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Trip Report - Group of 9 - part 2 , beware: VERY long
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martini girl
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 4:29 pm
- Location: Pennsylvania
Trip Report - Group of 9 - part 2 , beware: VERY long
Finally getting back to writing this thing, my daughter was home today with a stomach virus so I found a little time to continue with my report.
Sunday 2/3 - Super Bowl Sunday
We decide on Maho for our first beach. It is truly the "total package." Park right at the beach, beautiful clear water, spectacular views...what else can I say, definitely a favorite of ours. The girls were kept busy snorkeling and digging to China (one of many "big digs" during the week):
Since it was Super Bowl Sunday, we decided to stay in for dinner and watch the game. We had ordered a delivered dinner from Katilady to arrive around 5:00 pm. Earlier that morning, we had discovered that our oven was not working and had put in a call to Kathy @Island Getaways to leave a message. We were in a hurry to get to the beach on our first full day on STJ, so we really didn't give much thought to the broken oven, not realizing the impending impact for later in the day. When the meal arrived, it was not hot, and, of course the oven was not working. Lovely. We had paid over $400 to have this meal delivered, and now had to heat it in the microwave. Yuck. I was annoyed. Fortunately, my husband remembered the grill, and he set forth to re-heat using the grill and microwave. It came out good, not great, but good. I had complained to Katilady about the meal not arriving hot, as advertised, she made good by giving us a discount. Kathy at Island Getaways, however, only told us "Sorry, I forgot to tell you about the oven. A part is on order for it. You could've called Katilady to let them know it was not working." That's it. Again, rather annoying. I was glad we were not planning on doing much cooking that week, because it did not get fixed while we were there.
Monday 2/4
Our next day was spent at Trunk. There were only 2 cruise ships in STT, so it wasn't as crowded as I remembered from the previous trip. It was still as beautiful as I had remembered. There were many sailboats gliding across the horizon, I think the beach at Trunk is just breathtaking.
We had dinner reservations at the Lime Inn that night. It was a good thing, too, as it was so jammed that they were turning people away who didn't have reservations. We were seated right away, but had to wait almost 30 minutes for our first round of drinks. Bummer.
The wait staff was overwhelmed due to the sheer number of customers, they were really hustling. I think our food suffered as a result of the crowds, our meals were just so-so. Overall, rather disappointed with the Lime Inn this time.
Tuesday 2/5
We decided to give Vie's beach a try today followed by dinner at Shipwreck Landing. What a wonderful decision. I called Vie's before we left, she told me that she probably wouldn't be opening the shack today as she "had an appointment and didn't feel like seeing customers today." No chicken for us, but we went anyway. We enjoyed the drive, the beach was lovely, in fact, we enjoyed it so much, we never ventured back to see if the shack had opened. It apparantly had, but we left the beach around 5:00 in time to see Vie closing it down. Bummer again. Oh well, on to Shipwreck Landing. What a great place! Cool atomosphere, our server was phenomenal, she paid special attention to our kids and truly made our experience there wonderful, not to mention the food, which was amazing. Loved, loved, loved that place!
Note to Chicagoans - I remember your picture from Shipwreck...I think we sat at the same table as your group!
Weds 2/6
We wanted to try Gibney Beach today. We left early enough and got 2 of the 3 available parking spaces there, yes! We schlepped our stuff down the road to the beach, only to find that the tide was in and there was hardly any beach on which to deposit said stuff! What's up with that? Talk about disappointed. We wondered if it's like that all the time. I swear there was hardly any room for even just two people and two chairs. We decided to try Francis instead, and headed back to the cars, but not before taking a few shots of the water through the trees:
Goodbye Gibney:
Hello Francis:
We had a few hours of sunshine before the skies opened up and chased us back to our cars. A few episodes later of back and forth to the beach and the cars, we decided to head back to the villa and get ready for dinner at the Beach Bar. We managed to get one of the tables near the bar and enjoyed their great food and drinks. We mostly ordered appetizers, the Tuna Down Now was a big hit (I encouraged the guys to order it based on the forum reviews.) Overall, a great meal at the Beach Bar. Did some shopping and headed back to the villa.
