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What do y'all think about Peter Island?

Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2010 11:07 pm
by GraysonDave
Looks pretty upscale, but this time of year a nice looking room can be had for $360 plus tax. For $472 it includes meals, which seems like a good idea since there's nowhere else to eat anyway.

Anybody stayed there? What did you think?

Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 12:19 am
by AquaGirl
Hi there - your post reminded me that I need to write up our trip report for this year. We stayed on Tortola for 5 days, then at Peter Island for a week in June. We absolutely loved it and plan to stay again. Take a look at LuxuryLink as they have a good deal going right now. We used LL for the first time and had a good experience and saved lots of $$ over the normal prices.

The resort is very nice, good service, good food, wonderful beaches, excellent snorkeling right from the beach, and lots of activities. Deadman's Beach (their main beach) is gorgeous and there is a restaurant on the beach for lunch and sometimes dinner. We spent the day at White Bay (you have to take a van over there) and had outstanding snorkeling. They have shade huts with tables, chairs and loungers at White Bay and will bring you a picnic lunch if you order the night before. Loved having the beach almost to ourselves, and a catered picnic complete with tablecloth was fun.

There were water sports on the main beach with an attendant who helped us learn to sail a little catamaran. It was great fun, even if we did have a bit of trouble coming about so we could return to the beach.

There are 2 restaurants, both have a good variety of food and we enjoyed everything we ate. I am fairly picky, but I always found plenty of choices that suited me with lots of fresh salads and fruit. One restaurant is upscale and you have to dress up. (Hubby didn't like to have to wear long pants and real shoes, but the resort is worth it.) The one on the beach is very casual and you can go in shorts. They had live music a few times, and we loved the steel drum group.

The service was very attentive, friendly and some of our servers were such nice people that we enjoyed chatting with them every day. There are golf carts with drivers who will take you wherever you want to go on the island, if you don't feel like walking down to the beach lugging a ton of stuff like we do.

There is a dive shop on site and we went out on their boat for an afternoon snorkel to the Indians. Loved this trip - the snorkeling was spectacular. Having the option almost every day to go out to other snorkeling sites was very nice. One of the dive shop guys guided us and pointed out interesting things, so it made it more fun.

We stayed in Ocean View rooms, which were lovely and fine for us. Bathrooms are a little small, but not important to us. We enjoyed being near the harbor.

The pool and surrounding deck are very nice for relaxing if you don't want to spend the whole day on the beach. Nice view over to Tortola.

They have a beautiful and very upscale spa with another pool and deck area. We got a couple's massage one day and it was wonderful. You can make arrangements to have your lunch brought there too.

As you can tell, we are very enthusiastic about our trip there and can't wait to go again.

I have to say that Iowaguy on this forum was very helpful and patiently answered my many detailed questions. Take a look at Trip Advisor reviews of PI also. Some of them are very detailed and I got a lot of good info from them for planning our stay there.

Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 8:11 am
by GraysonDave
Awesome. The website shows exactly what you described, and an old college bud who I reconnected with on facebook has been a couple of times and he was very high on it as well. Was looking for some additional independent confirmation.

Now if I can scrape together a few bucks we may give it a whirl. I get the luxury link emails but don't always read them. I am off to check their website. Thanks for the heads up.

Peter Island....not as good as St. John

Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 8:22 am
by islandmaari
While Peter Island is beautiful and luxury. I have to tell you my husband and I were disappointed, especially for how much it cost. We are not resort people, mind you, so we felt a little trapped there. On the island there is nothing other than the resort so if you like your freedom then not sure you'd love it. When we got there we just wanted to do what we like to do on St. John, hike, drink beer on the beach snorkel, etc. There is really only one beach there. It's lovely, but not really a snorkel beach. The other beach on the far side of the island is better for snorkeling, but you can't walk there and you have to make sure you get one of the assigned times to get a ride. They resort will give you a lunch to take, but there is no beach bar or anything over there, and don't forget your pick up time!
The food there was great. We did the inclusive ( minus drinks) package so ate like kings! The staff I felt was just okay. We constantly felt guilty from them and felt urged to tip on top of everything. We didn't do the inclusive including drinks b/c the price difference was so extreme. We figured we would get there go to the store, get some Carib and call it a day. This would have worked if they had any kind of store that sold food or beer. They do offer Carib and at $7 a bottle! Insane.
So while the island is lovely we couldn't help but feel that we already spent a lot of money ( it was our honeymoon) staying there we were kind of forced to spend more money for drinks and for excursions. The crowd there seemed to be a lot of older British folks and honeymooners, not many who stay up and chat later than 9. So if you are a resort person with some money to burn I'd say do it. If you are in any way a budget traveler as we are I'd say go for the day and stay on St. John.
We had stayed on St. John for two weeks prior getting married and felt like we wanted to see another island, but i can tell you as soon as we got there we regretted leaving.
The best part of Peter Island is staying on the sailboat the Silmaril. We did that for three days and it was the greatest!
Hope I didn't confuse your decision, just think about what you'd like to get. My vote is Peter island for the day tripping yacht crowd where money is not a big deal. St. John or Virgin Gorda for the plan your own adventure, beer in the sand and flip flop crowd.

