Amy & the boys on STJ: Intro, Travel, and LunaVista
Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2008 6:02 pm
WARNING: Probably a very long-winded report, but I promise to put in photos! And if you want to see all 300+ (winnowed down from 700!), here is the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78355143@N ... 983426864/
Cast of characters and previous trips: moi (Amy), hubby, son D (13) and his best friend J (also 13). Yeah, we're crazy taking a couple of 13 year-olds, but they love snorkeling and STJ, so they are A-OK. For our family, this is our 3rd (4th?) trip to STJ, for J it is his 2nd. I have been the main trip-planner for all of these trips since I am the #1 STJ fanatic in my family, thus I read this forum--no one else in my family or group of friends does. First time to STJ was a day trip from a cruise ship back in 2000, but we did not do one of the scheduled excursions and instead took the ferry from STT and a taxi to Cinnamon and absolutely fell in love with the island. I said at the time "we are coming back for longer" and we did, but it took a while. 2nd (1st real?) trip was Christmas 2005 with my sister-in-law and her family. This was a splurge trip--high season, and we rented Villa Wind Chime on Gifft Hill for 8 days and pampered ourselves (7 people total). We had talked about various Caribbean islands to visit, but I bullied everyone into choosing STJ! D was not an especially strong swimmer at that time and he only really learned to snorkel the last couple days of our trip and LOVED it when he got it--when we got home, we quickly decided to try to get back ASAP, but do it on a budget. Next trip was Aug. 2006 with J's family (7 people again), and we stayed at Maho 6 nights and Concordia for the last 2. Poor hubby has a bad neck and back and was in a lot of pain after the travel day, but because we were there in August and it was hot as Hades and buggy, he made an early exit from that trip. There was just no cool place for him to lie flat and stretch out. The rest of the trip went well and we ended up loving the community feel of Maho and the wonderful breezes at Concordia, but this time we wanted to compromise and rent a reasonably-priced house with AC in the bedrooms so hubby would be happy and comfortable. We chose Luna Vista based on the many recommendations on this board, and we're very glad we did. More on that later.
Aug. 22nd: up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 AM (none of us are morning people) to get ready to pack the Polar Bear cooler and get to the Philly airport. We had FF miles for one of our tix and vouchers for another, and J's parents used vouchers for his ticket, so we only paid for one ticket out of 4. Budget tip #1! I just barely fit all of our frozen meat (bacon, steak, hamburgers and hot dogs, shrimp, pork tenderloin, chicken breasts, ground turkey, fancy cheese and lunchmeat) in the 24-size Polar Bear, along with 5 sheets of Techni Ice. Worked like a dream, and all arrived still frozen. That supplied all of our dinners except 2 for the trip. Budget tip #2, thanks forum folks! Got to the airport, parked the car in the cheapo lot we always use, and had basically no line at all. I actually encountered a friendly, helpful USAir employee!! Amazing. We have to use US Despair all the time, and mostly we hate them, but this time I have zero complaints. On-time, easy flight to Charlotte, long layover, and on-time flight to STT which got in early, yay! All of our bags arrived safely (double yay!), and I called Discount Car Rental to pick us up. We had rented cars on STJ on previous trips from Denzil Clyne and had good experiences, but because we were arriving in the late afternoon and DC would not give the jeep key to our villa owners ahead of time, we decided to try renting on STT this time and we're very glad we did. Budget tip #3! We loved Austin at Discount--a native New Yorker who has lived on STT for 8 years, and the Discount folks were just great on the phone and in person. Their rates were about $70 less than Dependable or any rental agency on STJ, and the service was top-notch. We got a not-brand-new but new enough (and very clean) Jeep Liberty with around 14,000 miles which worked great. I did check the tires, RickG, and they were in good shape, including the spare! I loved being able to dump our bags and not think about them again until we got to the house. Austin picked us up in our rental car, took us to their office (just off the airport property), we filled out the paperwork, and we were on our way to Red Hook. I was worried about getting lost, but it was really easy to get there thanks to Pia's directions (thanks, Pia!). One thing we planned that didn't work out: while I tried to pack as lightly as possible, we still had plenty of bags including the cooler and another small suitcase chock full of more food, and while we wanted to shop at the Food Center on the way to the car barge, there was basically no room at all for any groceries. That's okay, I'll just pay a little bit more on STJ and support the local economy! Waited for a while for the car barge and we left on the 5:30 barge. I made hubby back onto the barge--they really squeeze you in tight!--but all went well. I should just mention that I am the main driver on STJ. I pride myself on zipping around the curves and remembering to stay left!
