USVI-On-Line

My wife and I are traveling to St. John next winter after a 7 year absence. I haven't booked the flights yet, but it looks like we will be flying on American and having a layover in San Juan both coming and going.

How long of a layover in San Juan do we need to make sure that we and our luggage make our connection? Some of the connections I'm looking at have a layover of an hour, which doesn't seem long enough.

Do we go through customs in San Juan either coming or going?

An hour in San juan is plenty you will clear customs in St Thomas.On the way back don't have to on the way down.

I've gone thru SJU several times. I don't care for it usually becasue they are rarely (if ever) on time in terms of departure.

That being said somehow the San Juan gods seem to ensure that our bags make it on board for the final hop to STT no matter how short (or long) the layover is.

Whatever you do, make sure that you pack a bottle of water in your carry-on (and make sure that carry-on is small- because some of these are small planes - or you'll have to check it on the tarmac before boarding).

My reason for the water suggestion is that sometimes they get you in the tin can and don't actually take off right away. Often the flight attendant will ask everyone to close their windows to keep out the heat.
Ugh!!

SJU isn't my fave layover mainly because there isn't much to offer at the airport: Crappy restaurants and the waiting area for flights to STT is usually crowded and chaotic.

I am not however willing to pay $100- $200 per ticket more just to go via Delta thru Atlanta.

If you can, snag an AA flight thru MIA (Miami) that's usually much nicer.

This year (for our December trip) I've got us going down thru SJU and back thru MIA IAD (Washington Dulles) -STT.

PM me if you need more info.

Also, the few times our baggage has not made it to STT, we just waited until the next flight came in from SJU and it was always on there. This doesn't happen very often, but sometimes it does. We just have a few cocktails at the bar while we wait.

One thing about going through SJU on AA (done it many times) - if you are on a puddle jumber to/from STT you may have to hike a good ways to get to the gate for the over-water jet. This turned out to be a near problem on the Gang of 24 trip in November. My Dad has extremely bad legs and back and could not have made the walk without us snagging one of those electric carts for him. If you have checked luggage go for a one hour layover. For carryon, 45 minutes is fine.

Cheers, RickG

One hour seems perfect for San Juan. Believe me, you don't want to spend too much more time there as it's a bit cramped and as mentioned before, the seating, food and drink options are limited. That being said, we went through Miami a couple of weeks ago and because of ongoing renovations there, a 45 minute time between flights, and our incoming and outgoing flights in terminals that were a 20 minute walk from each other, we didn't even have time to pick up some food for the 2nd leg of our trip, and as you all know by now, about the only food you can buy on a plane these days are snack foods. I long for a non-stop to St. Thomas from Baltimore and back...

Randy in MD wrote:I long for a non-stop to St. Thomas from Baltimore and back...

Back in 1996 USAir had one. It was nice. What I would love would be flying boat service from SJU to Coral Bay! Getting direct flights to SJU from Dulles/BWI is pretty easy. If I could catch a 6AM SJU flight from the DC area and connect to land in Coral Bay at 1PM I could handle the weekend commute!

Cheers, RickG

We had a one hour layover coming back from Anguilla on American Eagle two weeks ago. The plane didn't leave Anguilla on time, and we missed the connection. We flew out of EWR and had to go home through JFK. Got home at 3:00 a.m. Was well worth it, lol. I really don't mind SJU, but I don't think I'll try such a close one again if I can avoid it.

Thanks for the feedback everybody.

We could go with only one stop in Miami, but that will cost about $500 more and won't get us there any sooner on the way down. On the way back, the layover in Miami would only be 50 minutes and I don't want to miss the connection and spend the night there, so it looks like our best option is DEN-MIA-SJU-STT on the way down and STT-SJU-DFW-DEN on the way back.

I too am taking American through San Juan when my family and I head to St John this July...we have already booked our flights and have about an hour and twenty minute layover. Its been a long time since I have done this (over thirty years) so hopefully all goes well..

On the way back we are using Continental directly out of St Thomas to Newark.