Why Did We Wait So Long? Trip Report 10/15-10/22 Part VIII
Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 2:48 pm
The Walk of Woe Day:
It's finally here - the day that I dreaded long before we even left to start this trip - the day we have to leave St. John.
Funny thing, though. It was much sadder thinking about it last month, or when reading other's trip reports, than it seems right now. I attribute that to the fact that we have had an incredibly wonderful week, and a completely satisfying vacation. No regrets. No complaints. Just an incredible contentment. Peace!
Before I chronicle the last few hours of our stay, I'd like to address some odds and ends, some things that may have fallen through the cracks in these daily reports.
I can't even begin to adequately convey how helpful all of the contributors on this forum were to me during the planning and "countdown" phases of this trip. From the very obviously seasoned St. John veterans that so freely dispense advice, some of it over and over again, to the first time visitors that wrote a quick summary of their trip, or even chimed in on other's threads with tidbits of their own, this is an unbeatable resource for helping you get the most out of your trip, no matter how you choose to live it.
Carefree Getaways - They were a pleasure to do business with. They always responded to emails promptly and patiently (you know how annoying some of us newbies can be, especially during the compulsive planning phase!), followed through on everything they promised, and told us that they would be available 24/7 for anything we needed once we got on island. The one time we had a minor problem (I couldn't get the safe open) Paco came right out and got us squared away and didn't give any indication of being put out at all.
Mosquitos - You may not have noticed, but there were no mentions of skeeters in any of my trip report segments. That's because they weren't much of a problem. We were expecting them to be a lot worse since the locals told us that there had been torrential rain a week or so ahead of our visit, but they certainly didn't show up in the biblical proportions that we heard about from visitors this past spring. Leslie got bitten a few more times than I did - but she always does because she's sweeter, but to put things in perspective, I did not apply any bug repellant the whole week, and I didn't go home scratching any bites either!
Things we'd do differently - Hard to say. Like I said before, no regrets. I really feel that we're comfortable enough now to decide more on the fly what we want to do. The size and make up of any future groups could certainly influence what we decide we want to do.
I don't worry about driving at night any more, but if it is just Leslie and me, I don't know that we'd neccessarily eat dinner out any more often - we really enjoyed cooking at the villa and having our "alone" dinners out on the deck.
It may be several trips or more before I'll feel the need to explore off-island options - we feel like in a lot of ways we've only scratched the surface of what St. John has to offer - there are a lot of beaches , trails, and roads we haven't seen yet!
I feel that we struck a good balance between being active and relaxing. I don't know that we'd like to tip the scales too far in either direction, so I suppose the only answer to getting more in next time is to stay longer!
Anyhow...back to your regularly scheduled trip report...
We had decided to not try and squeeze any last minute activities in today, although we likely could have.
After breakfast we finished packing, made sure that we had everything, and that the villa was secured properly. We were out well in advance of the 10:00AM checkout time, so we left the keys to the villa in the drawer per Carefree's insructions. The first "pang" came when I had to close the front door of the villa, knowing that the keys were inside and once that door was shut there was no going back...
We drove down Gift Hill Road past all of our landmarks - bye speed bumps, bye schoolhouse, bye dumpster, bye dumpster residing roosters...
Got to the intersection at Centerline. See ya Tony's mobile eatery (I wonder what they offer - maybe next time?...). Past "our" orange house, on into town. Luckily not too busy. We took the jeep back to St. John Car Rental (see - I told you I'd return it in one piece), then walked our bags through Wharfside Village to the ferry terminal.
Cruz bay from the ferry terminal:
We had a lot of time to kill, so I popped upstairs real quick to say goodbye to Ruth and Ron. Ruth said that they had planned to come to the Beach Bar last night, but after finishing work and getting home, they just didn't feel like heading back out. No worries - I really "get" villa gravity now, and it wasn't like we sat in a corner by ourselves with no one to talk to!
I went back to watch the luggage and turned Leslie loose to do her last minute shopping. She also went up to St. John Spice but Ruth was busy doing something else, so she didn't get to say goodbye in person (Ruth - if you read this, Leslie says "bye").
Even the fry - the little fish we had seen so much of earlier in the week, stopped by to bade us farewell
We were taking the 11:15 ferry to Charlotte Amalie rather than the 11:00 to Red Hook on Ruth's advice. That gave us plenty of time since folks were still showing up towait for the 11:00. I took advantage of the time to walk over to Mongoose Junction and get us a sandwich from Grotto Deli to eat in the airport.
