2nd half of the PA family's trip report - On STJ!
Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 10:04 am
First half - http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/f ... highlight=
I left off with our time on STT. At 2:15, it was time to catch the Caneel ferry.
Defecting from a villa
As our anniversary approached, Mr. PA kept questioning me on what I wanted as a gift.
Over and over again I re-enforced all I wanted was a trip to a beach where I didn’t need to do laundry, shop for groceries, cook or pack a snack cooler. (Packing a booze cooler is no problem)
As he will admit, Mr. PA is totally spoiled. He thinks a magic little fairy flies in behind us at the end of a beach day to wash the beach towels. I am household CEO and I wanted a break from that for my anniversary present. So off to Caneel we go!
We stayed on Hawksnest in a second floor end unit. The room had front and back balconies and was spacious enough for a king and a twin bed. We loved the location. All but one day we had great breezes off of the water.
View from our balcony
Room prior to unpacking explosion
Our days were all the same – up at dawn (we are early birds) breakfast at 7:30am, beach until late afternoon, chilling on the balcony with cocktails while we watched the wildlife life and then dinner.
The leftover stealing mongoose
Donkey drinking out of foot bath
Deer
Deer with mongoose
In my opinion, Caneel is on the cusp of having a serious deer problem. The deer are everywhere!
Pretty to look at but there seems to be too many. The grounds crew said the deer are already impacting the vegetation and hey, by the way, couldn’t we send someone down from Pennsylvania to shot them?
The absolute thrill of the trip was our son snorkeling for the first time. We barely had him outfitted before he paddle off like he knew what he was doing. I regretted not getting an underwater camera for this trip.
Bottoms Up!
Diving for a rock
He would get so excited when he spotted a fish that he would pop his head up, take off his mask and tell me about it. Then I would need to get his mask back on so we could do it all over again.
Although it was complimentary, we didn’t use Caneel’s kids program. We met the director and talked to her for a while and it sounds like they really do it up with the kids. I got a good feeling about the program.
Had Little PA expressed an interest, we may have enrolled him for a half-day. We talked to several sets of parents whose kids did the dinner and a movie event (not free) and they said the kids asked to go back each night.
We rented a Jeep for only one day. Talking taxis into town for dinner worked out just fine for us, $10 each way, no charge for the 4 yo.
We would stop at the terrace for a pre-taxi sunset cocktail
We had a decent first meal at Morgan’s. This is a sentimental favorite of ours and I love the Mango Tangos. I don’t remember what we ordered. The restaurant was PACKED and the young man that seated us sort of scolded us for not having reservations. Not long after, the restaurant was completely full, as was the bar.
What is up with that? Reservations needed during July? This trend continued throughout the week.
We had two meals at the Lime Inn, both excellent. All of us love the whole grilled jerk snapper and the fish sausage. Like Morgan’s, the Lime Inn was packed both visits.
We also ate at Rhumb Lines. Unfortunately, the night we visited (again, completely packed) it was insanely hot and the pounding bass from the festival made it impossible to hear ourselves think. The pu-pu platter was awesome, the sauces were so fresh! Our meals were fine but I wish we would have done just a giant platter for our meal.
We checked out the menus at the Waterfront Bistro and Spyglass but nothing appealed to us. Same goes for the Equator, not tempting enough.
We had reservations for Asolare. We walked in and walked back out. It was insanely hot inside the restaurant. Why, why, why would they have about 100 candles burning on a 95 degree day?
The host couldn’t or wouldn’t seat us outside even though the tables were only half occupied. He sort of hemmed and hawed when I asked what time the next reservations were coming in, was it possible for us to be seated right away and we would make sure we were out in time?
It was sunset at this point so the tables were either late or reserved for a later time. The whole thing was a little weird because he was anxious to push us to the bar for a drink but not to get us seated.
