USVI-On-Line

I am glad that I read this... stirred up emotions.
It is good to remember - and good to look ahead.
Happy (St John) anniversary to you and Susan.

Thanks MBW and a few more softies. I am sitting here with tears in my eyes and thinking I am crazy. Well I atleast know I am in good company. Great post! Thanks!

Oh boy, what a lovely story.

I fell 'in love" with that little island, on a let's check out this island called "St John". We were visiting STT and a man in the next hotel room was bragging about St John to my husband. To make a long story short, we took the ferry over, rented a jeep and toured the island. That was in 1985. We have been all over the Caribbean and no other island can compare to this little treasure of an island. Paradise for me I call St John my soul island. I always feel very peaceful while on island. I can't explain it. I know not everyone "gets it" but if you do then I need not explain

Grace

I think I fell in love with STJ before I was ever there in person, just from reading the posts on this forum and witnessing the passion people have for it.

What a great story!!! SO GLAD you wrote/posted this & I had a chance to read it! Thanks so much!

Nice story, thanks for sharing!

liamsaunt wrote:That was awesome.

Ditto!!!

You made me smile out loud - thank you for the great story!

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I loved your story! My husband and I were STJ first timers in May and we're completely in love with the island and WE GET IT!! We can't wait to go back!!

Same thing happened to us on a Disney Cruise in 2002. I couldn't imagine shlepping the kids & stuff all the way over to a ferry to visit STJ for just a few hours! But, when we hit the north shore road, the overlooks and Cinnamon Bay we were hooked! We had our first painkillers and Woody's and I can seriously tell you that I don't remember how we made it back to the cruise ship! (back when I had a "virgin liver"!)

We returned home and starting planning our first villa trip and have been back every year since!

I could possibly forget about St. John if it wasn't for this crazy site that is always feeding my addiction! Thank you Pip and all my online dealers, uh I mean friends! ~~

We spent 3 years doing cruises in the Caribbean (last one through the Panama Canal...that was cool!) We found out that we like the excursions more than the cruising.

The next step was booking some resorts...we did Bitter End Yacht Club and Nisbet Plantation and had lots of fun, but we needed something else.

"Lets try St John. We love to snorkel and I've heard the beaches are to die for." But where do we stay? It's mostly villa rentals.

Well, this year will be our 3rd year in a row on St John. We just love the island. We love having an entire house to ourselves instead of cramming 4 of us into one resort room. We love all the information that this forum gives us...we probably wouldn't have stopped at Tourist Trap this past year if we hadn't read about it on the forum. Everyone we've met on island has been wonderful! And we dream that one day we might be able to live on that little island!

Nice work, pip, great story.

If you hadn't taken that ferry, it's highly unlikely that you would have become world famous for dancing.

- Ruth

Happy St Johniversary. Nice post. And you are an excellent dancer...

Happy anniversary to the "Pip's". Was going to post tonight about our upcoming trip and how it relates to our "St John" wedding anniversary, so Pip's post provides the opportunity to tell our story of "finding" St John.
Maybe the same cruise ship but a different year--1996, in January right after the 2 devastating hurricanes and our last day of a southern Carribean Cruise. My sister, who had worked on St Thomas in Immigration some 20 years earlier, advised us that when we docked in Charolotte Amalie, we ought to take the ferry over to St John to go "birdwatching" in the National Park there. She thought we would have had our fill of beaches by then.
Rich and I took the tram from Cruz Bay on what was to be a "Circle the Island" Tour. Had our binocs ready to see all species of birds. When we descended from the Caneel Hill over Hawksnest, the views left us breathless and by the time we got to the Trunk overlook, well...we stashed those binocs, started to throw off our cover-ups.. Trunk "had us at hello". We could hardly get out of the water to made it back to the ship in time.
While waiting for the ferry, we walked up the block to the "Vacation St John" storfront and discovered "they rent houses here!!!". We came home armed with colorful brochures and returned later that year with a crewe of 8 and rented Vistaero. We have been back about 30 times in the last 15 years.
While staying at Cinnamon Tarn in 1998, we decided to be married on St John, and that came about on Peter Bay in May 2000. We have been excitedly anticipating our 10th Wedding Anniversary, when, at Christmas dinner, Rich's son announced we would become the grandparents of twins in May. The following day, the wife of the couple who was making the May trip with us... they were married a week after us on St Thomas..called. I thought she was calling to say Merry Christmas and gab about the trip. Instead, she called to tell us her husband, my mentor and long time confidant, died suddenly that morning. We could hardly contain our grief.
The last two years have not been good, with medical issues for both Rich and I. But broken down and beaten up as we are right now, we could wait no longer and we just had to book a trip to help with the healing. A phenominal opportunity for a last minute deal at Villa Ellison will have us in Paradise before you know it. We're pushing up our Anniversary Celebration from May to "come soon". Too soon to even set up a ticker.