Trip Report: 5/24-5/31... LONG
Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:58 pm
This was our 2nd trip to St. John. Our first trip was last May... a last minute decision to take a honeymoon after our wedding in Punta Cana and a week of partying with friends and family. We spent 6 days on STJ, knowing virtually nothing about the island, but totally 'getting it.' This forum and all of you have taught me so much, and for our 2nd trip for our 1 year anniversary, we were much better prepared. Thank you! Here is the full set of pictures: http://photobucket.com/STJ2008
Travel Day... not as smooth as we had hoped:
We were flying from Boston to Atlanta, then Atlanta to St. Thomas, arriving at around 3:30pm. When we got to Atlanta we had about 45 minutes in between our connections, so we were rushing to get to our gate. We had noticed previously that our tickets said "SEAT REQUESTED" instead of a specific seat number, but we were told in Boston that they would assign the seats in Atlanta. Naively, we believe them. When we arrived at the counter at our gate in Atlanta, we were told that the flight had been overbooked and that we were "randomly selected to be bumped," despite purchasing these tickets 6 months ago. Delta would get us a hotel room in Atlanta and we would have to take the same flight out the next day. I was devastated. I am not usually one to overreact to these situations, but we were going to lose an entire day on St. John! Realizing this, I could not hold back the tears. A couple about to board the flight saw my reaction, and approached us saying, "They did this to us yesterday. It really sucks, I'm sorry." Ugh! A Delta employee was working with another airline to get us on a flight to Miami, then another flight arriving in STT at 7:45pm. Thank GOD that worked out!! When we got to Miami, our flight was delayed about an hour, so we ended up in St. Thomas a little before 9:30pm... a mere 6 hours after we were supposed to be there. Hey, it coulda been a lot worse! We had been in touch with Rachel, our cab driver, throughout all the drama to let her know when we'd be there, and she was waiting for us as we got off the plane. She was ADORABLE and so sweet!! She did everything in her power to get us to the 10:00 ferry, showing off some very slick driving skills. "I hope I'm not scaring you guys" she'd say. Haha... Love her. We made it to the 10:00 ferry with minutes to spare.. All in all, we arrived at our villa in Cruz Bay (Perelandra) at around 10:40pm and positively crashed in bed. The silver lining to all of that mess is that we got our flight comped, which was pretty nice.
Day 2:
My husband and I are not frequent travelers, so the drama of the previous day had taken its toll on us. But I was just SO GLAD to be waking up on island that day instead of in a hotel room in Atlanta! We woke up early to soak in the view from the deck with a cup of coffee and some muffins we picked up the day before. If there is a heaven, it is on the deck of Perelandra. Some of my favorite memories are spending time out there, with the view and the birds and the sky and the ocean... and a drink of course!
After a while we headed to Starfish to do the food/beverage shopping for the week. We had planned ahead and brought some things from home (cereal, coffee, granola bars, etc.), but we made a list for Starfish. It worked out perfectly. The gourmet market looks great! The rest of the day we spent at the villa, lounging in the pool, on the deck, listening to music and reading. A true villa-gravity day. We grilled some burgers for dinner, watched the sunset, and went to bed early. Although we barely left the villa, it was the perfect way to start the trip!!
Day 3:
The first beach we visited on our virgin trip to St. John last year was Trunk. So we decided to make that a tradition. After breakfast on the deck waking up with the island, we headed to Trunk early and when we arrived, there were only 2 other cars there. We set up camp under some beautiful trees, and took a walk along the full stretch of the beach, soaking everything in. Then we dove in for our first snorkel.
Although it was a little cloudy out and the visibility wasn't as good as it could be, it was beautiful. We saw a ton of colorful fish and coral. We are novice snorkelers... so although we don't always know exactly what we're looking at, we know natural beauty when we see it! Despite the warmth of the water, I tend to get cold very easily. So we headed in to get cozy on the beach. It actually rained for a little bit, but we just sat in our chairs with towels around us laughing. The rain stopped very soon after it started, the sun came out, and so did the crowds! Every time I looked toward the entrance, there were more people coming in. So at around 10:30/11:00 we decided to head out to find a quieter spot. I decided on Maho. Quiet indeed! This was our first time at Maho and we loved it. Although the snorkeling wasn't all that great that day, the beach and the water was extremely beautiful and relaxing. After a few hours on Maho, we went back to the villa for the rest of the afternoon and evening... Again, we relaxed in the pool, made some dinner, and chilled out, calling it an early night. Even with some rain and crowds, it was a perfect day!