I made it clear to whoever answered the phone when I made the reservation that we wanted to be outside for the sunset but it got lost in the translation. No thanks, I am not spending $150+ on dinner to sit inside a dark room and be roasted by candlelight. We went back to Caneel that night and had a decent meal at the beach bar.
We visited the festival twice. The first time we went to see the music. It was LOUD and the bass pounding in our chests got old real quick.
The second time we did the kid’s carnival and that was a lot of fun. The Rotary had an area of games and there was a separate bouncy-tent type of complex, which rocked our 4 year old’s world. He had a blast!
On the one overcast day, we grabbed a jeep and headed to Annaberg. Thank goodness I thought to grab the bottle of 25% Deet spray before we left the room. The mosquitoes were unbelievable. There was a sign at the ranger hut stating due to the infestation, all demonstrations were cancelled. No biggie, we dosed ourselves and went exploring. We had a blast going in and out of the “castle” as our son called it. He gave us a “tour” and surprised us by remembering the sugar making process from when we had him at Caneel in March. It was a fun stop.
We had lunch at the Shipwreck that day. We picked up a bunch of t-shirts at Tall Ships. I was shocked to see the Jolly Dog is no longer there! What is up with that? Do they still have a location over at Skinny’s or are they gone completely?
We stopped at Catherineburg on the way back to town. Again, it was a lot of fun forour son (and us) to climb around and duck through the openings. As he tells it, Annaberg is his castle, Catherineburg is Daddy’s castle and the Sugar Mill (at Caneel) is Mommy’s castle. Thanks son!
We had a wonderful trip and are trying to make it work for next year. It sounds a little nutty but it is easier for us to get to STJ and not that much more (factoring in FF tickets) then going to the NJ shore or the Outer Banks.
Closing thoughts –
The island was much more crowded then I remember from prior summer trips.
Caneel was a great choice, for our family, for this trip. The lack of a vehicle and access to the beaches slowed us down in the best possible way.
Tall Ship Trading has great t-shirts! Fun designs and good fabrics. I regret not picking up a few more for myself.
Spending the first night on STT was an excellent way to ease into the vacation.
I left off with our time on STT. At 2:15, it was time to catch the Caneel ferry.
Defecting from a villa
As our anniversary approached, Mr. PA kept questioning me on what I wanted as a gift.
Over and over again I re-enforced all I wanted was a trip to a beach where I didn’t need to do laundry, shop for groceries, cook or pack a snack cooler. (Packing a booze cooler is no problem)
As he will admit, Mr. PA is totally spoiled. He thinks a magic little fairy flies in behind us at the end of a beach day to wash the beach towels. I am household CEO and I wanted a break from that for my anniversary present. So off to Caneel we go!
We stayed on Hawksnest in a second floor end unit. The room had front and back balconies and was spacious enough for a king and a twin bed. We loved the location. All but one day we had great breezes off of the water.
View from our balcony
Room prior to unpacking explosion
Our days were all the same – up at dawn (we are early birds) breakfast at 7:30am, beach until late afternoon, chilling on the balcony with cocktails while we watched the wildlife life and then dinner.
The leftover stealing mongoose
Donkey drinking out of foot bath
Deer
Deer with mongoose
In my opinion, Caneel is on the cusp of having a serious deer problem. The deer are everywhere!
Pretty to look at but there seems to be too many. The grounds crew said the deer are already impacting the vegetation and hey, by the way, couldn’t we send someone down from Pennsylvania to shot them?
The absolute thrill of the trip was our son snorkeling for the first time. We barely had him outfitted before he paddle off like he knew what he was doing. I regretted not getting an underwater camera for this trip.
Bottoms Up!
Diving for a rock
He would get so excited when he spotted a fish that he would pop his head up, take off his mask and tell me about it. Then I would need to get his mask back on so we could do it all over again.
Although it was complimentary, we didn’t use Caneel’s kids program. We met the director and talked to her for a while and it sounds like they really do it up with the kids. I got a good feeling about the program.