Thursday 2/7
Cinnamon Bay, our favorite from our last trip. Not so much a favorite this trip. It was still a beautiful beach, but so much more crowded than we remembered. Way worse than Trunk, we kept saying it was like the Jersey shore in July. Who would've thought? The girls got busy digging, and the rum drinks were extremely powerful. Lots of napping going on that day. The girls got many of our surrounding beach neighbors involved in the digging of the holes as well:
Here's a picture of our favorite palm tree above Cinnamon:
On the way back to the villa, I wanted to stop at Jumbie Beach to take a look at it, but there was no parking available, maybe tomorrow. We had dinner at the Banana Deck that night. Lovely atmosphere, steel drum music playing, food was not bad either. Just loved the ambiance of that place.
Friday 2/8 - our last full day
We went back to Maho for our last day. We spread out and had the whole section of the beach to ourselves. Everytime people walked by looking for a place to set up shop, we told the kids to "make a lot of noise, start fighting" and the people would just walk on by to find another location. Sneaky, but it worked.
The sun was shining and we soaked it all in.
We did stop at Jumbie on our way back from Maho. It was deserted and oh so gorgeous. We'll certainly make that a must-do for our next trip.
We ate dinner at Paradiso on our last night. It was pricey, but did not disappoint. Two of the girls had kid-sized filet mignon which looked yummy, and the others had personal-sized pizza, which looked awesome too. Our meals were delicious as well. I mentioned pricey...a glass of non-descript California Chardonnay was $14, yikes! 28 bucks for two glasses of wine...yowie. Worse than NYC. Anyway, home to the villa to pack up for our departure the next day.
Woke up to a gorgeous sunrise:
Dropped off our cars, popped into St John Spice for some last minute purchases, got to meet Ruth who was soooo nice to chat with, and back on the ferry to Red Hook. Boo hoo.
Picture of Cruz Bay boats as we leave on the ferry:
Forgot to mention, while waiting for the ferry to depart, the girls spotted a stingray cruising along the shore in front of the Beach Bar...perhaps looking for scraps?? We also saw a ray swimming in knee-deep water along the shoreline at Maho, very cool.
Arrived at the STT airport at 11:00 for a 1:30 flight to long, long lines at the US Airways section. Great. I remembered the forum advice about the porters. We secured a great porter who immediately placed us in the first class check-in line (we were not flying first class), took our luggage and told us he'd be right back. The computers were down and they were hand-writing out the boarding passes, UGH! We made it through rather quickly, our porter reappears, tells us to wait in the mile-long cattle-shoot line at Customs and says "wait here, I'll be right back."
Two minutes later, he motions for us to follow him, walks us around all the people in line, and, like magic, a customs agent opens up another desk, and checks us through. I totally did not want to look back at the people in line for fear they would kill us with their dirty looks. We breezed thru the handicapped line of security (another line opened by our porter) and were seated at the gate in no time. Truly unbelievable, and well worth the tip to the porter. Our flight home was uneventful, arrived in Philly to chilly weather. Shortly after we got home, it starting snowing, and my daughter took this picture of our pool in our backyard, it was one of the last shots at the end of our vacation pictures:
Ahhh...winter in Pennsylvania. A far cry from our pool at Rendezview over Hart Bay.
Final thoughts to our trip to follow soon.
Sunday 2/3 - Super Bowl Sunday
We decide on Maho for our first beach. It is truly the "total package." Park right at the beach, beautiful clear water, spectacular views...what else can I say, definitely a favorite of ours. The girls were kept busy snorkeling and digging to China (one of many "big digs" during the week):
Since it was Super Bowl Sunday, we decided to stay in for dinner and watch the game. We had ordered a delivered dinner from Katilady to arrive around 5:00 pm. Earlier that morning, we had discovered that our oven was not working and had put in a call to Kathy @Island Getaways to leave a message. We were in a hurry to get to the beach on our first full day on STJ, so we really didn't give much thought to the broken oven, not realizing the impending impact for later in the day. When the meal arrived, it was not hot, and, of course the oven was not working. Lovely. We had paid over $400 to have this meal delivered, and now had to heat it in the microwave. Yuck. I was annoyed. Fortunately, my husband remembered the grill, and he set forth to re-heat using the grill and microwave. It came out good, not great, but good. I had complained to Katilady about the meal not arriving hot, as advertised, she made good by giving us a discount. Kathy at Island Getaways, however, only told us "Sorry, I forgot to tell you about the oven. A part is on order for it. You could've called Katilady to let them know it was not working." That's it. Again, rather annoying. I was glad we were not planning on doing much cooking that week, because it did not get fixed while we were there.