Day 4:
This was the day of our sail with Calypso to Jost van Dyke. We had taken a day sail with Calypso last year and realize how much we love the catamaran style of the boat. Just being on the boat, sailing on the water and getting to see all the islands from a different perspective is so much fun. And of course, we also love the snorkel and being on Jost. It truly lived up to our memories. The captain and the crew were as quick with their knowledge of the islands as they were with the drinks. Ahh yes, there's nothing like a painkiller at 9am while sailing open waters and talking to new people. We met some great folks on that boat, which is another reason I always love these sailing trips. We had lunch at Corsairs, which was delicious! They also had an adorable little kitty there... My husband and I being animal lovers, we paid more attention to the kitty than we did to the food and the company! Sorry, that's just us. We then headed over to White Bay... The most beautiful place on earth. The captain told us we had about 2 hours to spend in White Bay. Music to my ears! My husband and I jumped right off the boat and headed to shore. We walked all the way down the beach, where he found his chocolate ice cream cone. And then went to the Soggy Dollar Bar to get my treat... A painkiller from the makers of the drink. It was delicious. After a while partying at SDB, we headed back to the general area of the boat to lounge in the water with a noodle and a drink and some new friends.
The sail back was beautiful, although I could tell that both of us had gotten too much sun, despite 2 reapplications of sunblock. Because of that we were exhausted by the time we got back to the villa, and we made it a very early night.
Day 5:
Because of the overabundance of sun and .. ahem.. yummy beverages, we were a little slow this day. But we were still up early, grabbed some breakfast and ate breakfast on the deck, and then were out to hit up Jumbie beach. It was cloudy today, but our red skin was grateful for that. Jumbie beach was our favorite of the trip. We spent about 6 or 7 hours on that beach, and saw maybe 6 other people throughout the day. Such a small peaceful beach. That night we had reservations at Zozo's. We planned on having 1 dinner out, and 1 lunch out for our trip. So this was our night for dinner. We were extremely pleased. We requested a seat at the bar which had a breathtaking view. We had the calamari to start, which melted in our mouths... so delicious. I ordered the mahi-mahi and my husband ordered the osso buco. Both were great. We were happy with our choices all around. Sorry no food porn! Honestly, I was so into my meal, I completely forgot to take pictures.
Day 6:
About 5 weeks prior to our trip I had broken my ankle while running (so much for getting that bikini body!). Thankfully I did not need to bring the dreaded crutches down with me, but I was still wearing a brace and had to take it easy (no problem!). This meant that we had to cut out some of the hikes that we wanted to take and wouldn't be able to see certain beaches. So we decided to take a dinghy out for a half day in order to see them. We used Noah's Little Ark's out of Cruz Bay and took the dinghy all the way to Waterlemon. The ride out with pretty choppy and not very comfortable! I felt like I was being slammed against the dinghy, over and over. Ugh. But when we finally got past Mary Point, it was gorgeous. We had some of the best snorkeling of the trip out at Waterlemon. After a while there, we got back in the boat and headed all the way back to Salamon beach. The ride back was much smoother, I think because the wind was with us this time. I love looking at all the houses on the hills of St. John, it's fascinating. Salamon was very nice. We talked to some people who had hiked to the beach and they said it was a pretty long hike. So my ankle and myself are glad we go to see it our way. We stayed for about an hour, both took a nap in the sand, and then headed back to Cruz Bay.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the villa, made a great meal of chicken quesadillas, and went to bed early (are you sensing a pattern??).
