rachelm2010

I'm going on my honeymoon in a few months, spending a week on St. Martin and then a week on St. Thomas. I'm having the hardest time finding a flight between the islands. All of the major airfare websites have ridiculously expensive flights between the two that take 15-24 hours (including layovers) for what would be a very short trip directly.

Has anyone flown from St. Martin to St. Thomas? Are there any good websites or smaller airlines to check for flights? Is there a way to fly into a different island and take a ferry to St. Thomas?

Thanks!

RoamsAround

For flights between SXM and STT try one of the following:

LIAT Airlines: www.liat.com

Air Sunshine: www.airsunshine.com

blamona

I'm adding a PS to Roam:

If you find flights on liat and air sunshine add a lot of time from 1 to the other-- they are known for canceling flights, arriving late, and taking DAYS for what should be a nice easy connection.

You have discovered that while distances are close, it's extremely hard to island hop in Caribbean, not like Europe that takes only hours to go from 1 country to another, and you'll find there's very few ferries between islands as there's huge open waters.

My best advice? Go the way you know will be the least resistance, use AA and take 15-22 hours either via Miami or San Juan, as you will find liat might delay you for 2-4 days!

There's tons of posts were vacationers want to island hop multiple Caribbean islands. It's a really hard thing to do--

Either go on a cruise (the easiest way)

Or take the time to return Miami or San Juan as Caribbean airlines aren't the most reliable.

On all these multiple hoping posts we have always named the grouping of islands that are hoppable-- St Martin St Thomas is not one of them

On the other hand, from St Thomas you can hop around easily through BVI and US Virgins.

From St. Martin you can hop to Anguilla, St. Barts, Saba. Anguilla is stunning anyway and makes an excellent honeymoon

Your hop will turn out harder than you think........

rachelm2010

Thank you both! I have found really negative reviews about liat and airsunshine ("air sometimes") so we're trying to avoid those. We've already booked our lodging on both islands and we're looking forward to staying on both. We'll probably just shell out the $400/person for the one direct(ish) flight I found through a reputable airline. We really don't want to waste an entire day of our honeymoon traveling between the islands.

Thanks again for your help!

rachelm2010

Follow up: Has anyone used Seaborn airlines? Are they reliable?

RoamsAround

I've use Seaborne several times. They are one of many Caribbean Commuter Airlines - they are no more or less reliable that any of the others. They all have their good days and bad days.

We've been fortunate in that when we've used them our flights were relatively on time. We have friends who have had significant delays and/or cancellations on the same routes. The thing is, with any of the Caribbean airlines you never know if it's going to be a good day or bad day. Such are the vagaries of air travel (and life) in the Caribbean.

Like blamona says when traveling between islands in the Caribbean you take what you can get.

diann24

We tried this last year. We wanted to go to Barbados to Aruba. It was virtually impossible. We gave up or did not want to spend so much money. It is not easy to go from island to island as people think so I learned. In all cases we had to go back to the States and begin all over again. We just did not bother. The easier way to visit several Island is to go to St. Martin and take the ferry to Antigua and St.Bart.

eastenderusvi

I think diann24 meant *Anguilla* and St Barts. ;-)

rachel:It IS difficult to get around and there are not a lot of options. LIAT is not everyone's favorite airline, but it does fly from St Maarten to St Thomas...

diann24

Yes I did mean Anguilla. Thanks for the correction.