Had Little PA expressed an interest, we may have enrolled him for a half-day. We talked to several sets of parents whose kids did the dinner and a movie event (not free) and they said the kids asked to go back each night.
We rented a Jeep for only one day. Talking taxis into town for dinner worked out just fine for us, $10 each way, no charge for the 4 yo.
We would stop at the terrace for a pre-taxi sunset cocktail
We had a decent first meal at Morgan’s. This is a sentimental favorite of ours and I love the Mango Tangos. I don’t remember what we ordered. The restaurant was PACKED and the young man that seated us sort of scolded us for not having reservations. Not long after, the restaurant was completely full, as was the bar.
What is up with that? Reservations needed during July? This trend continued throughout the week.
We had two meals at the Lime Inn, both excellent. All of us love the whole grilled jerk snapper and the fish sausage. Like Morgan’s, the Lime Inn was packed both visits.
We also ate at Rhumb Lines. Unfortunately, the night we visited (again, completely packed) it was insanely hot and the pounding bass from the festival made it impossible to hear ourselves think. The pu-pu platter was awesome, the sauces were so fresh! Our meals were fine but I wish we would have done just a giant platter for our meal.
We checked out the menus at the Waterfront Bistro and Spyglass but nothing appealed to us. Same goes for the Equator, not tempting enough.
We had reservations for Asolare. We walked in and walked back out. It was insanely hot inside the restaurant. Why, why, why would they have about 100 candles burning on a 95 degree day?
The host couldn’t or wouldn’t seat us outside even though the tables were only half occupied. He sort of hemmed and hawed when I asked what time the next reservations were coming in, was it possible for us to be seated right away and we would make sure we were out in time?
It was sunset at this point so the tables were either late or reserved for a later time. The whole thing was a little weird because he was anxious to push us to the bar for a drink but not to get us seated.
I made it clear to whoever answered the phone when I made the reservation that we wanted to be outside for the sunset but it got lost in the translation. No thanks, I am not spending $150+ on dinner to sit inside a dark room and be roasted by candlelight. We went back to Caneel that night and had a decent meal at the beach bar.
We visited the festival twice. The first time we went to see the music. It was LOUD and the bass pounding in our chests got old real quick.
The second time we did the kid’s carnival and that was a lot of fun. The Rotary had an area of games and there was a separate bouncy-tent type of complex, which rocked our 4 year old’s world. He had a blast!
On the one overcast day, we grabbed a jeep and headed to Annaberg. Thank goodness I thought to grab the bottle of 25% Deet spray before we left the room. The mosquitoes were unbelievable. There was a sign at the ranger hut stating due to the infestation, all demonstrations were cancelled. No biggie, we dosed ourselves and went exploring. We had a blast going in and out of the “castle” as our son called it. He gave us a “tour” and surprised us by remembering the sugar making process from when we had him at Caneel in March. It was a fun stop.
We had lunch at the Shipwreck that day. We picked up a bunch of t-shirts at Tall Ships. I was shocked to see the Jolly Dog is no longer there! What is up with that? Do they still have a location over at Skinny’s or are they gone completely?
We stopped at Catherineburg on the way back to town. Again, it was a lot of fun forour son (and us) to climb around and duck through the openings. As he tells it, Annaberg is his castle, Catherineburg is Daddy’s castle and the Sugar Mill (at Caneel) is Mommy’s castle. Thanks son!
We had a wonderful trip and are trying to make it work for next year. It sounds a little nutty but it is easier for us to get to STJ and not that much more (factoring in FF tickets) then going to the NJ shore or the Outer Banks.
Closing thoughts –
The island was much more crowded then I remember from prior summer trips.
Caneel was a great choice, for our family, for this trip. The lack of a vehicle and access to the beaches slowed us down in the best possible way.
Tall Ship Trading has great t-shirts! Fun designs and good fabrics. I regret not picking up a few more for myself.
Spending the first night on STT was an excellent way to ease into the vacation.