Best of Luck

Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 8:47 am
by GraysonDave
Thanks for the perspective islandmaari. It does help the decision making. I am one who does have to think about the budget, so that's a consideration. Might be better to wait til I'm old(er), rich, and British.

Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 9:32 am
by islandmaari
yeah, again it's a beautiful resort, but I would estimate that with your $475 a day for food and board you would probably tack on let's see (if you drink) and extra $70-100 for ten Carib's and maybe a few mixed drinks..plus tip and that would be pretty light drinking for a day on the beach looking out at the ocean.

Good luck with your planning.

If you could do stj with a few days on a sailboat I'd say that would be perfect.

or go to Jost for part of the time, that's the flip floppers peter island.

:)

Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2010 5:35 pm
by Maryanne
I got a good look during a sailing trip when we stopped for lunch... I had a similar feeling to mari.. I was glad I visited because before then I always wondered if I'd like it there. Just a couple of hours was enough for me to know that I'd feel too trapped.. especially in those islands, knowing what's so close..

The day we were there, the drinks were less than mediocre (made from Island Oasis mix) and the food was okay. And it was really expensive once everything was added up, especially for what we got.

Of course, things change in the islands all the time...

I'll concur about the staid, older British crowd, too. There was some canned entertainment going on the day we were there. I felt bad for the musicians, it all just seemed so fake.

All in all, eh.

Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2010 9:55 pm
by AquaGirl
I read the 'opposing views' of Peter Island and just wanted to add a few more cents of my observations since some of our experiences were different.

The drinks were very expensive, definitely resort prices. My hubby likes rum and coke so we had brought our own (of both) from Tortola. We only go to a resort occasionally, so we knew we would be paying more.

We were there the first week of June, so perhaps the clientele is different during other times of the year. There was only one 'staid older British couple' when we were there. Approximately 50% were young honeymooners, and the rest were couples in their 40s and 50s, many celebrating an anniversary like us. There was a large family group with people ranging from 20s to 60s celebrating someone's birthday (someone with a lot of money to bring everyone to PI!), and several women friends (sans husbands). Most people were very friendly and we chatted with many throughout the week. Some stayed to themselves, as you would expect. At the wine tasting dinner, there were about 20 of us (from all the groups mentioned above) and we had a fun time. We enjoy hearing about other people's travels, and the honeymooners were fun to talk with as they were embarking on their new life together.

We were somewhat concerned that we would feel trapped, and I can understand why some would feel that way. It all depends upon what you are looking for and what you like to do. For the last 15 years, we have been to different islands where we rented a Jeep and traveled around to different beaches and ate at different restaurants. We have loved all our trips. If that's what you really like to do, then perhaps PI is not for you. For us, it was so relaxing to just walk (or catch a ride on the golf carts) to wherever you wanted to go. No decision on which restaurant, just get dressed and stroll to dinner. After dinner, we would walk down the beach holding hands, or go to the marina where we could see huge tarpon hanging out at the docks. The snorkeling off the main beach was very good, and at White Bay, it was excellent (St John quality). They had hiking, biking, a sunset tour, sailboat rides and the dive shop on site so you could go on an afternoon snorkel to different BVI spots. There is also a beautiful long beach near the spa for walking along. We also used their sailboats, but didn't try the windsurfers. For us there was more to do than we could fit in a week, especially since we had a spa day and spent a lot of time snorkeling. It was incredibly relaxing and 'freeing' to us. But, as I said, it depends on what you like to do.

The music we experienced there was steel band twice, and they were great. For us, it was so enjoyable to sit next to the beach, looking out over the water, with a nice breeze, listening to steel band music. Also had a singer and keyboard player one night which was ok.

The resort experience is definitely different from our trips to the other BVIs and to St John, where we stay in villas or little apartments. We would not enjoy going to a resort every vacation, because we like to be very casual and on our own schedule. However, we enjoyed PI very much and can recommend it if you are looking for a nice resort.

Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2010 6:22 pm
by iowaguy
Hi---I've been off on another trip so I haven't been reading the Forum for 10 days or so---just saw your post. We absolutely loved Peter Island. There is something incredibly peaceful and luxurious about being on your own island. The food was wonderful, the beach is gorgeous. and the staff is fantastic. I never locked my door while I was there (I'm not sure thats recommended--but it shows how "at ease" I was).

Having said that, its not for everyone. There is nothing to do later at night, for example. We combined our PI visit with a trip to STJ where we were a little more "active" with visits to Beach Bar, Woody's, etc.

I would go back in a heartbeat.

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 11:18 am
by GraysonDave
Thanks, all. I think I have a good idea what to expect should we decide to go. We stayed at Caneel in Feb and didn't leave the property for days other than a boat trip to the BVIs with Palm Tree Charters.

Loved it. And the Peter Island experience sounds like it might be similar.

Also loved staying at Grande Bay and being able to party in town without worrying about driving.

Knowing what to expect limits the chance for disappointment.