usvi-on-line
Trip Review Part One (is there a prize for length?) 6/23-30
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HawkeyeChick
- Posts: 76
- Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:59 am
Trip Review Part One (is there a prize for length?) 6/23-30
Getting to the chase (details below)
Flights: Reivew current travel guidelines to avoid losing all your stuff. Tell all ticket agents you are a Hawkeye fan and you might get bumped to First Class.
Food: Miss Lucy's was worth the 2 hour round trip but the waitress needed to relax. I'm glad chicken was not on the menu as I couldn't do that to the live runs running around my feet. Caneel Bay is a gorgeous resort but they shouldn't try to serve food.
Beach: One can have great success snorkeling while on a floatie.
Details
We had a great trip into StJ. Just a word of warning for those who haven't flown recently, look into the new travel guidelines. We haven't been on a flight in awhile and I didn't know about only having liquids less than 3.4 oz and having them in a baggie.
Our trip from Omaha to Chicago was uneventful. Once in Chicago, we asked the desk attendant if it was possible to be seated together. The flight was booked so we figured the answer would be "no" but she did some looking. While talking with her, we found out she's from Iowa and is a big Hawkeye fan, like us. She managed to get two seats together for us. We thanked her profusely and waited to get on the plane. As we were starting to board, she ran up to us and said she changed our seats and hoped we wouldn't mind. We looked down at the seat number - row 6 - first class. All for being a Hawkeye.
The flight was awesome. We had a really good breakfast (by airline standards), a bit of champagne, some hot towels and lots of snacks/drinks. It was an awesome way to start the trip.
We arrived at the airport and, to be honest, I expected much worse. We waited maybe an hour for our luggage. The guy next to us had been there two hours but it was his 15th trip to STJ so he seemed prepared for it. I made the mistake of asking him if he was a forum member. Let's just say he was not. Apparently he doesn't like to share his information. Fair enough.
We headed to the Caneel Bay holding area. It was nice to sit in the air conditioning after waiting in baggage claim! Caneel Bay's staff took our luggage and tagged it. We didn't see it again until it showed up in our rooms. The people were really nice and quickly got us in a taxi. After a 10 minute car ride, we were at the dock. The ferry ride over was great - rum punch, cool breezes, and some adventurous seagulls riding the wind from the ferry. Coming up to Caneel was beautiful. It just looked like paradise. We were met on the dock by a girl holding cool towels and more drinks. After a fast tour of the main area, she took us by a golf cart to our room.
I have a review on Caneel Bay here http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1 ... lands.html I realize there aren't a ton of fans of Caneel here so I'll leave that info out.
We had a nice tour of the place and then decided to have some food and check out a beach or two. We had lunch at the Caneel Bay Beach Bar (which I totally confused for the Cruz Bay Beach Bar). It wasn't bad. The choices were limited so we had a burger and a tuna salad wrap. We walked around the grounds a bit to check things out. After that we both crashed really early (8-9pm). We had been up so many nights getting things in order that we really needed the sleep.
Sunday we woke up and decided we'd go to Miss Lucy's for brunch. We had no idea it was on the other side of the island. I had information overload from reading so many websites and got lost in the details. So the taxi driver took us into Cruz Bay and said we could take the Centerline Bus to Coral Bay. While waiting, I ran up to meet Ruth. We had a quick chat and had to get on the bus. It was $1/person to get all the way to the other side of the island. Not a bad deal! The ride was actually quite fun. The views were great and it was fun to watch the locals getting on and off the bus. An hour later, the driver dropped us off on the side of the road. The thought was just forming in my mind - OMG, we're in the middle of nowhere with no ride back - when I saw Miss Lucy's sign. It was a cute place. We found a table under the sea grape. The meal itself was great. I had the banana pancakes. My husband had the stuffed French toast. We each had mimosas. I guess since no one knew him there, he didn't mind the "girlie drink." Our waitress was terrible. She wasn't on island time at all. I think she had three tables and she was running around like a chicken with her head cut off (which would have scared the crap out of the 4 chickens we were dining with). I have no idea what her deal was but I wanted to pour her a drink and tell her to relax.
