Trip Report 4/21 - 4/28 - Day One - LONG
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2007 9:40 am
St. John 4/21 – 4/28 Day One - LONG
A little background. We had a total of 9 people on this trip. Me (also known as Julie, the Cruise Director), my darling daughter Lauren and my best friend Tom were flying direct from Boston to St. Thomas. My friend Steve, his girlfriend Annette and their 18 year old daughter Kryssie (all newbies) flew in through Washington. My California cousins (Pete and Lisa (newbie)) arrived via Spirit through FT Lauderdale. My cousin Eileen (newbie) would arrive on Monday from Columbus. All flights arrived on time, but a warning to those traveling from Boston – the security line is ridiculously long so allow yourself at least the recommended 2 hours before your flight.
SA&K arrived first and we had them take a cab to the ferry. My brother who lives on St. John met them and brought them to the villa (Golden Dragon). The rest of had a joyful reunion at the airport (I love these cousins and hadn’t seen them in 5 years. One hug and it was like we were never apart!!). We picked up the rental car with no fuss and we were off to the car barge. NOTE: I had some rewards I cashed in for Avis vouchers. If you are using these, you need to present them when you pick up the car. They won’t accept them when you drop it off. The barge was there when we got there and we just hopped right on, headed to the back under my favorite palm tree, had a cold beer and enjoyed the ride.
We rented a second vehicle from St. John Car Rental. They were lovely to deal with, the car was great (a Ford Explorer) and their parking came in handy. Would highly recommend them. Thanks to my obsessive studying of aerial maps, I was able to actually find the villas on my own!! We stopped at Cara Mia and dropped off the luggage of the 3 people we had staying there. Cara Mia is a very pretty villa, but is very sparsely decorated. It has a better view than Golden Dragon and a better layout of the pool area for a group our size, but we never used it.
My brother and his girlfriend graciously stocked Golden Dragon with provisions, picked up our order from Mixology and had appetizers waiting and dinner cooking when we arrived! For me, this trip was really all about time spent with family and friends and our first night set the pace. A bunch of us jumped in the pool upon arrival.
I had my ipod playing my St. John Playlist (on the Bose sound dock I brought – neither villa had a stereo we could play the Ipod through), and the blender got a heck of a workout. We laughed a LOT and it may sound corny but we were so happy to all see each other that you could almost feel the love all around our beautiful villa. After way too many drinks, we eventually all stumbled off to bed after our long travel day.
A little background. We had a total of 9 people on this trip. Me (also known as Julie, the Cruise Director), my darling daughter Lauren and my best friend Tom were flying direct from Boston to St. Thomas. My friend Steve, his girlfriend Annette and their 18 year old daughter Kryssie (all newbies) flew in through Washington. My California cousins (Pete and Lisa (newbie)) arrived via Spirit through FT Lauderdale. My cousin Eileen (newbie) would arrive on Monday from Columbus. All flights arrived on time, but a warning to those traveling from Boston – the security line is ridiculously long so allow yourself at least the recommended 2 hours before your flight.
SA&K arrived first and we had them take a cab to the ferry. My brother who lives on St. John met them and brought them to the villa (Golden Dragon). The rest of had a joyful reunion at the airport (I love these cousins and hadn’t seen them in 5 years. One hug and it was like we were never apart!!). We picked up the rental car with no fuss and we were off to the car barge. NOTE: I had some rewards I cashed in for Avis vouchers. If you are using these, you need to present them when you pick up the car. They won’t accept them when you drop it off. The barge was there when we got there and we just hopped right on, headed to the back under my favorite palm tree, had a cold beer and enjoyed the ride.
We rented a second vehicle from St. John Car Rental. They were lovely to deal with, the car was great (a Ford Explorer) and their parking came in handy. Would highly recommend them. Thanks to my obsessive studying of aerial maps, I was able to actually find the villas on my own!! We stopped at Cara Mia and dropped off the luggage of the 3 people we had staying there. Cara Mia is a very pretty villa, but is very sparsely decorated. It has a better view than Golden Dragon and a better layout of the pool area for a group our size, but we never used it.
My brother and his girlfriend graciously stocked Golden Dragon with provisions, picked up our order from Mixology and had appetizers waiting and dinner cooking when we arrived! For me, this trip was really all about time spent with family and friends and our first night set the pace. A bunch of us jumped in the pool upon arrival.
I had my ipod playing my St. John Playlist (on the Bose sound dock I brought – neither villa had a stereo we could play the Ipod through), and the blender got a heck of a workout. We laughed a LOT and it may sound corny but we were so happy to all see each other that you could almost feel the love all around our beautiful villa. After way too many drinks, we eventually all stumbled off to bed after our long travel day.
