USVI-On-Line

First family trip in 10 years! It is hard to get
grown kids schedules to mesh. We planned it 7 months out. This was my husbands and I fifth trip and we were excited to show them why we keep coming back.

Travel day starts with a night park and fly in Chicago. We got dropped off to USAir and find out if our flight ends in high number we had to go to United. No problem we took the tram to United and got in line in plenty of time. Get up to the desk and the agent said we needed to be in International line to go to St Thomas. What the #$#$? Has this ever happened to anyone? We get out of the line and head to international and the line is out the door. My husband goes back and talks to guy that greeted us and told us to have a cold one in St Thomas said wait a minute If you are going to St Thomas this is the right line. We finally get through and had a smooth flight to Charlotte. Not a good sign when the plane is not there when we get to the gate. Plane was still in maintenance,We were suppose to leave at ll20 and left at 420. No problem all is good we are heading to the rock. The good thing my daughter caught up to us from Indy and we were all on the same flight.

We had called and our Villa greeter was aware of our delay and said she would get our Safari truck from Cool Breeze, We landed at 715 and made the 0800 ferry after getting our shot of mango rum. Yumm , Slow down we are here finally here!

Lisa the manager met us and we picked up are safari truck. We thought it was a lot of fun and worked for the group we had. We found we could get 6 chairs, cooler and all the snorkel equipment in the back. We headed to Villa Bijou. We were greeted to open windows and nice cross breezes. We never shut the doors all week and left unlocked.

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The view was beautiful.

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She had stocked the fridge with wine, cheese, fruit, crackers beer, lunchmeat, pop and cookies. We had missed our reservation for Rhumb Lines and decided just to snack and enjoy the Villa and the view. A few people went to St John market to get eggs, fruit, juice and rum. Life is good. We are cooler people and brought a suit case of dry ingredients. We eat breakfast in, take lunches to beach and eat out every other night.

I will write a review on the villa later but we loved it. Location 3 min from Cruz Bay, 3 equal bathrooms with large showers, Very clean, No bugs, great pool.

loved the gazebo with fan.I spent many hours there in the morning.

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Air in bedrooms and available if closed 3 large doors on top floor. Had 6 fans in living room and kitchen so never found need to use air there.

We have always stayed on Coral Bay side before. I still love that but did like being closer to town with the larger group of people. We are early risers and that continued with me getting up with sun at 5 and watching the island wake up with coffee in the Gazebo Loved watching the iguanas in the bushes in the mornings.
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We ate breakfast and everyone pitched in to make sandwiches and pack cooler.


We parked at Caneel and hiked to Salomon.

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Enjoyed the beach and the kids went for a snorkel between Salomon and Honeymoon.

We are all big readers and my youngest Keith camped out here to read. No one on beach but us!

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We stayed till lunch time and hiked back to honeymoon for lunch. Read and relaxed and went to Caneel to snorkel In Jan we enjoyed the snorkel to the right. My son’s and husband snorkeled and the girls stayed on the beach. One thing I noticed is how much more intense the sun is in June versus Jan. Even though the temp was only 4-5 degrees hotter it felt like a lot more. We all enjoyed a beverage at the bar got our ticket validated and headed back to the villa and pool. Pool was wonderful and gets pretty much full sun in afternoon. Ate out at Rhumblines.Everyone enjoyed their meals. The Pad thai was the overall favorite!

Husband Jim and Me

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My three children, Brandon 30, Casandra 28, Keith 25

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enjoyed your first installment..You left right before we arrived on island!

locals told us there were a heat wave! it was in the nineties during our trip...but hardly ever seemed like it was that hot...

we are accustomed to the Southern heat with humidity...

it was noticeably hotter in Cruz Bay than Coral Bay though..

Hi Cindygad,
Well...My family of 8 was also on that flight out of Charlotte on June 9th.
A total nightmare !! We only live about 40 min. from the airport so that's where we always fly out. Never had that kind of situation happen going to STT from Clt before. We had rented our cars on STT....soooo...as you know what time we landed...well the last car barge over to STJ was at 7 p.m....WE MISSED IT ! We had to locate our cars, go to Red Hook, leave them parked there all night and take the 9:00 passenger ferry over. That costed a whole lot more for eight people and our luggage. Then we had to get a late taxi ( Thank the Lord for the villa owner...he got someone who drove for the Westin to come that late) and that was more MONEY . Then ferry back to STT the next morning to pick up the 2 cars...pay for parking them overnight...MORE MONEY guess you get the idea...that US Airways snafu cost us out the Ying Yang ! The one great thing I have to say is that Dale, owner of Acqua Blue, was so GREAT...He met us that late, embraced us with much sympathy and opened the house back up for us...he really didn't have too ! But, In the end it all worked out and that was what really counted ! We took our 2 daughters ( age 32 and 36 )and spouses and 2 grandchildren as well, all of them were first timers ! Boy was their first trip a real adventure...and first time for 4 of them flying too ! Don't know if they will ever want to get on another plane...out of CLT that is !! We got to the airport in CLT at 9a.m. ( it is only a 3 1/2 hour flight to STT from there...We actually got to STJ a little before 10 p.m., almost 13 hours to make that 3+ hours trip!!!

Sherry in SC

Enjoying your trip report so far!
Do y'all have a picture of the safari truck you rented? I've never heard of people renting those...just jeeps. How cool!
I LOVE the gazebo with the fan. That's my type of place to hang out in the early morning / late evening. How nice!
Looking forward to more installments!
Thanks for sharing!

Great first installment! Your daughter looks just like you- both beautiful! can't wait for more- it's fun going with older kids!!

Sherry in SC your travel day was even worse than ours. At least we all made it to the rock that day.

ColumbiaSCTraveler
PostPosted: Sat Jul 07, 2012 9:47 am Post subject:
Enjoying your trip report so far!
Do y'all have a picture of the safari truck you rented? I've never heard of people renting those...just jeeps. How cool!
I LOVE the gazebo with the fan. That's my type of place to hang out in the early morning / late evening. How nice!
Looking forward to more installments
Thanks for sharing!

The Safari truck was alot of fun. I had seen a few on the island and thought it would one way to have only one vehicle and get all of our stuff to the beaches. It was cool riding in the back. I would not do if you had a bad back.

this is the picture of what we rented

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We found a place to rent for next Jan and liked better because has a dual cab.

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Thanks for the picture! I've just never heard of anyone else renting one. How COOL!!!!

I would be scared in the safari truck!!!

Philbetm: did you purchase travel insurance? it should cover delay costs if over a certain timeframe. If you kept all your receipts etc for the extra expense.

I never felt scared in the safari truck. When you factor in top speed is about 30 on a straight a way you never get going very fast. I would not want any children riding in it though, unless they were in the cab in second seat.

Great first instalment... now I need to get busy!