Woe - what woe?
Eventually the 11:00 ferry left and they began taking payment for the 11:15 to downtown. We boarded the ferry boat and got a seat up top. As we pulled away from St. John, Leslie remembered to do what we'd forgotten every time we were in Cruz Bay all week - take a picture of Gift Hill so that we could spot Cielo Vista!
We're pretty sure that's it, high up on the left
A pretty sure sign that your stay on St. John has come to and end
The crossing was nice, and we got to see some of St. Thomas that we'd never seen before - there are some awesome looking villas along the coast (not that I expect to ever plan on staying at any of them)! Before we knew it, we were docking downtown. There was a taxi dispatcher asking everyone's flight times - I think we were the only ones leaving early enough (2:45PM) that we went directly to the airport rather than shopping or hanging out downtown for a bit first. So we once again had a private cab, this time for the short ride to the departures area of the airport.
Due to us being so early there were no lines at all to speak of, from the AA check in desk, through customs, and even through security/baggage check. We were in the waiting area (the A/C appeared to be working, but they still had the big fans running also) a full two hours before the flight, so we read our books (we had both finished the ones we brought with us, so we had swapped by this time), did some people watching and just chilled out.
Uneventful flight home, and our checked bags were practically the first ones to show up onthe baggage carousel. Only had to wait a few minutes for the Airport Fast-Park Shuttle bus, and within 20 minutes or so were back in our vehicle getting ready to head home. I briefly thought that it might be a good idea to market "Keep Right" stickers for folks that were coming back from STJ to put on their windshields, but driving on the right seemed so natural you'd think I'd been doing it for years!
The rush hour Miami traffic certainly drove home the point that we weren't on St. John any more! But now we were anxious toget to our real home, see the boys and my mom, the pets, the mail...
And so ends our saga. This trip was so much fun that it's hard to explain to people. The closest I can come to that is that I can honestly say that it did not fail to live up to expectattions in any way. We enjoyed ourselves immensely all week long, and writing this trip report helps me to relive that magical week. I hope you enjoyed reading it half as much as I did writing it.
Now...I can't wait to read YOURS!!!
It's finally here - the day that I dreaded long before we even left to start this trip - the day we have to leave St. John.
Funny thing, though. It was much sadder thinking about it last month, or when reading other's trip reports, than it seems right now. I attribute that to the fact that we have had an incredibly wonderful week, and a completely satisfying vacation. No regrets. No complaints. Just an incredible contentment. Peace!
Before I chronicle the last few hours of our stay, I'd like to address some odds and ends, some things that may have fallen through the cracks in these daily reports.
I can't even begin to adequately convey how helpful all of the contributors on this forum were to me during the planning and "countdown" phases of this trip. From the very obviously seasoned St. John veterans that so freely dispense advice, some of it over and over again, to the first time visitors that wrote a quick summary of their trip, or even chimed in on other's threads with tidbits of their own, this is an unbeatable resource for helping you get the most out of your trip, no matter how you choose to live it.
Carefree Getaways - They were a pleasure to do business with. They always responded to emails promptly and patiently (you know how annoying some of us newbies can be, especially during the compulsive planning phase!), followed through on everything they promised, and told us that they would be available 24/7 for anything we needed once we got on island. The one time we had a minor problem (I couldn't get the safe open) Paco came right out and got us squared away and didn't give any indication of being put out at all.
Mosquitos - You may not have noticed, but there were no mentions of skeeters in any of my trip report segments. That's because they weren't much of a problem. We were expecting them to be a lot worse since the locals told us that there had been torrential rain a week or so ahead of our visit, but they certainly didn't show up in the biblical proportions that we heard about from visitors this past spring. Leslie got bitten a few more times than I did - but she always does because she's sweeter, but to put things in perspective, I did not apply any bug repellant the whole week, and I didn't go home scratching any bites either!
Things we'd do differently - Hard to say. Like I said before, no regrets. I really feel that we're comfortable enough now to decide more on the fly what we want to do. The size and make up of any future groups could certainly influence what we decide we want to do.
I don't worry about driving at night any more, but if it is just Leslie and me, I don't know that we'd neccessarily eat dinner out any more often - we really enjoyed cooking at the villa and having our "alone" dinners out on the deck.
