USVI-On-Line

Ok. Here goes... I'm not much of a writer

Day 1.
Ok. Plane ride went smooth, everyone happy, quite boring and uneventful actually. One person was missing his luggage. We got that back the next day. All we were really concerned about the most was the 3 huge boxes of frozen food we used as check on luggage. (3 couples volunteered to give up one of their check in's for a full 50 lbs box of frozen food) This ended working out great and we saved a lot of money in food this way.
Once we landed, we had to pick up our two vans at the airport from Avis. They were located in two different spots. Mine was up on the short hill next to the airport, in that real narrow parking lot with vehicles packed in like sardines. I dragged one of my nieces along for possible extra set of eyes in tight spots, and I needed it. There was one car in the parking lot that was parked in a way that blocked the exit of the lot, nothing could fit next to it to get around it. And no car rental employees knew who it belonged to, let alone had any keys. ... yikes. We were unalble to exit, and another family who we didn't know couldn't even back out, at all. They complained to someone walking around, but all he did was mumble curses at them under his breath Long story short, we were directed to go in reverse out the one way entrance of the lot. I have no idea what happened to the other blocked in family, or how long they sat there.
From here we drove out with the 2 vans across St. Thomas to Red Hook to get onto the Ferry barge. St. Thomas seemed to me so much different than St. John, in every way. I spent half day here last trip in Charlotte Amalie, and it was just ok.

Our villa, The Crystal Sea View was an immense house, a double-decker almost split in two as two separate houses. Lots 'o' bedrooms and bathrooms, and pool. It was almost too big, but my wifes side of the family, our 12-person group filled it up easily. It took some time shuffling and finagling to get who wanted what room, a little to long actually. Some swimming commenced after a quick bite to eat.
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w41/ ... =villa.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w41/ ... /villa.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>
The ONLY thing bad I have to say about the villa, was the view off our back deck.... CONSTRUCTION!!! Now, this was no single little villa being built, like a nothing brown hole in the hills of green that'd be no big deal, no... this was full blown resort construction, the Pond Bay Resort/Spa, in the phase of huge rock hammers breaking rock, and cranes going back and forth along the site, the noisy stuff, 7 or 7:30 till 5:00 Monday through Saturday. You can forget about sleeping in the huge hammock on the deck every night! And forget about opening those windows to let the wind blow through your room, those rock hammers will be your 7:00 am alarm clock!
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Day 2.
This morning, my father in law and I laid out a bowl of sugar for the Bananaquit's along the railing of the back deck of the villa, I had never seen them before on my first trip, so I didn't know how long it would take to get one to come up and notice there was sugar in the bowl. It didn't take long... when one found it, the rest came. In fact, I think every Bananaquit in Chocolate Hole came. It scared us enough to not use one of the villa's bowls and decided to use a coffee container lid weighted down with a piece of coral. These birds are quite cool to watch.
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We went into Cruz to pick up our lost peice of luggage before we spent half our 1st day at Hawksnest, this was our first beach to see on our last trip (my wife and I's 1st) so we figured that this an appropriate beach to start off with. All the newbies were blown away by the water, as was expected. The chix laid out, the dudes went snorkeling

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<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w41/ ... shawks.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w41/ ... shawks.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w41/ ... mhawks.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w41/ ... mhawks.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

After Hawksnest, we went into Cruz bay to walk around, eat, visit shops, and pick up some groceries to supplement food what we brought with us. A disorganized walk-about in Cruz.
One of my sister in law's, Debbie, bought a palm frond bowl from a fella near the Ferry dock
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(As we found out later on our way home getting through St. Thomas customs, there was a table of these, confiscated... no plants allowed ) Fortunately, for some reason hers made it through on the bottom of her checked bag!

I walked around and took some pictures as the sun was setting.
<a href="http://s173.photobucket.com/albums/w41/ ... uzdusk.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w41/ ... uzdusk.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Great start Davearoni

Great sunset picture. Want to hear more. 12 people ?
Wow.

Great photos!

That's too bad about the construction. It bothered me when we were at Orchid Hill too. I'm not staying in Chocolate Hole again until that project is finished.

Great pictures, looking forward to more!

I really like the palm tree picture.

I am with Wanda, 12 people, there is more to be told!

Thanks for the trip report. I would love to hear more about the villa. This was number one of my list for our trip next April but the rest of the group picked another villa. If you have any interior pictures I would love to see them. Thanks for the report.

Great report and I love your pictures!

Welcome back Dave! Not sure when you got back, but I hope you avoided some of our rain storms lately. Your report sounds great so far. So sorry to hear about the construction, that can really put a damper on the trip. We were at Ristaba in May and you could hear some of it but not really enough to distract you. Looking forward to the next portion of your report.

Awesome pictures-looking forward to more!

Enjoyed reading your report, Dave-a-Roni. Nice pictures!

Wow - love the pics. Those bananaquits are the cutest little birds. We loved feeding them on STJ at our villa. Looking forward to hearing about a trip with 12 people. We are still debating if we want to bring along 2 or 3 friends, so its hard for me to imagine being on vacation with 12.
Thanks for posting!

Thanks everyone Next installment hopefully tonight.
As far as everyone interested in pictures of our villa, the Cystal Sea View, I didn't take many pics of it because I did a complete video walk through. My wife talked to the camera as we walked through, kind of a rip of of MTV's Cribs. I plan on making a STJ Villa Cribs video for everyone to see. Having said that, I think it would be cool if all of us did a Villa Cribs video of the villa's we all stay at.

Nice start on your report...UGH...hate the choclate Hole Construction also...got one of the invites from the Condo people there to go down and visit and perhaps buy a unit...I'm thinking they got us confused with somebody who's loaded can't imagine vaca with more than 6 people, we did that a few times on STJ...was kind of hard to coordinate even that...12 sounds like work... Looking forward to reading more!