Day 7:
Today we headed to Gibney beach early. I am happy that we picked this beach for this particular day. I was starting to get sad that we were leaving soon, and Gibney put my heart and soul at ease, as this island is apt to do. We picked a spot at the far end of the beach. As we watched Hawksnest from afar getting crowded quickly, we were reveling in the peace and quiet of our beach. While my husband spent most of the morning napping in his chair (we like to nap), I walked around quite a bit, taking pictures and enjoying all the palm trees and foliage. The sand in the water of this beach is so amazingly soft... I spent a lot of time in the water here, just lounging in a floatie.
At around lunchtime we decided to head to Coral Bay to grab some grub at Skinny Legs. Love that place!! Lots of Boston pride being displayed on the walls. And when our waitress told us the special was a "gahlic mushroom burgah," we felt like we were home. We both had burgers and Presidentes with a dessert of key lime pie. It hit the spot. After lunch we headed to Salt Pond for an afternoon of snorkeling. Although the hike to and from the beach was a little much for my ankle, it was worth it. Every beach seems to have its own personality. Salt Pond isn't as immediately glamorous as many of the other beaches, but the more time you spend there the more you see it for its true beauty. Leave your beach chair at home, get down in the sand and the water and enjoy! Some really great snorkeling here. I didn't want to get out of the water! After a while... back to the villa, dinner on the deck, bed early, blah blah. You get the picture!
Day 8... The walk of shame day:
Because we had a 4:30pm flight out of St. Thomas, we requested a late check out at the villa and a late return for the Jeep. So we were able to hit up the beach in the morning and still have enough to time to get cleaned up and on our way. We headed to our favorite, Jumbie. We were the only ones there for the few hours that we spent there. It was bittersweet, as we knew we were about to leave this place. But it was the perfect way to end our trip. Except!! As we were walking along the stretch of beach, hand-in-hand (aww!), I stepped on something and it HURT. I dropped my butt to the sand and lifted my foot to see what it was... nothing. My husband looked back and saw a bee in the sand. I was stung by a bee! On my last day on the island! So now with my left ankle already hurt and my right foot stung by a bee, we decided it was time to leave. Hmph!
Back to the villa, packed up, showered, and down to Cruz Bay. Not much to say about the trip home, it was pretty uneventful (thank god!). But I was very... very.. very sad to be going home. The depression still hasn't totally lifted!
Travel Day... not as smooth as we had hoped:
We were flying from Boston to Atlanta, then Atlanta to St. Thomas, arriving at around 3:30pm. When we got to Atlanta we had about 45 minutes in between our connections, so we were rushing to get to our gate. We had noticed previously that our tickets said "SEAT REQUESTED" instead of a specific seat number, but we were told in Boston that they would assign the seats in Atlanta. Naively, we believe them. When we arrived at the counter at our gate in Atlanta, we were told that the flight had been overbooked and that we were "randomly selected to be bumped," despite purchasing these tickets 6 months ago. Delta would get us a hotel room in Atlanta and we would have to take the same flight out the next day. I was devastated. I am not usually one to overreact to these situations, but we were going to lose an entire day on St. John! Realizing this, I could not hold back the tears. A couple about to board the flight saw my reaction, and approached us saying, "They did this to us yesterday. It really sucks, I'm sorry." Ugh! A Delta employee was working with another airline to get us on a flight to Miami, then another flight arriving in STT at 7:45pm. Thank GOD that worked out!! When we got to Miami, our flight was delayed about an hour, so we ended up in St. Thomas a little before 9:30pm... a mere 6 hours after we were supposed to be there. Hey, it coulda been a lot worse! We had been in touch with Rachel, our cab driver, throughout all the drama to let her know when we'd be there, and she was waiting for us as we got off the plane. She was ADORABLE and so sweet!! She did everything in her power to get us to the 10:00 ferry, showing off some very slick driving skills. "I hope I'm not scaring you guys" she'd say. Haha... Love her. We made it to the 10:00 ferry with minutes to spare.. All in all, we arrived at our villa in Cruz Bay (Perelandra) at around 10:40pm and positively crashed in bed. The silver lining to all of that mess is that we got our flight comped, which was pretty nice.
