USVI-On-Line

One more thing on the car rental...How were the rates with O'Connor? Did you take the insurance or was it really expensive? How was it travelling with the baby and the carseat?

You seem to have done a lot of research and travelling. Did you buy travellers insurance? Would you recommend it with small children.

We have always rented from O'Connor, this past January we got a new jeep with about 600 miles on it.
Insurance is either 10 or 12 dollars a day, we are covered by our Allstate policy at home, but we were sharing the rental with my brother in law so we decided to take out the extra insurance. There are signs in the car that they will charge you for wet seats or sand and garbage in the car. If you take a jug of tap water in the car, you can rinse your feet off before getting in. We put beach towels in the back to catch sand from the chairs and coolers. This cuts down on most of the mess. My husband vacuumed the car at the villa before returning the rental for extra measure. We have always had a good experience with O'Connor!

I thought the rates with O'Conner were pretty close to the other rental companies. We paid $600 for the week for the Durango. They offered other vehicles that seemed to be right in line with the other car rental companies. We did not take the car rental insurance this year as my brother in law was the main driver and his policy covered the vehicle on St. John. We have taken the insurance in the past and have found it to be reasonable.

We do take travel insurance. When you are spending so much money on a vacation it is reassuring to know that should anything happen you would be covered. Besides covering you in the event you can't travel, travel insurance normally covers you for things like baggage (delay or lost), flight delays, medical evacuation etc.

Thanks again for all the great tips. I'm going to keep lurking on the boards even though my next trip to STJ won't be until 2009--a little too expensive for us to go every year. We always travel with my sister and her family. I think we're going to do St. Martin Beachside Villas or Marco Island, Florida next year.

Hey Guys,
We're just back from Sibella. Andrea sent me a pm asking about the smell and this was my response to her.

"This is to answer your question, yep. Same smell, no resolution. It definitely was some sort of plumbing smell. We found it wasn't too bad if you didn't close up the house, otherwise, it was rough. The smell was mainly in the bedroom with the blue comforter, to the right as you walk in the door. Our friends who stayed in that room were referring to the odor as "The Beast". There was also no hot water to the sink and tub in that room, and almost no water pressure from the hot taps.
On the second call, Wednesday of our Saturday to Saturday stay, CV sent someone out. He did something in the bathroom, came out and said the water was fixed. Then said he was going downstairs to check out the smell. He never came back up. After a while, we went looking for him and he was gone. He had climbed up the hillside outside the house and left without saying a word.
And, surprise! The water was not fixed. We got less than normal hot water from one sink, very little from the other sink and just a tiny trickle from the tub.
We had lots of rain and there was a bunch of standing water on the patio/porch area of the downstairs. The tile work is sloped toward the house so the rain and overflow from the pool couldn't run off.
Our friends who stayed downstairs had to walk through a small lake to get to and from their room all week.
Also, the cell phone they gave us to use at the house didn't work.

All in all, I thought the villa was attractive. The living room and patio furnishings and appliances were nice and high end. Kitchen was perfect. It felt sort of unfinished in the bedrooms. Dressers, chairs and artwork were scarce or non-existent.
The downstairs bedrooms were disappointing compared to the upstairs ones and the wood ceilings made them feel dark. It seems like once the owners/builders got to the point where they realized they were going to sell it, they did the minimum for the bedrooms.
I also thought it needed more seating in the living room. For a place that sleeps ten, five would be a squeeze on the sofa and love seat.

But back to the subject. The smell made it very uncomfortable, and mostly for the people in that bedroom, near the laundry. We were lucky in that with all the rain, it was easier to not close the house up to use the air. When we did, the whole upstairs stank. The downstairs had its own basementy smell as well.
I'm definitely going to seek some satisfaction from CV, although I'm not expecting much. It also helps to know that these problems exsisted before we got there and that they were already aware of them.
It's such a shame because the house is ruined because of a couple of problems they just need to buckle down and fix."

That all being said, I did like the villa very much. It was beautiful. I took lots of pictures of just about everything, good and bad, that I'll work on posting.
My issues with the downstairs bedrooms are that they are not as nice as the upstairs ones, but were not bad. No vaulted ceilings and the ceilings are dark wood making it feel lower. They do have very nice beds. One of the downstairs king rooms had no dresser or chest, just a very small desk/stand. The twin room had nothing but beds and nightstands. The downstairs bedrooms had regular closets and upstairs had huge walk-in ones. There was a step up to one of the bathrooms. The king bathrooms were very nice and equal to the upstairs ones except for the tubs. The twin bath was very small and the top to the toilet was missing.
The views are okay from the western bedroom and the twin room is behind the base of the pool so it doesn't have much view.
The downstairs patio was nice and nicely furnished but held lots of water while we were there due to the floors being sloped improperly.
We did know about the phone in advance. Apparently, it's taking a while getting the lines run up there. They gave us a cell which wouldn't turn on. We never got back to exchange it while they were open.
A realtor stopped by to ask about showing the house the next day. He said not to do anything different or leave. When they came, the visit was quick and they were very put off by the standing water on the lower level.
Great location, great pool. Mosquitos were hideous. They could have carried off small children.
There's a villa being built right above Sibella but the noise was minimal. No villas to either side or below currently and no visibility from the one being built above. Nicely private.
I'm going to do an official villa review with pictures,but hopefully this helps until then.

Kathy--I am sorry about the issues you had with Sibella but it seems that you had a nice time despite the problems. I have never rented thru CV and have no axe to grind with them, except for the extra 5% fee. However, if you look on their website in the FAQ section, you will see that they discourage folks from renting directly from an owner because if you have a maintenance problem the owner may not be willing or able to fix the problem. They extoll the virtue of renting through a villa management company --CV-- as their people would be availble 24 hours a day to address service issues.
As you reacall from an earlier post from last week's occupant, they were told that although CV was renting the villa, THE OWNER WAS DOING HIS OWN MAINTENANCE.

IS THIS NOT AT ODDS WITH WHAT CV CLAIMS TO BE ADVISABLE ON THEIR VERY OWN WEBSITE?
IS THIS NOT AT ODDS WITH THE 5% ADDITIONAL SERVICE FEE?

How can such a popular villa management company accept a villa into their rental portfolio knowing there may be problems with the owner doing his own maintenance and creating a sub-standard experience for CV's guests? Is this something new? Going forward, I think anyone who rents a villa from CV should ask whether CV or the owner does maintenance.