11/22-Springsteen, 11/26-12/4 St. John, part 1 (renamed) :)
Posted: Sat Dec 12, 2009 7:32 pm
I have to start with non USVI things-bear with me 
I knew this was going to be a great week to start a vacation-beginning with a Sunday night concert in Buffalo of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band-last stop on possibly their last tour and Little Stevie's 60th b'day (that's him getting his cake). It was fantastic!
On to the Caribbean
This was our 6th trip to STJ in 13 years and there’s always things that are new to us. We flew out Thanksgiving(first time ever) from Buffalo-great day to fly-much less crowded than other times of the year we’ve flown. First new thing-can we make it with just carry on? I started laying out clothes a month ago-in our climate it’s not as if we’ve been wearing these things for a few months anyway
I kept whittling things down-we’d be staying in Coral Bay, lots of “villa gravity”, who cares if you wear the same shirt more than once, and besides we had a washer/dryer at the place. Biggest concern was lotions/potions, but I found little travel bottles at wal-mart and filled those with shampoo and sunscreen. I found out that saline solution doesn’t have to be in the 3/1/1 rule so that was helpful. So with the help of one of those space saver bags I actually was able to put all our clothes into one small carryon. Mike took a small duffel that we used for carrying our winter clothes that we wore partway, some food, reading material etc. and then I also had a beach bag that I used as my personal item with magazines, lotions, and other misc stuff. Carryon worked very well for us, in fact I think we decided we still brought too many clothes! Hardest part is the cold/warm clothing changeover-I think it would be even easier in the summer.
We knew from forum posts that there would be some people on the USAir Charlotte flight, and we managed to meet them for a few minutes before boarding –Brenda and Gary and Pam and John (hello all!). Uneventful flight-it was due to land about 4:15 and I think that it might have been a few minutes early. Hello warm air and rum shots! We had planned on taking the RedHook 6pm ferry (never thinking we’d make the 5pm one) so leisurely took our time getting to the taxi line. Well, after jamming everyone in as they do, our driver took off on a speed mission, and even with stopping at one of the resorts, managed to get us to Red Hook at about 2 minutes to 5. We are madly, and I mean MADLY dashing to get tickets because they’re ready to leave. She knows we’re in line (there were 3 of us) trying to buy tickets for the boat that’s due to leave and unfortunately I was the last in line-I needed 2 tickets and one bag slip-$14.50, my husband’s at the ramp and the woman there keeps asking him to hurry and get on, but I’m still waiting to buy the darn tickets! I gave the ticket woman $15 and literally she couldn’t give me the 50cents back. The boat woman’s hollering, my husband’s hollering, and I just said, gotta go, keep the change! But we made the 5pm ferry which was AMAZING and a great way to start the trip since I wasn’t quite sure where St. John Inn was and was happy to find it in the light of day.
We only stayed one night, but Dave was very nice- they offer complimentary continental breakfast, and evening happy hour of a couple different drinks. They’re tied into Crazy Crackers restaurant/bar and you get 20% off if you’re staying at the Inn. The room’s are a decent deal, we had a view of the car barge area. But we had a small concern because it was obvious that our door had at some time been kicked in and the lock smashed open. Who knows when.... but here’s the view from the room, and pics of the inside. We just missed sunset
After grabbing our complimentary drinks we headed downtown to see who was open for dinner. It’s about 7:00 now and we stopped in at Woody’s-which didn’t have many people at all. This was another first for us-just wanted to check out the place. They were actually closing down-so we grabbed a few drinks and a quick appetizer and headed down to Crazy Crackers for more drinks and food. Talked to a nice bartender there for a while-he’d moved down a few months ago with his girlfriend who was now working at the new Mexican Restaurant that’s up the road/across from the Beach Bar(name’s escaping me here). Just picked up and moved-no prior bartending experience other than a class. Good for him-you’re only young once!
We called it a night pretty early, it had been a looooong day, but we were in paradise!
I knew this was going to be a great week to start a vacation-beginning with a Sunday night concert in Buffalo of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band-last stop on possibly their last tour and Little Stevie's 60th b'day (that's him getting his cake). It was fantastic!On to the Caribbean
This was our 6th trip to STJ in 13 years and there’s always things that are new to us. We flew out Thanksgiving(first time ever) from Buffalo-great day to fly-much less crowded than other times of the year we’ve flown. First new thing-can we make it with just carry on? I started laying out clothes a month ago-in our climate it’s not as if we’ve been wearing these things for a few months anyway
I kept whittling things down-we’d be staying in Coral Bay, lots of “villa gravity”, who cares if you wear the same shirt more than once, and besides we had a washer/dryer at the place. Biggest concern was lotions/potions, but I found little travel bottles at wal-mart and filled those with shampoo and sunscreen. I found out that saline solution doesn’t have to be in the 3/1/1 rule so that was helpful. So with the help of one of those space saver bags I actually was able to put all our clothes into one small carryon. Mike took a small duffel that we used for carrying our winter clothes that we wore partway, some food, reading material etc. and then I also had a beach bag that I used as my personal item with magazines, lotions, and other misc stuff. Carryon worked very well for us, in fact I think we decided we still brought too many clothes! Hardest part is the cold/warm clothing changeover-I think it would be even easier in the summer.We knew from forum posts that there would be some people on the USAir Charlotte flight, and we managed to meet them for a few minutes before boarding –Brenda and Gary and Pam and John (hello all!). Uneventful flight-it was due to land about 4:15 and I think that it might have been a few minutes early. Hello warm air and rum shots!
We had planned on taking the RedHook 6pm ferry (never thinking we’d make the 5pm one) so leisurely took our time getting to the taxi line. Well, after jamming everyone in as they do, our driver took off on a speed mission, and even with stopping at one of the resorts, managed to get us to Red Hook at about 2 minutes to 5. We are madly, and I mean MADLY dashing to get tickets because they’re ready to leave. She knows we’re in line (there were 3 of us) trying to buy tickets for the boat that’s due to leave and unfortunately I was the last in line-I needed 2 tickets and one bag slip-$14.50, my husband’s at the ramp and the woman there keeps asking him to hurry and get on, but I’m still waiting to buy the darn tickets! I gave the ticket woman $15 and literally she couldn’t give me the 50cents back. The boat woman’s hollering, my husband’s hollering, and I just said, gotta go, keep the change! But we made the 5pm ferry which was AMAZING and a great way to start the trip since I wasn’t quite sure where St. John Inn was and was happy to find it in the light of day. We only stayed one night, but Dave was very nice- they offer complimentary continental breakfast, and evening happy hour of a couple different drinks. They’re tied into Crazy Crackers restaurant/bar and you get 20% off if you’re staying at the Inn. The room’s are a decent deal, we had a view of the car barge area. But we had a small concern because it was obvious that our door had at some time been kicked in and the lock smashed open. Who knows when.... but here’s the view from the room, and pics of the inside. We just missed sunset
After grabbing our complimentary drinks we headed downtown to see who was open for dinner. It’s about 7:00 now and we stopped in at Woody’s-which didn’t have many people at all. This was another first for us-just wanted to check out the place. They were actually closing down-so we grabbed a few drinks and a quick appetizer and headed down to Crazy Crackers for more drinks and food. Talked to a nice bartender there for a while-he’d moved down a few months ago with his girlfriend who was now working at the new Mexican Restaurant that’s up the road/across from the Beach Bar(name’s escaping me here). Just picked up and moved-no prior bartending experience other than a class. Good for him-you’re only young once!
We called it a night pretty early, it had been a looooong day, but we were in paradise!
