Trip Report - St Thomas and St. John
Dec 13th, 2005, 08:07 PM
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Trip Report - St Thomas and St. John
Hey everyone, hope you don't mind a detailed trip report. Thanks to everyone on this board for their advice and comments. Any questions feel free to e-mail me or post. I have lots of pics too. [email protected]
Trip Report
Day 1 (Saturday Night/Sunday)
We flew from SFO to Newark - Newark to St Thomas on Continental. Flights were okay. Fairly average service on Continental, but they weren't full so we got extra seats. Two hour de-icing delay leaving Newark. Took a shuttle van/taxi to the Ritz from the airport. $28 for two people, much better deal then a private cab. Got to the Ritz at about 4pm. It was really beautiful, we debated long and hard on whether or not to stay here, my wife had been to the property 11 years ago when it was the Grand Pallazzo and remembered it as very beautiful, it is even nicer now and perhaps nicer then I expected. They gave us a Rum Punch when we were checking in. Everyone was very nice. We were booked in the Fresia building which in my opinion is the nicest of the buildings because of its position. It is the furthest away from the main building, but it faces directly onto the bay and toward St. John, so you have more of a direct ocean view and less of a view over the resort to the water. It's not really that far away from everything though so if your the type of person that likes to be at the center of everything it's still a fairly short walk, you do have to walk up and down a bunch of stairs though, which can get a bit tiresome, but you can also take a shuttle back to your building if you get home from dinner and are at the front. The room had a beautiful ocean view and a nice sized balcony which had a table and chairs and a lounge chair. Our room had a king bed, TV, air conditioning, marble floors, dual sinks in the bathroom, mini bar coffee machine with everything you need for coffee. The only thing it was missing was a spa-tub, but why nitpick. Haha.
On our first evening, we relaxed by the beach bar, and had a few tropical drinks, I had one of the Painkillers, and something else, my wife had two frozen drinks. They were great! I'm not a big drinking of these kinds of drinks but you can get used to them, of course they are basically sugar and alcohol so how bad can they be? It's vacation though so Yum! After we each had two of those, we were so tired from our red-eye and then second flight we basically went back to the room and fell asleep til the next morning.
Day 2.
We got up and ate breakfast at the Ritz. We are on a package we purchased and breakfast is included. We get a voucher for $54 dollars for breakfast. Wow, you'd think that'd buy you a few breakfasts but guess what that's exactly how much a breakfast at the Ritz costs you. In fact everything here is expensive. We knew we'd be spending a ton of money of this vacation and the Ritz matches those expectations. You pay for everything and everything is expensive. $54 breakfasts, $10.25 for drinks, $20 for a chicken quesadilla at the beach bar, $7.00 for a water in the room, etc. If you want to save a few bucks take some time to buy some waters in Red Hook and snacks. You have to make a point to do this unless you've rented a car, which we didn't. Breakfast was great, omelets, pancakes, bagels, lox, French toast, waffles all kinds of good stuff.
After breakfast, we finally got going and caught a 11 am ferry to Red Hook. Taxi from the Ritz to the Ferry was $10. Most short taxi rides seem to be $10 no matter how far you go, 1 block or 10 blocks. I could see we were going to be spending a lot of money on taxis. Got to Cruz bay and we walked around with our snorkel gear looking for a Jeep to rent. Didn't reserve anything in advance. There are a zillion jeep rental places, a few of the popular ones were sold out but found a Jeep Liberty for $82. Pricey for basically a half day rental but we really wanted to be able to drive around. We drove to Trunk Bay first. Driving on the left was no big deal. Just kept saying to myself "stay to the left, stay to the left" Trunk Bay is nice, tons of facilities and wasn't insanely crowded with cruise ship groups on Monday. We snorkeled for an hour or so, the visibility wasn't great, it was decent. Not a ton of fish. My wife had snorkeled at Trunk Bay 11 years earlier and remembered it being much nicer back then. Hopped back in the Jeep and drove to Cinnamon Bay. We loved the beach at Cinnamon Bay. We didn't snorkel just relaxed on beach and swam in the water, it was great. Cinnamon Bay also has some nice facilities. Supposedly it has nice snorkeling somewhere in the bay too according to one of our books. Might go back there in a few days.
