picture of the building, as I often see people asking how to find it (in fact, I've posted that question myself once), but I forgot to. It's actually pretty easy to find. It is in The Lumberyard - which is the same area as Cruz Bay Watersports. If you're looking at the roundabout from the main road from town (by Woody's), it's the next road on the roundabout to the left. You pull in where you see the sign for Jake's and Cruz Bay Watersports. It's kind of a weird lot, but spaces can generally be found, although you might have to go to the back of the lot. St John Ice is on the same side as Cruz Bay Watersports, a couple places down. It's a light turquoise color and pretty hard to miss, once you've managed to find the correct parking lot.
Restuarants -
Aqua Bistro - http://www.aquabistrostjohn.com/ always a favorite. If you're a tuna fan, go on Friday night for the Ponzu Tuna, it's so good. I really think they have the best conch fritters on the island also and the bartender makes a wicked bushwacker.
Miss Lucy's - http://misslucys.com/ Sunday morning Jazz Brunch is great. It starts at 10, but get there by 9:30 for a good table.
Iguana Grill - https://www.facebook.com/IguanaGrill reasonably priced with a pretty decent menu. The buffalo wings are super, and I'm not much of a wings fan.
Rhumb Lines - http://www.rhumblinesstjohn.com/ great menu, cool atmosphere. Kind of hard to find if you don't know what you're looking for. You walk through the Bayside mini mart to get to it.
High Tide - http://www.hightidevi.com/ Their drinks and shots are great. The staff is a lot of fun and the location is wonderful. The only food I had there was conch fritters. They weren't bad, but they don't measure up to Aqua Bistro's.
Ekaete Pink Corner - http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_R ... lands.html
We only had ice cream there, but that was really good, as was the service. I love soursop, and their homemade soursop ice cream did not disappoint.
JJ's Texas Coast Cafe - http://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_R ... lands.html We had smoothies here one day and breakfast there on our departure day. It was good, and reasonable. The wandering chickens with their babies trailing behind were cute to watch while we waited on our food.
Retail:
Cruz Bay Watersports - http://www.divestjohn.com/ we had to buy a full snorkel set this year, as one of our people didn't think he needed his own, then changed his mind. They were about $30 more expensive than I paid for the same set for my daughter on Amazon, but it was a very nice set, and I didn't think that was too bad. The staff there was very helpful. They also helped us arrange parasailing.
St John Spice - http://stjohnspice.com/ always my favorite stop. The smell in that store - if they could bottle that I would buy it by the gallon. This years purchases included Kiss of Jumbie coffee, Cruz Bay Grill Rub (I put that s**t on everything), some t-shirts, a new coverup, a new hat and the Cruzan sampler with 8 different flavors.
The Soggy Dollar gift shop (Jost Van Dyke) - http://www.soggydollar.com/ cool stuff there, I bought the ring game, a hat and a t-shirt. It was pretty reasonable and the guy working was so funny, we were cracking up.
BVI trip - Island Roots - http://www.islandrootsusvi.com/ I've said it a whole bunch of times on this forum, but I'll repeat it again here. We LOVE captain John at Island Roots. He is so efficient, professional, knowledgeable, and fun. He never fails to make our day awesome. This was our second day trip with him, and it most certainly will not be the last. He's just great, nuff said.
Westin - http://www.westinresortstjohn.com/ As I may have mentioned a few (several) times, I am not a "resort" type girl. However, if I were to stay at a resort, the Westin would be it. We went there for parasailing, and also spent some time in the pool and at the pool bar. Everyone we dealt with there was super nice, like above and beyond kind of nice.
Last edited by michigan girls on Sun Apr 21, 2013 8:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
Lots of good information! We have never been to St. John Ice. What all do they have and how do they compare price wise?
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
Thanks for writing & sharing!
STJ Villa Map:
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... 2&t=h&z=14
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie ... 2&t=h&z=14
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michigan girls
- Posts: 595
- Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2012 5:06 pm
- Location: West Michigan
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
It's the best value on the island for ice and water. We bought just enough individual bottles of water at the grocery store so we each had a bottle, then just refilled them with gallons that we bought there.DonnaM wrote:Lots of good information! We have never been to St. John Ice. What all do they have and how do they compare price wise?
It's also a lot more earth friendly than throwing away all those water bottles
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ColumbiaSCTraveler
- Posts: 528
- Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2011 9:33 pm
- Location: Columbia, SC
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
Thanks for the trip report!
That scorpion in the last post - WOW! I hope to NEVER see one of those!!!
DITTO St. John Ice. We buy 8 gallons of water the first day, and usually refill them a time or two, and use them for cooking, refilling our individual water bottles, etc. Do this!!!
That scorpion in the last post - WOW! I hope to NEVER see one of those!!!
DITTO St. John Ice. We buy 8 gallons of water the first day, and usually refill them a time or two, and use them for cooking, refilling our individual water bottles, etc. Do this!!!
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
Good to know! Though we just had a UV filter installed, finally, so we shouldn't need it. Do they sell bags of ice cheaper than Starfish? I would pick some up for coolers, for sure.
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michigan girls
- Posts: 595
- Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2012 5:06 pm
- Location: West Michigan
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
The huge bag of ice was about $7, but it was a HUGE bag. I've never bought ice at Starfish, so I don't know what it costs there.DonnaM wrote:Good to know! Though we just had a UV filter installed, finally, so we shouldn't need it. Do they sell bags of ice cheaper than Starfish? I would pick some up for coolers, for sure.
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
Thank you for posting - and so well organized. We are 12 (!!!) days away from our trip. And while we have been many times before, it has been a while, so I found your insights extremely valuable!
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
We are also huge Christopher/Dohm's fans. I agree, with a group, especially if you have luggage, it ends up a couple of bucks more per person and so easy and relaxing.
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MadCityMom
- Posts: 124
- Joined: Thu Jan 31, 2013 5:45 pm
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
We are using Chistopher's to Red Hook. Do they take credit cards or do i need cash for that? They took a cc to hold my reservation but just want to be sure. Thanks!
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michigan girls
- Posts: 595
- Joined: Tue Feb 21, 2012 5:06 pm
- Location: West Michigan
Re: 2013 Reviews for services/places/etc
They take credit cardsMadCityMom wrote:We are using Chistopher's to Red Hook. Do they take credit cards or do i need cash for that? They took a cc to hold my reservation but just want to be sure. Thanks!