It may be several trips or more before I'll feel the need to explore off-island options - we feel like in a lot of ways we've only scratched the surface of what St. John has to offer - there are a lot of beaches , trails, and roads we haven't seen yet!
I feel that we struck a good balance between being active and relaxing. I don't know that we'd like to tip the scales too far in either direction, so I suppose the only answer to getting more in next time is to stay longer!
Anyhow...back to your regularly scheduled trip report...
We had decided to not try and squeeze any last minute activities in today, although we likely could have.
After breakfast we finished packing, made sure that we had everything, and that the villa was secured properly. We were out well in advance of the 10:00AM checkout time, so we left the keys to the villa in the drawer per Carefree's insructions. The first "pang" came when I had to close the front door of the villa, knowing that the keys were inside and once that door was shut there was no going back...
We drove down Gift Hill Road past all of our landmarks - bye speed bumps, bye schoolhouse, bye dumpster, bye dumpster residing roosters...
Got to the intersection at Centerline. See ya Tony's mobile eatery (I wonder what they offer - maybe next time?...). Past "our" orange house, on into town. Luckily not too busy. We took the jeep back to St. John Car Rental (see - I told you I'd return it in one piece), then walked our bags through Wharfside Village to the ferry terminal.
Cruz bay from the ferry terminal:
We had a lot of time to kill, so I popped upstairs real quick to say goodbye to Ruth and Ron. Ruth said that they had planned to come to the Beach Bar last night, but after finishing work and getting home, they just didn't feel like heading back out. No worries - I really "get" villa gravity now, and it wasn't like we sat in a corner by ourselves with no one to talk to!
I went back to watch the luggage and turned Leslie loose to do her last minute shopping. She also went up to St. John Spice but Ruth was busy doing something else, so she didn't get to say goodbye in person (Ruth - if you read this, Leslie says "bye").
Even the fry - the little fish we had seen so much of earlier in the week, stopped by to bade us farewell
We were taking the 11:15 ferry to Charlotte Amalie rather than the 11:00 to Red Hook on Ruth's advice. That gave us plenty of time since folks were still showing up towait for the 11:00. I took advantage of the time to walk over to Mongoose Junction and get us a sandwich from Grotto Deli to eat in the airport.
Woe - what woe?
Eventually the 11:00 ferry left and they began taking payment for the 11:15 to downtown. We boarded the ferry boat and got a seat up top. As we pulled away from St. John, Leslie remembered to do what we'd forgotten every time we were in Cruz Bay all week - take a picture of Gift Hill so that we could spot Cielo Vista!
We're pretty sure that's it, high up on the left
A pretty sure sign that your stay on St. John has come to and end
The crossing was nice, and we got to see some of St. Thomas that we'd never seen before - there are some awesome looking villas along the coast (not that I expect to ever plan on staying at any of them)! Before we knew it, we were docking downtown. There was a taxi dispatcher asking everyone's flight times - I think we were the only ones leaving early enough (2:45PM) that we went directly to the airport rather than shopping or hanging out downtown for a bit first. So we once again had a private cab, this time for the short ride to the departures area of the airport.
Due to us being so early there were no lines at all to speak of, from the AA check in desk, through customs, and even through security/baggage check. We were in the waiting area (the A/C appeared to be working, but they still had the big fans running also) a full two hours before the flight, so we read our books (we had both finished the ones we brought with us, so we had swapped by this time), did some people watching and just chilled out.
Uneventful flight home, and our checked bags were practically the first ones to show up onthe baggage carousel. Only had to wait a few minutes for the Airport Fast-Park Shuttle bus, and within 20 minutes or so were back in our vehicle getting ready to head home. I briefly thought that it might be a good idea to market "Keep Right" stickers for folks that were coming back from STJ to put on their windshields, but driving on the right seemed so natural you'd think I'd been doing it for years!
The rush hour Miami traffic certainly drove home the point that we weren't on St. John any more! But now we were anxious toget to our real home, see the boys and my mom, the pets, the mail...
And so ends our saga. This trip was so much fun that it's hard to explain to people. The closest I can come to that is that I can honestly say that it did not fail to live up to expectattions in any way. We enjoyed ourselves immensely all week long, and writing this trip report helps me to relive that magical week. I hope you enjoyed reading it half as much as I did writing it.
Now...I can't wait to read YOURS!!!
