USVI-On-Line

So, my parents are about to purchase their tickets to join us for part of our trip. They are flying down on a Friday, spending three nights at Secret Harbour, then coming over to join us on St. John for five nights, returning to Boston on a Saturday. My Dad found a return flight that goes STT-SJU then to Boston. He likes the idea of going through San Juan. I guess they've done it a few times before and it worked out. However, the flight leaves from STT at 11:40 AM.

I am wondering if any of you have flown out this early when you are staying on STJ. I just don't know if they are giving themselves enough time to take the ferry, the taxi, clear customs/security etc. Plus, it seems the airport is always most crowded on Saturday, so they might need a little extra time to clear.

What do you think?

11:40am is no problem - I am taking an 8:40am flight in a few weeks and regularly take a 9:00am

For the 11:40am I (personally if I was feeling non nervous) would take the 9:15am CA ferry, which will have them to the airport by 10:15am almost 1 1/2hour before flight time but have to admit some would find this alittle tight (the only reason I would do this is that the airport is not too crowded at that time of day) and if I was flying out in the afternoon I would be there no later than 2 hours before flight time.

A safer time for them would be the 8am Red Hook, to the airport by 9am - 2 1/2 hours before flight time. (First ferry is 6:00am btw)

Hope this helps

Pia

Someone help my memory... has there been changes? I remember flying CapeAir from STT to SJU in 2001 and using the commuter only section of the terminal down at the end and avoided the big customs and security backup. In 2006 using Caribbean Sun Airlines from STT to SJU we had to go through the "big headache". Which terminal/gate does the Cape Air STT-SJU run now use?

We did the 10:50 Cape Air to SJU three weeks (or so) ago. We left St. John via Dohm's at 8 am to Red Hook then straight to the airport.

We were at the airport by 8:50, which gave us plenty of time. We breezed thru check-in, customs and security. This part of the journey was painless. Actually, in six trips we never saw the airport so empty. (This was a Sunday)

I will share with you part of our SJU problem in interest of helping you plan.

We were told by Cape Air that we could pick up our US Air connecting boarding passes at the gate. This proved to be incorrect.

We had to exit out of terminal, stand in the general check-in line and go back through security. Cape Air did check our baggage thru to Philly.

Part of the problem was that US Air's computers were down. I did ask how this transfer was "usually" handled and was given two answers.

One was that we could have, on a normal day, picked up our boarding passes at the gate.

The other answer was no, no matter what, we would have had to go out thru security to pick up our boarding passes.

Ultimately, having our connecting flight boarding passes ahead of time would have solved most of our problems.

Hey when are you guys going to be there? 1 of 4

we had to go stt to sju on cape air on a sat this past dec. arrived at airport at 11am (for 1 o'clock flt). very few people and since stt airport food sux, asked ticket agent at checkin if the 4 of us could make the noon flt. noprobleman, free change of flt and were at gate 30 minutes before flt. a breeze, but if you have only one shot to go from stt to wherever, you know: you can wait if you're early and flt won't wait because you're late. help any?

i believe your parents are on a sju stop w/o change of planes, so sju will be a breeze. unfortunately sju was a saturday nightmare for us. nice flt over, prompt delivery of checked bags buttt, had to exit airport go to delta ticket counter for checkin and bag check. after getting to an agent i was told we'd have to have green usda stickers on our luggage before they could be checked. so to usda for sticker, back to checkin, then to security clearance line. we almost missed our flt and did miss a lunch at sju. good thing we took earlier flt. oh well.

papabou

I didn't see you say your folks were flying cape air if its on the same airline in SJU no problem

Thanks for your advice guys. I asked them and they said it is an American flight, not Cape Air. Sounds like they should be fine.

1 of 4, we are on island May 19-June 7 this year.