Waiting to get on the barge:
Barge ride to STJ:
Dramatic clouds:
We met Bruce (the wonderful owner of Luna Vista) at the car barge dock and he led us to the house. Wow, I'd forgotten how scary the driveways can be on STJ! Wind Chime just had a dirt road, no big hills as long as you took the Centerline route, and Maho and Concordia are also pretty easy to drive to. This was one steep driveway! LV is located just off Centerline and shares a driveway with Notre Ciel (part dirt, part paved), and it took me a while to figure out the best way to get up and around the sharp curve that leads to LV. There's another sharp curve to get into the paved driveway next to the house, which we abandoned the next day after I nearly scraped the bumper (Bruce and Jan very nicely let us park in a flat part of the driveway so we could avoid that last curve!). By the 3rd day we were experts in maneuvering, but it took me a while to get used to it. I think maybe the Liberty was a little too big for that last part of the driveway, but a Wrangler would have been no problem. The locals all seem to drive Suzukis, and I wondered if that would have been a better choice, too. Next time I'll know! As soon as we got out of the Jeep, we were covered in mosquitos, a hint of things to come! Bruce and Jan told us that they had just bloomed that day, and we prepared ourselves to get used to Eau de Bugspray for most of the week. We got the tour of the house, and as soon as we walked in Jan said to Bruce "hmmm, there's a baby tarantula on the ceiling!" Solution? Bruce got the vacuum and sucked it up! But not before I took a picture:
Luna Vista:
View from our porch:
Luna Vista kitchen:
Dining area at Luna Vista:
Luna Vista:
We loved the location of LV, which is about halfway between the Bordeaux overlook and the smoothie stand on Centerline Road (Mamey Peak area). It is about 5 mins. to Francis and Maho, about 10-15 minutes to Coral Bay and about 20 to Cruz Bay. It is just off Centerline and you do hear some traffic noise, but hey, compared to Philly it was nothing! The tree frogs drown out a lot of noise, and when you run the AC you don't hear anything, either. Luna Vista is beautifully decorated, and spotlessly clean. There is a large covered porch with a great gas grill and table and chairs, a large living/dining area with fantastic views out over the BVIs, a 42-inch plasma TV with cable, WiFi, an iPod dock, a beautiful granite kitchen with dishwasher and full-sized fridge, a micro/convection oven, 4-burner gas cooktop, and everything you would need to cook or make blender drinks. Our hosts very graciously left us a liter of dark Cruzan rum, lots of soda, a mango, limes, a 6-pack of Carib, and lots and lots of other food supplies and condiments. There are 2 bedrooms, one very large master with AC and king bed, and a smaller back bedroom which can either be made up as twins or king, also with AC. There is a large walk-in closet off this 2nd bedroom with cleaning supplies, beach chairs, water toys, a variety of coolers, beach towels, and a Neat Sheet left by JIMG! I left a family-sized Neat Sheet, too, so now there are 2 sizes to choose from. We love to use them for the beach, but also to put down in the Jeep to protect the seat from wet butts, and we used the big one in the back of the Jeep to minimize sand back there. Back to LV: there is a single bathroom in the hall, so if 2 baths are a requirement, look elsewhere, but the bathroom was also beautifully decorated. Blue glass tile on the vanity, and very pretty tile in the shower area as well (no tub). Plenty of towels and beach towels, which were replenished during our stay. There is a small splash pool which you can see from the kitchen, with lush foliage surrounding it--which is why we couldn't use it during our stay, thanks to the mega-skeeters during the week we were there! I would think in normal skeeter conditions, this pool would be a great way to cool off after a long beach day, but late afternoons were no-can-do on the porch during the Great Mosquito Plague. The master bedroom window is the key to all breezes in the house--with that window open and the fans going, it was never ever too hot, even during the heat of the day. We loved that after suffering through a lot of heat and humidity during our Aug. Maho stay. We heard no noise at all from upstairs--the house is built very solidly. And while the boys needed the AC at night in their bedroom, the master gets such strong breezes that we usually just left the window open and fan going.
