AS THE ISLAND TURNS - trip report!
Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 11:58 am
Background:
This was our 5th visit to St. John to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. Our boys, 13 & 9 insisted they would not have fun this time unless they could invite a friend or cousins to come too. After much discussion and planning, the cousins wanted to go, along with their dad and long time girlfriend, and the grandparents (celebrating their 51st anniv. on 8/3} wanted to go too! Thinking months ago that this could happen, I booked Cloud Nine on Gifft Hill that could sleep 10. St. John family vacation, here we come!
August 1-Travel Day
8 a.m. flight from DFW to Miami to San Juan to St. Thomas! Gotta love those American Aadvantage miles flight options! Rain, delays and gate changes kept us hustling throughout the day, but we finally made it to STT at 6pm with all the family, except the girlfriend who took a Cape Air 9 passenger plane. She also insisted she check 3 CASES OF WINE to enjoy throughout the week!! We will never be able to drink all that! Who do you think we are? A bunch of winos? Hmmm . . .
Anyway, hubby's brother was going to wait for his girlfriend and the wine while the rest of us caught the 8 p.m. ferry to STJ to pick up the cars and drive to the villa to meet Marcy, our villa manager.
This was the first time to ride the ferry at night and see the twinkling lights of STJ.
Cool! We made it!
*Oh, by the way, my pics will not be the greatest resolution, as you can see, since my camera is really a 60gb hard drive video camera. I'm sure there was a feature for night time shots but I did not have time to set it up that way! Also, I could dump them in Photoshop to clean them up but you would not see a trip report from me until Christmas!!
The saga continues:
We walk to Delbert Hill Jeep Rental where an Explorer and Montero are waiting for us with the keys in the car! I was feeling confident that I could get us all to the villa in the dark, so deep breath, drive left, look for the Texaco sign, uh-oh, no Texaco, going the wrong way, hold on, turn, turn, go around again, hi Woody's, stay left, one way, oh yeah, there's the Dolphin market, go left, whew, now I'm going the right direction! Are the grandparents wanting to go home yet? 3 1/2 miles up the mountain in the dark to get to Gifft Hill! Woo-Hoo! We made it in one piece!
*Note to self: Why didn't you get Marcy to lead us to the villa?
Marcy was waiting patiently for us. She showed us around C9 and it was very nice and looked much better than the pics online. The view was awesome! St. Thomas twinkling! Stars twinkling! All I need is a glass of wine, kick back and relax . . .
No time for that! Everyone was starving and we had to get back in the cars to pick up brother, girlfriend and all that wine at the 10 p.m. ferry.
Now that I have my bearings, going down the mountain was so much easier than going up. We went to Woody's and they were closing! Your kidding! It's only 9:30 p.m.! We went to the Beach Bar, closed! Where's my first painkiller and Mahi sandwich?
We had to make do at Dolphin Market since we needed to pick up breakfast foods anyway. So our first nights dinner was Tostitos, hot sauce and Carib on the dock waiting for the ferry full of wine.
Amazingly enough, we all made it back to C9 much easier this time and enjoyed sitting on the deck as we cracked open that first case of wine!
Stay tuned for tomorrows episode of AS THE ISLAND TURNS. . . will they make it to Cinnamon Bay?. . . will there be enough wine?
This was our 5th visit to St. John to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. Our boys, 13 & 9 insisted they would not have fun this time unless they could invite a friend or cousins to come too. After much discussion and planning, the cousins wanted to go, along with their dad and long time girlfriend, and the grandparents (celebrating their 51st anniv. on 8/3} wanted to go too! Thinking months ago that this could happen, I booked Cloud Nine on Gifft Hill that could sleep 10. St. John family vacation, here we come!
August 1-Travel Day
8 a.m. flight from DFW to Miami to San Juan to St. Thomas! Gotta love those American Aadvantage miles flight options! Rain, delays and gate changes kept us hustling throughout the day, but we finally made it to STT at 6pm with all the family, except the girlfriend who took a Cape Air 9 passenger plane. She also insisted she check 3 CASES OF WINE to enjoy throughout the week!! We will never be able to drink all that! Who do you think we are? A bunch of winos? Hmmm . . .
Anyway, hubby's brother was going to wait for his girlfriend and the wine while the rest of us caught the 8 p.m. ferry to STJ to pick up the cars and drive to the villa to meet Marcy, our villa manager.
This was the first time to ride the ferry at night and see the twinkling lights of STJ.
Cool! We made it!
*Oh, by the way, my pics will not be the greatest resolution, as you can see, since my camera is really a 60gb hard drive video camera. I'm sure there was a feature for night time shots but I did not have time to set it up that way! Also, I could dump them in Photoshop to clean them up but you would not see a trip report from me until Christmas!!
The saga continues:
We walk to Delbert Hill Jeep Rental where an Explorer and Montero are waiting for us with the keys in the car! I was feeling confident that I could get us all to the villa in the dark, so deep breath, drive left, look for the Texaco sign, uh-oh, no Texaco, going the wrong way, hold on, turn, turn, go around again, hi Woody's, stay left, one way, oh yeah, there's the Dolphin market, go left, whew, now I'm going the right direction! Are the grandparents wanting to go home yet? 3 1/2 miles up the mountain in the dark to get to Gifft Hill! Woo-Hoo! We made it in one piece!
*Note to self: Why didn't you get Marcy to lead us to the villa?
Marcy was waiting patiently for us. She showed us around C9 and it was very nice and looked much better than the pics online. The view was awesome! St. Thomas twinkling! Stars twinkling! All I need is a glass of wine, kick back and relax . . .
No time for that! Everyone was starving and we had to get back in the cars to pick up brother, girlfriend and all that wine at the 10 p.m. ferry.
Now that I have my bearings, going down the mountain was so much easier than going up. We went to Woody's and they were closing! Your kidding! It's only 9:30 p.m.! We went to the Beach Bar, closed! Where's my first painkiller and Mahi sandwich?
We had to make do at Dolphin Market since we needed to pick up breakfast foods anyway. So our first nights dinner was Tostitos, hot sauce and Carib on the dock waiting for the ferry full of wine.
Amazingly enough, we all made it back to C9 much easier this time and enjoyed sitting on the deck as we cracked open that first case of wine!
Stay tuned for tomorrows episode of AS THE ISLAND TURNS. . . will they make it to Cinnamon Bay?. . . will there be enough wine?