Monday 2/4
Our next day was spent at Trunk. There were only 2 cruise ships in STT, so it wasn't as crowded as I remembered from the previous trip. It was still as beautiful as I had remembered. There were many sailboats gliding across the horizon, I think the beach at Trunk is just breathtaking.
We had dinner reservations at the Lime Inn that night. It was a good thing, too, as it was so jammed that they were turning people away who didn't have reservations. We were seated right away, but had to wait almost 30 minutes for our first round of drinks. Bummer.
The wait staff was overwhelmed due to the sheer number of customers, they were really hustling. I think our food suffered as a result of the crowds, our meals were just so-so. Overall, rather disappointed with the Lime Inn this time.
Tuesday 2/5
We decided to give Vie's beach a try today followed by dinner at Shipwreck Landing. What a wonderful decision. I called Vie's before we left, she told me that she probably wouldn't be opening the shack today as she "had an appointment and didn't feel like seeing customers today." No chicken for us, but we went anyway. We enjoyed the drive, the beach was lovely, in fact, we enjoyed it so much, we never ventured back to see if the shack had opened. It apparantly had, but we left the beach around 5:00 in time to see Vie closing it down. Bummer again. Oh well, on to Shipwreck Landing. What a great place! Cool atomosphere, our server was phenomenal, she paid special attention to our kids and truly made our experience there wonderful, not to mention the food, which was amazing. Loved, loved, loved that place!
Note to Chicagoans - I remember your picture from Shipwreck...I think we sat at the same table as your group!
Weds 2/6
We wanted to try Gibney Beach today. We left early enough and got 2 of the 3 available parking spaces there, yes! We schlepped our stuff down the road to the beach, only to find that the tide was in and there was hardly any beach on which to deposit said stuff! What's up with that? Talk about disappointed. We wondered if it's like that all the time. I swear there was hardly any room for even just two people and two chairs. We decided to try Francis instead, and headed back to the cars, but not before taking a few shots of the water through the trees:
Goodbye Gibney:
Hello Francis:
We had a few hours of sunshine before the skies opened up and chased us back to our cars. A few episodes later of back and forth to the beach and the cars, we decided to head back to the villa and get ready for dinner at the Beach Bar. We managed to get one of the tables near the bar and enjoyed their great food and drinks. We mostly ordered appetizers, the Tuna Down Now was a big hit (I encouraged the guys to order it based on the forum reviews.) Overall, a great meal at the Beach Bar. Did some shopping and headed back to the villa.
Thursday 2/7
Cinnamon Bay, our favorite from our last trip. Not so much a favorite this trip. It was still a beautiful beach, but so much more crowded than we remembered. Way worse than Trunk, we kept saying it was like the Jersey shore in July. Who would've thought? The girls got busy digging, and the rum drinks were extremely powerful. Lots of napping going on that day. The girls got many of our surrounding beach neighbors involved in the digging of the holes as well:
Here's a picture of our favorite palm tree above Cinnamon:
On the way back to the villa, I wanted to stop at Jumbie Beach to take a look at it, but there was no parking available, maybe tomorrow. We had dinner at the Banana Deck that night. Lovely atmosphere, steel drum music playing, food was not bad either. Just loved the ambiance of that place.
Friday 2/8 - our last full day
We went back to Maho for our last day. We spread out and had the whole section of the beach to ourselves. Everytime people walked by looking for a place to set up shop, we told the kids to "make a lot of noise, start fighting" and the people would just walk on by to find another location. Sneaky, but it worked.
The sun was shining and we soaked it all in.
We did stop at Jumbie on our way back from Maho. It was deserted and oh so gorgeous. We'll certainly make that a must-do for our next trip.