Things to be aware of: there is no washer or dryer in the rental, although our hosts very graciously told us we could do laundry upstairs. I really didn't want to bother them so we took some laundry into Cruz Bay one day and had it done for us while we were at the beach, even better! Good deal to get a big garbage bag full of clothes done for $38 at Splash Laundromat, right near the Inn at Tamarind Court, and it was done in less than 3 hours. The screens are great throughout the house and really kept out the bugs, but there are no screens on the sliders looking out at the view. I think that was probably because they would break more easily, so it makes sense, but just something to be aware of. I didn't consider either of these things a negative, since the price was so reasonable and the amenities were great.
Best thing about the house: everything, but the highlights for us were the great views and breezes, the wonderful owners, Bruce and Jan, who honored our privacy, but also were extremely helpful whenever we had questions (and having them there definitely added to the feeling of safety we had during our stay), and the fabulous pets! Jan is a practicing vet and has a mobile vet van that she sometimes takes down to Skinny's, so they love animals. The 2 doggies, Frankie and Barney, were the nicest dogs I have ever met. I must confess that we are not normally "pet people" since hubby has really bad allergies and son D had a nasty run-in with a dog when he was 2 that left him less than thrilled with dogs, but these doggies made believers out of us! They were quiet, friendly, lovable pooches, and we spent a lot of time with them during our stay. The kitties were also great, but we had a special place in our hearts for Frankie and Barney, who came to greet us every morning and every evening with tails wagging. I really think this positive experience with dogs erased the damage done to D's psyche when he was 2, so thank you, Bruce and Jan, and Barney and Frankie!
Okay, on to the rest of Day 1, which isn't much since we were so exhausted. I had cooked ground turkey the night before we left and frozen it, so I heated that along with some chili fixings I brought from home, and that was dinner. Done in 10 minutes, along with an icy cold Carib, ahhhh!
We watched some of the Olympics on the great TV (the Eagles-Patriots game wasn't on, dang it--sorry all you New England folks, we're Philly fans!), and turned in early.
Day 2: errands, massage, and Trunk Bay
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78355143@N ... 983426864/
Cast of characters and previous trips: moi (Amy), hubby, son D (13) and his best friend J (also 13). Yeah, we're crazy taking a couple of 13 year-olds, but they love snorkeling and STJ, so they are A-OK. For our family, this is our 3rd (4th?) trip to STJ, for J it is his 2nd. I have been the main trip-planner for all of these trips since I am the #1 STJ fanatic in my family, thus I read this forum--no one else in my family or group of friends does. First time to STJ was a day trip from a cruise ship back in 2000, but we did not do one of the scheduled excursions and instead took the ferry from STT and a taxi to Cinnamon and absolutely fell in love with the island. I said at the time "we are coming back for longer" and we did, but it took a while. 2nd (1st real?) trip was Christmas 2005 with my sister-in-law and her family. This was a splurge trip--high season, and we rented Villa Wind Chime on Gifft Hill for 8 days and pampered ourselves (7 people total). We had talked about various Caribbean islands to visit, but I bullied everyone into choosing STJ! D was not an especially strong swimmer at that time and he only really learned to snorkel the last couple days of our trip and LOVED it when he got it--when we got home, we quickly decided to try to get back ASAP, but do it on a budget. Next trip was Aug. 2006 with J's family (7 people again), and we stayed at Maho 6 nights and Concordia for the last 2. Poor hubby has a bad neck and back and was in a lot of pain after the travel day, but because we were there in August and it was hot as Hades and buggy, he made an early exit from that trip. There was just no cool place for him to lie flat and stretch out. The rest of the trip went well and we ended up loving the community feel of Maho and the wonderful breezes at Concordia, but this time we wanted to compromise and rent a reasonably-priced house with AC in the bedrooms so hubby would be happy and comfortable. We chose Luna Vista based on the many recommendations on this board, and we're very glad we did. More on that later.
