USVI-On-Line

We booked our villa for next summer - Anchorage Aweigh - YEAH!! so I have been shopping for airfare. Continental has listed a fare of $382 from Norfolk VA which to me is very good out of Norfolk. I go through the entire booking process, get to the end, and there is a technical problem. I call the 800 number and am told that the Cape Air flights have not been scheduled so I can't complete the booking process. The rep I spoke with called Cape Air and they said to call back in a month. WELL, by then the fare will probably be high again. How can they advertise a flight when one isn't available???

yuck... Cape Air... we used them last year - never again. but, to be fair, there was definitely one fun part about the experience.

first, we flew out of Newark NJ using Continental with no problems and got to Puerto Rico all kinds of excited... we had one checked bag of luggage and 2 carry-ons. while in the airport, we waited for a looonng time for Cape Air to even show up at the terminal. finally, they checked our tickets and licenses, and handed us a tiny piece of paper with a hand written number on it (this was the boarding pass). then, we find out that our carry-on luggage may or may not be too big for the Cape Air flight. (yayyyyy! luggage issues!!) by the way, the luggage goes in the wing of a mini-plane, so if it's too big or heavy to fit, there are problems.

finally on the plane... it was an old 10 passenger plane ("old" as in the leather seats and leather walls were peeling- i didn't care as long as the plane didn't make any scary noises). also, the pilot was one of the 10 passengers (so really you can only fit 9 other people on the plane) and they load you in by weight - heavier in the front, smaller in the back. i had to sit in the way back... my boyfriend was all the way up front anyways, we had a chick pilot and she was pretty cool, pointing out the islands as we flew over them. all in all, the mini-plane the best part about Cape Air. it was a pretty cool plane ride. not scary at all.

.... then we get to St. Thomas. the carry-on luggage made it!! but then we find out that our checked luggage from the previous flight didn't make it - we'd have to wait until the next Cape Air plane came in... we waited for 2 more planes to arrive (probably about an hour and a half) just to find out that our luggage was at the Continental booth the whole time!! ??????? we were under the impression that our one-checked luggage bag was to be connected over to Cape Air in St. Thomas. you'd think the Cape Air people would know these things, right??

oh well, we lived, we learned, and we had a blast once we finally got to St. John. if you decide to use Cape Air, good luck with your flight and luggage!!!

We have flown Continental out of Newark with great success. On our way down we get a direct flight into St Thomas but coming back we have to take the "little" Cape Air portion over to San Juan for a connection home. Doing the same thing for our upcoming trip.

The price you got sounds VERY good! Can you look at Cape Air's current schedules to gauge which Continental flight would have the most comfortable layover and go from there? I think they run those flights frequently. For our return we arrived so early at STT they moved us to an earlier flight on the Cape Air plane...thus we killed more time in San Juan. Didn't matter to us. We found the flight quite exciting and beautiful flying over Vieques, Culebra, etc.

Can you book the Con portion to STJ (probably the more expensive segment) and try for Cape Air later as a separate ticket or add-on to your Con tix later?

JIM

jimg20 wrote:Can you book the Con portion to STJ (probably the more expensive segment) and try for Cape Air later as a separate ticket or add-on to your Con tix later?

JIM

That's what I was thinking or would Continental consider it a "change" when you add Cape Air? I wonder though. May be worth a call and see - That is a good price though.

when we went last year the cheaper ticket was stopping in Puerto Rico and connecting to Cape Air rather than a direct flight to St. Thomas... could be different now??