We had two hours for the bus to come back and pick us up. As we were waiting, we kept seeing chickens crossing the road. Hilarious! I wanted a picture so bad. I could picture it in a big frame with a mat that read "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to Miss Lucys!" LOL. No such luck though. Those little buggers wouldn't come close enough to us for the shot. Finally the chef/cook came out to ask us if we were waiting for the bus. He explained that sometimes the bus comes back, sometimes it doesn't. I asked what in the heck do people do if they don't come back. His answer? They hitch. Ok, I am from Chicago. We do not hitch a ride unless we've lost a limb and therefore cannot walk on our own. "Hitching" never enters any other equation. He must have read the look on my face because he explained it was perfectly safe and, in fact, that's how he got to work that day. As he was ending his sentence, the bus pulled up. Thank God!
We pulled back into Cruz Bay and I ran back up to Ruth's place. We stocked up on some cool stuff and had a really nice talk with Ruth and her family. We left with some great advice too. We walked around Cruz Bay a bit and it felt like I'd finally found the treasure at the end of the map! I kept seeing places I'd read about or had seen photos of.
We headed back to Caneel Bay and decided to head to Hawksnest before the beach bar get together (which Ruth had kindly informed me was in Cruz Bay). We grabbed some floaties and floated out in the bay. Now, I'm not adventurous and I only like nature under my own terms. So be it. I'm no hero. I wasn't particularly thrilled about meeting a barracuda (no matter how great a story it would have made - heck, I could have said it was a shark, right?), a stingray or anything else that could potentially freak me out. So, given that, I was parked on my floatie with my snorkel gear in place. Yes, yes, it was quite a site. I decided I would only look in the water from time to time. Otherwise I wanted to relax and float. I was on my belly when I saw it - a HUGE RAY. I mean HUGE. Bigger than any of you have ever seen I promise you (at least that's what I'm telling everyone). It slid right under me. I started to panic and then realized if I panicked, I'd tip over and he and I would become fast friends. So I took a deep breath and decided to plunk my head into the water. He was gone. I'm not sure how this happened but all of a sudden I had a huge drive to find him again. Not a big enough drive to get off my floatie mind you, but I at least wanted to look. A few seconds later I saw him swimming toward my husband, which I thought was very cool even though it freaked him out a bit. After that we saw a whole family of turtles. There I was, without my camera! Damn.
After seeing enough sea life for one day (really I was sick of the snickers I was getting about my snorkel floatie), we parked our butts on the beach under a sea grape. We were trying to figure out what the other beaches in the bay were as I drifted asleep. Two hours later, we woke up. That was one of the best parts of our vacation - waking up to an amazing view with nothing else to do. We missed the beach bar get together but I'm sure you all will understand.
We headed back to our rooms to clean up and decided to take in dinner at the Equator. The place itself was really cool. It's set in an old Sugar Mill ruin (I explained to my husband it might be a REALLY good idea not to tell anyone that he's Danish) with gorgeous views of St. Thomas. The candles were lit, white table cloths were set with nice table settings. What could go wrong? Well, they served us food, that's what went wrong. They consider their food a fusion of Asia and Caribbean. I considered it a mix of a few take outs I'd normally have in my fridge. I had a jerk chicken on fried rice. Yeah, you're right, they don't go together. My husband had a steak because you can take the farm boy off the farm but you can't make him eat anything other than steak. He said it was ok at best. We had a few nice wines and figured no one can screw up dessert, right? So we ordered a cheesecake - a hard, dense cheesecake. Someone forgot to tell the pastry chef the secrets of making cheesecake include sour cream and a bain marie (sp?). The compote with it was great though. I sound bitter but I wasn't. Hell, a bad meal in the Caribbean is better than a perfect meal here. The $160 price tag made me gasp though.
After a great, long day, we headed back to the room and planned out the next day.
Flights: Reivew current travel guidelines to avoid losing all your stuff. Tell all ticket agents you are a Hawkeye fan and you might get bumped to First Class.
Food: Miss Lucy's was worth the 2 hour round trip but the waitress needed to relax. I'm glad chicken was not on the menu as I couldn't do that to the live runs running around my feet. Caneel Bay is a gorgeous resort but they shouldn't try to serve food.
Beach: One can have great success snorkeling while on a floatie.
Details
We had a great trip into StJ. Just a word of warning for those who haven't flown recently, look into the new travel guidelines. We haven't been on a flight in awhile and I didn't know about only having liquids less than 3.4 oz and having them in a baggie.
