A Newbie Meets STJ - Day Two
Posted: Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:01 pm
A Newbie Meets STJ - Day 2
I woke up in paradise, and it was still dark out. I thought, "Wow, the villa must have hotel curtains to block out the sun." Wrong. It was 4:00 a.m.. I had already slept 8 hours. The king bed at Bay House is COMFY. I slept great all week. So great the first day, I went back to sleep for an additional 4 hours. Holy crap. 12 hours of sleep? Guess I needed that. NYC can wear a person out. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I got up and immediately went upstairs and out to the deck. It was very overcast, but it didn't matter. I was here, finally, on St. John! I grabbed some Pop Tarts (breakfast of champions), and sat in the old cushioned wooden recliner on the deck. I was taking it all in, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was my first gecko. "Hey!" (Yes, I spoke to it.) It looked as me in surprise. "I seeeee you!" I informed it. It stared at me. I couldn't blame it. I was completely sober.
Hub got up, and soon after it started raining. It would continue to rain all day. This was definitely a villa day. Nothing wrong with a villa day. I'd rather be in a villa with those views (even when raining), than most other places under sunnier conditions. I just couldn't get over those views. And the geckos. Did I mention I started naming them all Phil? Let's pretend I came up with that one after a few drinks.
As I said in the day one report, we stayed at the Bay House villa in Coral Bay. I'll add some pictures that I took after hubby uploads them. Please keep in mind that I have absolutely no other villas to compare this to, so I'm not really sure what the 'standard' is (if one even exists). Bay House seems to be a bit older. It has two bedrooms downstairs, each with their own bathroom (showers, no tubs). Each bedroom has air conditioning, which we used every night. We probably could have gotten away with leaving the screens open, but hey... I like it cold at night. One bedroom had a king bed, and the other had two twin beds. Both bedrooms had sliding doors to the lower deck, which had a table and seating for four. They also both had end tables, dressers, and plenty of closet hangers. As I said, the king bed was extremely comfy. The linens were older, but that was OK. I only saw one bug downstairs the whole week. The bathroom had the normal assortment of bath towels/wash cloths/hand towels. There was a medicine cabinet with mirror in the king bathroom. I'm not sure what was in the other, as I never really checked it out. The towels smalled funky, but I blame that on the water. The first day I went to take a shower and there was no hot water. I was sure I was doing something wrong, so had hubby try the upstairs faucets. Nope, still no hot water. Hubby called the greeter, who had her hubby stop by and take a look (he's the maintenance man). The heating element burnt out (this happened on a Sunday), so we'd have to wait until Monday for hot water. Not a big deal - we still had quick showers and it was fine. Now on to the rest of the villa!
Upstairs you find the open kitchen/living room area, as well as a very small 1/2 bath. There is a comfy couch and chair in the living room area, as well as an end table and coffee table. There is a smallish TV that got more channels than I was expecting, for some reason. There was a VCR and a DVD player, as well. There was also a stereo. There was plenty of various St. John books (we left some, too), as well as other reading materials. There were two games -- Chutes and Ladders, and Monopoly. In the kitchen area there was a glass top table with four chairs. There was a sort of odd assortment of glasses (sometimes the fourth glass was missing?), but plenty of dishes and whatnot for four, I'd say. The cupboards didn't have doors. Is that normal? I have no idea. The fridge was older and we were told that we should never ever ever ever change the fridge temperature. OK. No prob. Someone even left most of a bottle of light rum for us. Thanks!
The main deck has a BBQ grill (hub had a little bit of a problem getting the flame to stay lit), a small cooler and a large cooler, lots of beach chairs, a nice sized table with four cushioned chairs, two additional cushioned chairs, and the cushioned reclining chair I referred to earlier (arm kept falling off - sorta funny). There was a pool on the middle deck, with two plastic recliners, as well as plenty of pool toys. The pool was smallish, but I think that is the norm in St. John. It did the trick when you wanted a refreshing skinny dip. Tee hee.
As I said, since I was a newbie and didn't see any other villas I didn't have anything to compare it to. It sort of reminded me of staying at Grandma's house... if your Grandma lived in the Caribbean and had an awesome view. We enjoyed it. There was a constant breeze, that really spoiled us for when we'd go to other parts of the island and there really wasn't much of one at all. We loved the location, which was right up the hill from Crabby's and a hop/skip/jump from Skinny's. Speaking of Skinny's, we only ventured out to go there for dinner on day two. I was nervous about trying to drive those unfamiliar roads to Cruz Bay for the BB party, so we skipped it. I was bummed, thinking I didn't get to meet any forumers. Wrong! Stay tuned...
SUMMARY: Villa days = lots of sleep, happy sighing, reading, napping, and a cool alcoholic beverage or two.