Aug. 22nd: up at the ungodly hour of 3:30 AM (none of us are morning people) to get ready to pack the Polar Bear cooler and get to the Philly airport. We had FF miles for one of our tix and vouchers for another, and J's parents used vouchers for his ticket, so we only paid for one ticket out of 4. Budget tip #1! I just barely fit all of our frozen meat (bacon, steak, hamburgers and hot dogs, shrimp, pork tenderloin, chicken breasts, ground turkey, fancy cheese and lunchmeat) in the 24-size Polar Bear, along with 5 sheets of Techni Ice. Worked like a dream, and all arrived still frozen. That supplied all of our dinners except 2 for the trip. Budget tip #2, thanks forum folks! Got to the airport, parked the car in the cheapo lot we always use, and had basically no line at all. I actually encountered a friendly, helpful USAir employee!! Amazing. We have to use US Despair all the time, and mostly we hate them, but this time I have zero complaints. On-time, easy flight to Charlotte, long layover, and on-time flight to STT which got in early, yay! All of our bags arrived safely (double yay!), and I called Discount Car Rental to pick us up. We had rented cars on STJ on previous trips from Denzil Clyne and had good experiences, but because we were arriving in the late afternoon and DC would not give the jeep key to our villa owners ahead of time, we decided to try renting on STT this time and we're very glad we did. Budget tip #3! We loved Austin at Discount--a native New Yorker who has lived on STT for 8 years, and the Discount folks were just great on the phone and in person. Their rates were about $70 less than Dependable or any rental agency on STJ, and the service was top-notch. We got a not-brand-new but new enough (and very clean) Jeep Liberty with around 14,000 miles which worked great. I did check the tires, RickG, and they were in good shape, including the spare! I loved being able to dump our bags and not think about them again until we got to the house. Austin picked us up in our rental car, took us to their office (just off the airport property), we filled out the paperwork, and we were on our way to Red Hook. I was worried about getting lost, but it was really easy to get there thanks to Pia's directions (thanks, Pia!). One thing we planned that didn't work out: while I tried to pack as lightly as possible, we still had plenty of bags including the cooler and another small suitcase chock full of more food, and while we wanted to shop at the Food Center on the way to the car barge, there was basically no room at all for any groceries. That's okay, I'll just pay a little bit more on STJ and support the local economy! Waited for a while for the car barge and we left on the 5:30 barge. I made hubby back onto the barge--they really squeeze you in tight!--but all went well. I should just mention that I am the main driver on STJ. I pride myself on zipping around the curves and remembering to stay left!
Waiting to get on the barge:
Barge ride to STJ:
Dramatic clouds:
We met Bruce (the wonderful owner of Luna Vista) at the car barge dock and he led us to the house. Wow, I'd forgotten how scary the driveways can be on STJ! Wind Chime just had a dirt road, no big hills as long as you took the Centerline route, and Maho and Concordia are also pretty easy to drive to. This was one steep driveway! LV is located just off Centerline and shares a driveway with Notre Ciel (part dirt, part paved), and it took me a while to figure out the best way to get up and around the sharp curve that leads to LV. There's another sharp curve to get into the paved driveway next to the house, which we abandoned the next day after I nearly scraped the bumper (Bruce and Jan very nicely let us park in a flat part of the driveway so we could avoid that last curve!). By the 3rd day we were experts in maneuvering, but it took me a while to get used to it. I think maybe the Liberty was a little too big for that last part of the driveway, but a Wrangler would have been no problem. The locals all seem to drive Suzukis, and I wondered if that would have been a better choice, too. Next time I'll know! As soon as we got out of the Jeep, we were covered in mosquitos, a hint of things to come! Bruce and Jan told us that they had just bloomed that day, and we prepared ourselves to get used to Eau de Bugspray for most of the week. We got the tour of the house, and as soon as we walked in Jan said to Bruce "hmmm, there's a baby tarantula on the ceiling!" Solution? Bruce got the vacuum and sucked it up! But not before I took a picture:
Luna Vista:
View from our porch:
Luna Vista kitchen:
Dining area at Luna Vista:
Luna Vista:
We loved the location of LV, which is about halfway between the Bordeaux overlook and the smoothie stand on Centerline Road (Mamey Peak area). It is about 5 mins. to Francis and Maho, about 10-15 minutes to Coral Bay and about 20 to Cruz Bay. It is just off Centerline and you do hear some traffic noise, but hey, compared to Philly it was nothing! The tree frogs drown out a lot of noise, and when you run the AC you don't hear anything, either. Luna Vista is beautifully decorated, and spotlessly clean. There is a large covered porch with a great gas grill and table and chairs, a large living/dining area with fantastic views out over the BVIs, a 42-inch plasma TV with cable, WiFi, an iPod dock, a beautiful granite kitchen with dishwasher and full-sized fridge, a micro/convection oven, 4-burner gas cooktop, and everything you would need to cook or make blender drinks. Our hosts very graciously left us a liter of dark Cruzan rum, lots of soda, a mango, limes, a 6-pack of Carib, and lots and lots of other food supplies and condiments. There are 2 bedrooms, one very large master with AC and king bed, and a smaller back bedroom which can either be made up as twins or king, also with AC. There is a large walk-in closet off this 2nd bedroom with cleaning supplies, beach chairs, water toys, a variety of coolers, beach towels, and a Neat Sheet left by JIMG! I left a family-sized Neat Sheet, too, so now there are 2 sizes to choose from. We love to use them for the beach, but also to put down in the Jeep to protect the seat from wet butts, and we used the big one in the back of the Jeep to minimize sand back there. Back to LV: there is a single bathroom in the hall, so if 2 baths are a requirement, look elsewhere, but the bathroom was also beautifully decorated. Blue glass tile on the vanity, and very pretty tile in the shower area as well (no tub). Plenty of towels and beach towels, which were replenished during our stay. There is a small splash pool which you can see from the kitchen, with lush foliage surrounding it--which is why we couldn't use it during our stay, thanks to the mega-skeeters during the week we were there! I would think in normal skeeter conditions, this pool would be a great way to cool off after a long beach day, but late afternoons were no-can-do on the porch during the Great Mosquito Plague. The master bedroom window is the key to all breezes in the house--with that window open and the fans going, it was never ever too hot, even during the heat of the day. We loved that after suffering through a lot of heat and humidity during our Aug. Maho stay. We heard no noise at all from upstairs--the house is built very solidly. And while the boys needed the AC at night in their bedroom, the master gets such strong breezes that we usually just left the window open and fan going.
Things to be aware of: there is no washer or dryer in the rental, although our hosts very graciously told us we could do laundry upstairs. I really didn't want to bother them so we took some laundry into Cruz Bay one day and had it done for us while we were at the beach, even better! Good deal to get a big garbage bag full of clothes done for $38 at Splash Laundromat, right near the Inn at Tamarind Court, and it was done in less than 3 hours. The screens are great throughout the house and really kept out the bugs, but there are no screens on the sliders looking out at the view. I think that was probably because they would break more easily, so it makes sense, but just something to be aware of. I didn't consider either of these things a negative, since the price was so reasonable and the amenities were great.
Best thing about the house: everything, but the highlights for us were the great views and breezes, the wonderful owners, Bruce and Jan, who honored our privacy, but also were extremely helpful whenever we had questions (and having them there definitely added to the feeling of safety we had during our stay), and the fabulous pets! Jan is a practicing vet and has a mobile vet van that she sometimes takes down to Skinny's, so they love animals. The 2 doggies, Frankie and Barney, were the nicest dogs I have ever met. I must confess that we are not normally "pet people" since hubby has really bad allergies and son D had a nasty run-in with a dog when he was 2 that left him less than thrilled with dogs, but these doggies made believers out of us! They were quiet, friendly, lovable pooches, and we spent a lot of time with them during our stay. The kitties were also great, but we had a special place in our hearts for Frankie and Barney, who came to greet us every morning and every evening with tails wagging. I really think this positive experience with dogs erased the damage done to D's psyche when he was 2, so thank you, Bruce and Jan, and Barney and Frankie!
Okay, on to the rest of Day 1, which isn't much since we were so exhausted. I had cooked ground turkey the night before we left and frozen it, so I heated that along with some chili fixings I brought from home, and that was dinner. Done in 10 minutes, along with an icy cold Carib, ahhhh!
We watched some of the Olympics on the great TV (the Eagles-Patriots game wasn't on, dang it--sorry all you New England folks, we're Philly fans!), and turned in early.
Day 2: errands, massage, and Trunk Bay