We ate dinner at Paradiso on our last night. It was pricey, but did not disappoint. Two of the girls had kid-sized filet mignon which looked yummy, and the others had personal-sized pizza, which looked awesome too. Our meals were delicious as well. I mentioned pricey...a glass of non-descript California Chardonnay was $14, yikes! 28 bucks for two glasses of wine...yowie. Worse than NYC. Anyway, home to the villa to pack up for our departure the next day.
Woke up to a gorgeous sunrise:
Dropped off our cars, popped into St John Spice for some last minute purchases, got to meet Ruth who was soooo nice to chat with, and back on the ferry to Red Hook. Boo hoo.
Picture of Cruz Bay boats as we leave on the ferry:
Forgot to mention, while waiting for the ferry to depart, the girls spotted a stingray cruising along the shore in front of the Beach Bar...perhaps looking for scraps?? We also saw a ray swimming in knee-deep water along the shoreline at Maho, very cool.
Arrived at the STT airport at 11:00 for a 1:30 flight to long, long lines at the US Airways section. Great. I remembered the forum advice about the porters. We secured a great porter who immediately placed us in the first class check-in line (we were not flying first class), took our luggage and told us he'd be right back. The computers were down and they were hand-writing out the boarding passes, UGH! We made it through rather quickly, our porter reappears, tells us to wait in the mile-long cattle-shoot line at Customs and says "wait here, I'll be right back."
Two minutes later, he motions for us to follow him, walks us around all the people in line, and, like magic, a customs agent opens up another desk, and checks us through. I totally did not want to look back at the people in line for fear they would kill us with their dirty looks. We breezed thru the handicapped line of security (another line opened by our porter) and were seated at the gate in no time. Truly unbelievable, and well worth the tip to the porter. Our flight home was uneventful, arrived in Philly to chilly weather. Shortly after we got home, it starting snowing, and my daughter took this picture of our pool in our backyard, it was one of the last shots at the end of our vacation pictures:
Ahhh...winter in Pennsylvania. A far cry from our pool at Rendezview over Hart Bay.
Final thoughts to our trip to follow soon.
how does the "porter tip" work
Curious how many were in your group, amount of luggage, etc.
How much was the tip?
Are they easily identifiable?
thx, jp
How much was the tip?
Are they easily identifiable?
thx, jp
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chicagoans
- Posts: 1586
- Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:51 pm
- Location: IL
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traveler22
- Posts: 853
- Joined: Fri Dec 29, 2006 5:17 pm
- Location: New Jersey
Loved the sunrise shots gotta get them fast for that much color as it doesn't last long like the sunset.
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Robin in NC
- Posts: 332
- Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2006 7:19 pm
- Location: Kernersville, NC
Wow, I don't know which is worse - to pay thousands for a villa and have the oven not work, or to pay $400 for a catered dinner that's delivered cold. Kathy at Island Getaways and Katilady have good reputations, but they won't maintain them with that kind of service. I really felt for you, but it seems you had a wonderful trip in spite of the screwups at the beginning. Thanks for sharing, and for the great pix!
Robin
Robin
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martini girl
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Wed Aug 16, 2006 4:29 pm
- Location: Pennsylvania
JP - there were nine of us in our group, nine pieces of luggage (all on one cart, see Part 1 of my TR for a picture), each family tipped him $40, so he made $80 from us, definately money well spent on our part. The porters are standing curbside with their luggage carts where you get dropped of from your taxi.
Lisa - hope we didn't chase you away at Maho! Saw your husband's Stone Harbor t-shirt in one of your pictures (or was it Fred's Tavern?)...brings back many summer memories.
Thanks everyone for your kind words. We really had a wonderful trip, despite our little bumps.
Still curious about Gibney...for those folks who get there early, is there just a sliver of beach in the morning when you get there, or was it just the time of year?
Lisa - hope we didn't chase you away at Maho! Saw your husband's Stone Harbor t-shirt in one of your pictures (or was it Fred's Tavern?)...brings back many summer memories.
Thanks everyone for your kind words. We really had a wonderful trip, despite our little bumps.
Still curious about Gibney...for those folks who get there early, is there just a sliver of beach in the morning when you get there, or was it just the time of year?
Loved Maho. We don't go back until August, and I can't wait. Thanks for the pics, too 