Day 2:
My husband and I are not frequent travelers, so the drama of the previous day had taken its toll on us. But I was just SO GLAD to be waking up on island that day instead of in a hotel room in Atlanta! We woke up early to soak in the view from the deck with a cup of coffee and some muffins we picked up the day before. If there is a heaven, it is on the deck of Perelandra. Some of my favorite memories are spending time out there, with the view and the birds and the sky and the ocean... and a drink of course!
After a while we headed to Starfish to do the food/beverage shopping for the week. We had planned ahead and brought some things from home (cereal, coffee, granola bars, etc.), but we made a list for Starfish. It worked out perfectly. The gourmet market looks great! The rest of the day we spent at the villa, lounging in the pool, on the deck, listening to music and reading. A true villa-gravity day. We grilled some burgers for dinner, watched the sunset, and went to bed early. Although we barely left the villa, it was the perfect way to start the trip!!
Day 3:
The first beach we visited on our virgin trip to St. John last year was Trunk. So we decided to make that a tradition. After breakfast on the deck waking up with the island, we headed to Trunk early and when we arrived, there were only 2 other cars there. We set up camp under some beautiful trees, and took a walk along the full stretch of the beach, soaking everything in. Then we dove in for our first snorkel.
Although it was a little cloudy out and the visibility wasn't as good as it could be, it was beautiful. We saw a ton of colorful fish and coral. We are novice snorkelers... so although we don't always know exactly what we're looking at, we know natural beauty when we see it! Despite the warmth of the water, I tend to get cold very easily. So we headed in to get cozy on the beach. It actually rained for a little bit, but we just sat in our chairs with towels around us laughing. The rain stopped very soon after it started, the sun came out, and so did the crowds! Every time I looked toward the entrance, there were more people coming in. So at around 10:30/11:00 we decided to head out to find a quieter spot. I decided on Maho. Quiet indeed! This was our first time at Maho and we loved it. Although the snorkeling wasn't all that great that day, the beach and the water was extremely beautiful and relaxing. After a few hours on Maho, we went back to the villa for the rest of the afternoon and evening... Again, we relaxed in the pool, made some dinner, and chilled out, calling it an early night. Even with some rain and crowds, it was a perfect day!
Day 4:
This was the day of our sail with Calypso to Jost van Dyke. We had taken a day sail with Calypso last year and realize how much we love the catamaran style of the boat. Just being on the boat, sailing on the water and getting to see all the islands from a different perspective is so much fun. And of course, we also love the snorkel and being on Jost. It truly lived up to our memories. The captain and the crew were as quick with their knowledge of the islands as they were with the drinks. Ahh yes, there's nothing like a painkiller at 9am while sailing open waters and talking to new people. We met some great folks on that boat, which is another reason I always love these sailing trips. We had lunch at Corsairs, which was delicious! They also had an adorable little kitty there... My husband and I being animal lovers, we paid more attention to the kitty than we did to the food and the company! Sorry, that's just us. We then headed over to White Bay... The most beautiful place on earth. The captain told us we had about 2 hours to spend in White Bay. Music to my ears! My husband and I jumped right off the boat and headed to shore. We walked all the way down the beach, where he found his chocolate ice cream cone. And then went to the Soggy Dollar Bar to get my treat... A painkiller from the makers of the drink. It was delicious. After a while partying at SDB, we headed back to the general area of the boat to lounge in the water with a noodle and a drink and some new friends.
The sail back was beautiful, although I could tell that both of us had gotten too much sun, despite 2 reapplications of sunblock. Because of that we were exhausted by the time we got back to the villa, and we made it a very early night.
Day 5:
Because of the overabundance of sun and .. ahem.. yummy beverages, we were a little slow this day. But we were still up early, grabbed some breakfast and ate breakfast on the deck, and then were out to hit up Jumbie beach. It was cloudy today, but our red skin was grateful for that. Jumbie beach was our favorite of the trip. We spent about 6 or 7 hours on that beach, and saw maybe 6 other people throughout the day. Such a small peaceful beach. That night we had reservations at Zozo's. We planned on having 1 dinner out, and 1 lunch out for our trip. So this was our night for dinner. We were extremely pleased. We requested a seat at the bar which had a breathtaking view. We had the calamari to start, which melted in our mouths... so delicious. I ordered the mahi-mahi and my husband ordered the osso buco. Both were great. We were happy with our choices all around. Sorry no food porn! Honestly, I was so into my meal, I completely forgot to take pictures.