Our trip from Omaha to Chicago was uneventful. Once in Chicago, we asked the desk attendant if it was possible to be seated together. The flight was booked so we figured the answer would be "no" but she did some looking. While talking with her, we found out she's from Iowa and is a big Hawkeye fan, like us. She managed to get two seats together for us. We thanked her profusely and waited to get on the plane. As we were starting to board, she ran up to us and said she changed our seats and hoped we wouldn't mind. We looked down at the seat number - row 6 - first class. All for being a Hawkeye.
The flight was awesome. We had a really good breakfast (by airline standards), a bit of champagne, some hot towels and lots of snacks/drinks. It was an awesome way to start the trip.
We arrived at the airport and, to be honest, I expected much worse. We waited maybe an hour for our luggage. The guy next to us had been there two hours but it was his 15th trip to STJ so he seemed prepared for it. I made the mistake of asking him if he was a forum member. Let's just say he was not. Apparently he doesn't like to share his information. Fair enough.
We headed to the Caneel Bay holding area. It was nice to sit in the air conditioning after waiting in baggage claim! Caneel Bay's staff took our luggage and tagged it. We didn't see it again until it showed up in our rooms. The people were really nice and quickly got us in a taxi. After a 10 minute car ride, we were at the dock. The ferry ride over was great - rum punch, cool breezes, and some adventurous seagulls riding the wind from the ferry. Coming up to Caneel was beautiful. It just looked like paradise. We were met on the dock by a girl holding cool towels and more drinks. After a fast tour of the main area, she took us by a golf cart to our room.
I have a review on Caneel Bay here http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g1 ... lands.html I realize there aren't a ton of fans of Caneel here so I'll leave that info out.
We had a nice tour of the place and then decided to have some food and check out a beach or two. We had lunch at the Caneel Bay Beach Bar (which I totally confused for the Cruz Bay Beach Bar). It wasn't bad. The choices were limited so we had a burger and a tuna salad wrap. We walked around the grounds a bit to check things out. After that we both crashed really early (8-9pm). We had been up so many nights getting things in order that we really needed the sleep.
Sunday we woke up and decided we'd go to Miss Lucy's for brunch. We had no idea it was on the other side of the island. I had information overload from reading so many websites and got lost in the details. So the taxi driver took us into Cruz Bay and said we could take the Centerline Bus to Coral Bay. While waiting, I ran up to meet Ruth. We had a quick chat and had to get on the bus. It was $1/person to get all the way to the other side of the island. Not a bad deal! The ride was actually quite fun. The views were great and it was fun to watch the locals getting on and off the bus. An hour later, the driver dropped us off on the side of the road. The thought was just forming in my mind - OMG, we're in the middle of nowhere with no ride back - when I saw Miss Lucy's sign. It was a cute place. We found a table under the sea grape. The meal itself was great. I had the banana pancakes. My husband had the stuffed French toast. We each had mimosas. I guess since no one knew him there, he didn't mind the "girlie drink." Our waitress was terrible. She wasn't on island time at all. I think she had three tables and she was running around like a chicken with her head cut off (which would have scared the crap out of the 4 chickens we were dining with). I have no idea what her deal was but I wanted to pour her a drink and tell her to relax.
We had two hours for the bus to come back and pick us up. As we were waiting, we kept seeing chickens crossing the road. Hilarious! I wanted a picture so bad. I could picture it in a big frame with a mat that read "Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to Miss Lucys!" LOL. No such luck though. Those little buggers wouldn't come close enough to us for the shot. Finally the chef/cook came out to ask us if we were waiting for the bus. He explained that sometimes the bus comes back, sometimes it doesn't. I asked what in the heck do people do if they don't come back. His answer? They hitch. Ok, I am from Chicago. We do not hitch a ride unless we've lost a limb and therefore cannot walk on our own. "Hitching" never enters any other equation. He must have read the look on my face because he explained it was perfectly safe and, in fact, that's how he got to work that day. As he was ending his sentence, the bus pulled up. Thank God!
We pulled back into Cruz Bay and I ran back up to Ruth's place. We stocked up on some cool stuff and had a really nice talk with Ruth and her family. We left with some great advice too. We walked around Cruz Bay a bit and it felt like I'd finally found the treasure at the end of the map! I kept seeing places I'd read about or had seen photos of.
