Trip Report - 5/12-5/19
Posted: Sun May 20, 2012 8:58 pm
We had a wonderful trip to St. John. We think this was about our fifth trip and definitely will not be our last. Some notes/highlights:
* We found out the hard way that Hertz doesn't allow you to take a car from the airport to St. John. Hubby went to get the car. The representative asked where he was taking it. He said St. John. She immediately tore up the contract and said it wasn't allowed, then offered no further explanation or help. We ended up using Dependable (see next bullet), who was fine and we were grateful they even had a car available.
* I had posted on here about chartering a boat for the day. Pia was extremely helpful. When I ran into the problem with the car, I called her asking for help. She was WONDERFUL! Thanks, again, Pia!
* We stayed at Bay Rum Breeze, which is on Mamey Peak. LOVED it. It's a beautiful villa, with three bedrooms, three and a half baths, and an absolutely gorgeous view from all the rooms. There is also a decent sized pool by St. John standards, as well as a hot tub (which we never even used). All of the bathrooms that are attached with the bedrooms have outdoor showers - can't beat those views! The owner called one of the first days to make sure everything was OK. This place is dangerously close to the Smoothie stand
* We used Cloud 9 for our boating adventure. Jason and Leslie were extremely professional and just plain nice. We had one stop for a dive/snorkel, then sailed to Jost. We even got to steer the boat. Everyone had a wonderful time. We went to Foxy's and had lunch there, and even (finally) got to meet Foxy. What a fun man. Great attitude. And taboo, the big black island dog, was there again, as well.
* We got some great villa time in, but also managed to hit a few beaches: maho, trunk, cinnamon. Maho is only about 6 minutes from the villa, which is awesome because it still remains our favorite. One of our friends snorkeled for the first time and got to see turtles. Thanks, Maho.
* Our best meal was probably at Rhumb lines. We went to Skinny's twice. We went to Island Blues and Aqua Bistro once each. Island Blues was only OK. The rest of the food was good. The people everywhere were extremely nice. We also went to Beach Bar twice.
* Because of the car snafu (we were going to get two, but could only get one at the last minute), it was the first time we didn't get groceries in St. Thomas. We ended up shopping at the grocery store by Aqua Bistro (sorry, forgot the name). It's expensive, but it was fine. Maybe next time we'll just go ahead and rent the car on St. John? We'll see.
* We did get bitten a decent amount - I think mostly by noseeums. Nope, it won't thwart me from going back. The bad news is those bands just don't seem to work for me.
Love St. John and miss it already! We might be going back again this year
* We found out the hard way that Hertz doesn't allow you to take a car from the airport to St. John. Hubby went to get the car. The representative asked where he was taking it. He said St. John. She immediately tore up the contract and said it wasn't allowed, then offered no further explanation or help. We ended up using Dependable (see next bullet), who was fine and we were grateful they even had a car available.
* I had posted on here about chartering a boat for the day. Pia was extremely helpful. When I ran into the problem with the car, I called her asking for help. She was WONDERFUL! Thanks, again, Pia!
* We stayed at Bay Rum Breeze, which is on Mamey Peak. LOVED it. It's a beautiful villa, with three bedrooms, three and a half baths, and an absolutely gorgeous view from all the rooms. There is also a decent sized pool by St. John standards, as well as a hot tub (which we never even used). All of the bathrooms that are attached with the bedrooms have outdoor showers - can't beat those views! The owner called one of the first days to make sure everything was OK. This place is dangerously close to the Smoothie stand
* We used Cloud 9 for our boating adventure. Jason and Leslie were extremely professional and just plain nice. We had one stop for a dive/snorkel, then sailed to Jost. We even got to steer the boat. Everyone had a wonderful time. We went to Foxy's and had lunch there, and even (finally) got to meet Foxy. What a fun man. Great attitude. And taboo, the big black island dog, was there again, as well.
* We got some great villa time in, but also managed to hit a few beaches: maho, trunk, cinnamon. Maho is only about 6 minutes from the villa, which is awesome because it still remains our favorite. One of our friends snorkeled for the first time and got to see turtles. Thanks, Maho.
* Our best meal was probably at Rhumb lines. We went to Skinny's twice. We went to Island Blues and Aqua Bistro once each. Island Blues was only OK. The rest of the food was good. The people everywhere were extremely nice. We also went to Beach Bar twice.
* Because of the car snafu (we were going to get two, but could only get one at the last minute), it was the first time we didn't get groceries in St. Thomas. We ended up shopping at the grocery store by Aqua Bistro (sorry, forgot the name). It's expensive, but it was fine. Maybe next time we'll just go ahead and rent the car on St. John? We'll see.
* We did get bitten a decent amount - I think mostly by noseeums. Nope, it won't thwart me from going back. The bad news is those bands just don't seem to work for me.
Love St. John and miss it already! We might be going back again this year