I woke up in paradise, and it was still dark out. I thought, "Wow, the villa must have hotel curtains to block out the sun." Wrong. It was 4:00 a.m.. I had already slept 8 hours. The king bed at Bay House is COMFY. I slept great all week. So great the first day, I went back to sleep for an additional 4 hours. Holy crap. 12 hours of sleep? Guess I needed that. NYC can wear a person out. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
I got up and immediately went upstairs and out to the deck. It was very overcast, but it didn't matter. I was here, finally, on St. John! I grabbed some Pop Tarts (breakfast of champions), and sat in the old cushioned wooden recliner on the deck. I was taking it all in, and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was my first gecko. "Hey!" (Yes, I spoke to it.) It looked as me in surprise. "I seeeee you!" I informed it. It stared at me. I couldn't blame it. I was completely sober.
Hub got up, and soon after it started raining. It would continue to rain all day. This was definitely a villa day. Nothing wrong with a villa day. I'd rather be in a villa with those views (even when raining), than most other places under sunnier conditions. I just couldn't get over those views. And the geckos. Did I mention I started naming them all Phil? Let's pretend I came up with that one after a few drinks.
As I said in the day one report, we stayed at the Bay House villa in Coral Bay. I'll add some pictures that I took after hubby uploads them. Please keep in mind that I have absolutely no other villas to compare this to, so I'm not really sure what the 'standard' is (if one even exists). Bay House seems to be a bit older. It has two bedrooms downstairs, each with their own bathroom (showers, no tubs). Each bedroom has air conditioning, which we used every night. We probably could have gotten away with leaving the screens open, but hey... I like it cold at night. One bedroom had a king bed, and the other had two twin beds. Both bedrooms had sliding doors to the lower deck, which had a table and seating for four. They also both had end tables, dressers, and plenty of closet hangers. As I said, the king bed was extremely comfy. The linens were older, but that was OK. I only saw one bug downstairs the whole week. The bathroom had the normal assortment of bath towels/wash cloths/hand towels. There was a medicine cabinet with mirror in the king bathroom. I'm not sure what was in the other, as I never really checked it out. The towels smalled funky, but I blame that on the water. The first day I went to take a shower and there was no hot water. I was sure I was doing something wrong, so had hubby try the upstairs faucets. Nope, still no hot water. Hubby called the greeter, who had her hubby stop by and take a look (he's the maintenance man). The heating element burnt out (this happened on a Sunday), so we'd have to wait until Monday for hot water. Not a big deal - we still had quick showers and it was fine. Now on to the rest of the villa!
Upstairs you find the open kitchen/living room area, as well as a very small 1/2 bath. There is a comfy couch and chair in the living room area, as well as an end table and coffee table. There is a smallish TV that got more channels than I was expecting, for some reason. There was a VCR and a DVD player, as well. There was also a stereo. There was plenty of various St. John books (we left some, too), as well as other reading materials. There were two games -- Chutes and Ladders, and Monopoly. In the kitchen area there was a glass top table with four chairs. There was a sort of odd assortment of glasses (sometimes the fourth glass was missing?), but plenty of dishes and whatnot for four, I'd say. The cupboards didn't have doors. Is that normal? I have no idea. The fridge was older and we were told that we should never ever ever ever change the fridge temperature. OK. No prob. Someone even left most of a bottle of light rum for us. Thanks!
The main deck has a BBQ grill (hub had a little bit of a problem getting the flame to stay lit), a small cooler and a large cooler, lots of beach chairs, a nice sized table with four cushioned chairs, two additional cushioned chairs, and the cushioned reclining chair I referred to earlier (arm kept falling off - sorta funny). There was a pool on the middle deck, with two plastic recliners, as well as plenty of pool toys. The pool was smallish, but I think that is the norm in St. John. It did the trick when you wanted a refreshing skinny dip. Tee hee.
As I said, since I was a newbie and didn't see any other villas I didn't have anything to compare it to. It sort of reminded me of staying at Grandma's house... if your Grandma lived in the Caribbean and had an awesome view. We enjoyed it. There was a constant breeze, that really spoiled us for when we'd go to other parts of the island and there really wasn't much of one at all. We loved the location, which was right up the hill from Crabby's and a hop/skip/jump from Skinny's. Speaking of Skinny's, we only ventured out to go there for dinner on day two. I was nervous about trying to drive those unfamiliar roads to Cruz Bay for the BB party, so we skipped it. I was bummed, thinking I didn't get to meet any forumers. Wrong! Stay tuned...
SUMMARY: Villa days = lots of sleep, happy sighing, reading, napping, and a cool alcoholic beverage or two.