Day 6:
About 5 weeks prior to our trip I had broken my ankle while running (so much for getting that bikini body!). Thankfully I did not need to bring the dreaded crutches down with me, but I was still wearing a brace and had to take it easy (no problem!). This meant that we had to cut out some of the hikes that we wanted to take and wouldn't be able to see certain beaches. So we decided to take a dinghy out for a half day in order to see them. We used Noah's Little Ark's out of Cruz Bay and took the dinghy all the way to Waterlemon. The ride out with pretty choppy and not very comfortable! I felt like I was being slammed against the dinghy, over and over. Ugh. But when we finally got past Mary Point, it was gorgeous. We had some of the best snorkeling of the trip out at Waterlemon. After a while there, we got back in the boat and headed all the way back to Salamon beach. The ride back was much smoother, I think because the wind was with us this time. I love looking at all the houses on the hills of St. John, it's fascinating. Salamon was very nice. We talked to some people who had hiked to the beach and they said it was a pretty long hike. So my ankle and myself are glad we go to see it our way. We stayed for about an hour, both took a nap in the sand, and then headed back to Cruz Bay.
We spent the rest of the afternoon at the villa, made a great meal of chicken quesadillas, and went to bed early (are you sensing a pattern??).
Day 7:
Today we headed to Gibney beach early. I am happy that we picked this beach for this particular day. I was starting to get sad that we were leaving soon, and Gibney put my heart and soul at ease, as this island is apt to do. We picked a spot at the far end of the beach. As we watched Hawksnest from afar getting crowded quickly, we were reveling in the peace and quiet of our beach. While my husband spent most of the morning napping in his chair (we like to nap), I walked around quite a bit, taking pictures and enjoying all the palm trees and foliage. The sand in the water of this beach is so amazingly soft... I spent a lot of time in the water here, just lounging in a floatie.
At around lunchtime we decided to head to Coral Bay to grab some grub at Skinny Legs. Love that place!! Lots of Boston pride being displayed on the walls. And when our waitress told us the special was a "gahlic mushroom burgah," we felt like we were home. We both had burgers and Presidentes with a dessert of key lime pie. It hit the spot. After lunch we headed to Salt Pond for an afternoon of snorkeling. Although the hike to and from the beach was a little much for my ankle, it was worth it. Every beach seems to have its own personality. Salt Pond isn't as immediately glamorous as many of the other beaches, but the more time you spend there the more you see it for its true beauty. Leave your beach chair at home, get down in the sand and the water and enjoy! Some really great snorkeling here. I didn't want to get out of the water! After a while... back to the villa, dinner on the deck, bed early, blah blah. You get the picture!
Day 8... The walk of shame day:
Because we had a 4:30pm flight out of St. Thomas, we requested a late check out at the villa and a late return for the Jeep. So we were able to hit up the beach in the morning and still have enough to time to get cleaned up and on our way. We headed to our favorite, Jumbie. We were the only ones there for the few hours that we spent there. It was bittersweet, as we knew we were about to leave this place. But it was the perfect way to end our trip. Except!! As we were walking along the stretch of beach, hand-in-hand (aww!), I stepped on something and it HURT. I dropped my butt to the sand and lifted my foot to see what it was... nothing. My husband looked back and saw a bee in the sand. I was stung by a bee! On my last day on the island! So now with my left ankle already hurt and my right foot stung by a bee, we decided it was time to leave. Hmph!
Back to the villa, packed up, showered, and down to Cruz Bay. Not much to say about the trip home, it was pretty uneventful (thank god!). But I was very... very.. very sad to be going home. The depression still hasn't totally lifted!
). I envy you. It must be so much fun.