We headed back to Caneel Bay and decided to head to Hawksnest before the beach bar get together (which Ruth had kindly informed me was in Cruz Bay). We grabbed some floaties and floated out in the bay. Now, I'm not adventurous and I only like nature under my own terms. So be it. I'm no hero. I wasn't particularly thrilled about meeting a barracuda (no matter how great a story it would have made - heck, I could have said it was a shark, right?), a stingray or anything else that could potentially freak me out. So, given that, I was parked on my floatie with my snorkel gear in place. Yes, yes, it was quite a site. I decided I would only look in the water from time to time. Otherwise I wanted to relax and float. I was on my belly when I saw it - a HUGE RAY. I mean HUGE. Bigger than any of you have ever seen I promise you (at least that's what I'm telling everyone). It slid right under me. I started to panic and then realized if I panicked, I'd tip over and he and I would become fast friends. So I took a deep breath and decided to plunk my head into the water. He was gone. I'm not sure how this happened but all of a sudden I had a huge drive to find him again. Not a big enough drive to get off my floatie mind you, but I at least wanted to look. A few seconds later I saw him swimming toward my husband, which I thought was very cool even though it freaked him out a bit. After that we saw a whole family of turtles. There I was, without my camera! Damn.
After seeing enough sea life for one day (really I was sick of the snickers I was getting about my snorkel floatie), we parked our butts on the beach under a sea grape. We were trying to figure out what the other beaches in the bay were as I drifted asleep. Two hours later, we woke up. That was one of the best parts of our vacation - waking up to an amazing view with nothing else to do. We missed the beach bar get together but I'm sure you all will understand.
We headed back to our rooms to clean up and decided to take in dinner at the Equator. The place itself was really cool. It's set in an old Sugar Mill ruin (I explained to my husband it might be a REALLY good idea not to tell anyone that he's Danish) with gorgeous views of St. Thomas. The candles were lit, white table cloths were set with nice table settings. What could go wrong? Well, they served us food, that's what went wrong. They consider their food a fusion of Asia and Caribbean. I considered it a mix of a few take outs I'd normally have in my fridge. I had a jerk chicken on fried rice. Yeah, you're right, they don't go together. My husband had a steak because you can take the farm boy off the farm but you can't make him eat anything other than steak. He said it was ok at best. We had a few nice wines and figured no one can screw up dessert, right? So we ordered a cheesecake - a hard, dense cheesecake. Someone forgot to tell the pastry chef the secrets of making cheesecake include sour cream and a bain marie (sp?). The compote with it was great though. I sound bitter but I wasn't. Hell, a bad meal in the Caribbean is better than a perfect meal here. The $160 price tag made me gasp though.
After a great, long day, we headed back to the room and planned out the next day.
Enjoying it so far!
I do like Caneel as several others here do, so I read your other report as well. Sounds like you enjoyed your stay. We went to Equator our first night there as had heard mixed reviews on it, but we enjoyed our evening there.
We had the breakfast buffet included in our room rate and it was excellent, as was the salad bar at lunch.
Mmmmm, I could really go for sitting at that beach bar with a bloody mary right about now
We had the breakfast buffet included in our room rate and it was excellent, as was the salad bar at lunch.
Mmmmm, I could really go for sitting at that beach bar with a bloody mary right about now
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Robin in NC
- Posts: 332
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:19 pm
- Location: Kernersville, NC
The bus thing is not a legend, but it's not necessarily the best way to get to Coral Bay. We had a similar experience on one of our trips. We took the bus to Miss Lucy's for lunch and were told that it would return in approx 1 hour. We stood on the curb for an additional 1.5 hours at minimum with the many goats and a mom and daughter traveling together who had done the same thing as us. It was recommended afterward that one checks how many busses are running to consider the time factor.
Going "home" again October 26th!
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snorkelqueen
- Posts: 432
- Joined: Tue May 29, 2007 12:33 pm
- Location: california
Snicker at your floatie??? You should see me....I am old (60) but think I am 30 and really don't swim well but LOVE to snorkel (ie my family nicname snorkelqueen) My husband rigged up a small foam paddle board like kids use to learn to swim and kick...it has a leash which I put on my wrist. Most of the time it just floats behind me but if I get tired (I'm in the water for hours) or get caught in a current I just put my hand on it and it helps me stay afloat. Who cares how I look, I am in the water in paradise.....We'll be on island Sunday you may see me...please say hello.
WE paseed by Miss Lucy's but didn't stop to eat. We were meeting Nothintolose and her SO for dinner at shipwreck and were early so we took a drive. Wanted to go for sunday brunch but rented a boat and captain from ocean Runner instead! What a great day!
More when i finally catch up here and write my report!
More when i finally catch up here and write my report!