At 4:30 pm we drove back to Red Hook and returned the car. It had to be back by 5:30 but we had massages set up at the spa at the Westin at 5. We dropped the car off and hopped in a taxi to the Westin. Another $10. both got 50 minute massages and then got cleaned up there and changed for dinner, this was our solution to figuring out how to get cleaned up for a nice dinner on St. John when you've been snorkeling around all day and aren't staying on the island. We took our dinner clothes in a separate backpack, kept it locked in the car while we snorkeled. After we got dressed we took a cab to Paradiso for dinner. It wasn't too crowded but we read it was a top place. We had a great dinner there. Bottle of Cabernet, appetizers of Gnocchi in an outrageous cream sauce, appetizer of tuna tartare which was great. A poached pear gorgonzola salad, excellent. I had a pan fried beef filet with mash potatoes and mushrooms which I liked a lot. My wife had an herb encrusted Mahi. Then we shared an apple tart with caramel and vanilla ice cream. We liked dinner alot. It was on the expensive side no doubt. $50 bottle for an average cab, $14 appetizers, $15 salad, $30 entrees on the average. Hopped on the ferry back to Red Hook, called my parents to see how our beloved dog was doing. BTW we got pretty strong Sprint PCS service everywhere on St Thomas and St John.
Day 3
Another beautiful day. We ate breakfast at the Ritz and relaxed at their beach for a little while. The beach is pretty nice, and so is the infinity pool if your the type of person that likes to relax around. I'm looking forward to hanging out in that infinity pool for awhile. At the beach you can use snorkel gear, sailboats, and a variety of other equipment as part of your $35 daily resort fee. In the morning we noticed a powerboat had driven in and docked at a buoy with the words Parasail written on the side. My wife decided she wanted to go parasailing so we booked it through the Ritz and 5 minutes later they were taking us out to the boat in a dingy. 5 minutes after that my wife was in the air out in the bay around the Ritz. They didn't drive her around at high speed like I always imagined but it looked fairly fun. Maybe next time I'll do it with her even though I don't love heights.
At 1pm we took a half day sail on the Lady Lyndsey. In all it was alot of fun. the trip wasn't crowded since it rained for 10 minutes just before we were supposed to leave, a bunch of people cancelled. Good for us since the boat is built to hold up to 49 people and there were about 8 of us. It was nice having that sweet boat almost to ourselves. We sailed out for an hour and then stopped and snorkeled for about an hour, came back and sailed back while eating and drinking several tropical drinks. I definitely recommend the Guava Colada. ha-ha. In all a lot of fun, great boat, great staff. We stopped back at our room and took a little nap, then got up later for an 8:30 dinner reservation at the Agave Grill.
Took a cab to the Agave Grill, another 12 bucks each way. We started calling it our "dinner surcharge" but still cheaper then renting a car. Agave Grill was really nice. A beautiful night to dine out in the open air area they have. I've read the views are great from there but we could only tell we were up high and see lights on the islands around us. I bet it's a great lunch spot. Dinner was excellent. Enjoyed a nice wine list, but had wine by the glass tonight. It's funny to be drinking our favorite California wines here in the Caribbean. Started with the grilled scallops and then we had the fish that they are known for. They had four fish in the daily catch, and you can get them prepared 4 different ways with 12 different kinds of sauce preparations. Fun! I had the Mahi, pan seared with a pineapple glaze, my wife had the Grouper, grilled with a garlic herb sauce. We enjoyed them both a lot. Then we finished with some simple vanilla ice cream scoops. Good food good service. Fish was about 30 each, appetizers around 13. The chef came out and chatted with us for awhile, and went to each table, he was pretty nice we actually spoke to him for awhile.
Day 4.
Today we took a powerboat trip on the Pirate's Penny up to the BVI. The Pirate's Penny is the sister boat to the Stormy Petrel, and it's basically the same boat. We had a great time, our boat had 8 people plus the captain and 1 crew. 2 people didn't show up. I think the boat holds 12 passengers so we had a nice amount of room. From St. Thomas in Red Hook, the boat picks you up at 7:30! Ouch, I don't even get up this early on working days, this better be good. Then you go over to St John and pick people up from there and then head up along Tortola to Virgin Gorda. Our captain was Andy, he's a Lance Armstrong lookalike, and a great guy. We had a lot of fun on this trip, Andy has been doing it for 8 years and definitely knows every nook and cranny of the Islands. He talks and jokes about stuff most of the way. The mate was Tamara, who was cool too, and made a great Rum Punch, which we were all drinking quite a bit by the afternoon! First you stop at the Bath's on Virgin Gorda. You dock at a buoy and then snorkel in. The snorkeling around the Baths was actually pretty nice and I wish we had more time to explore. It was my second trip to the Bath's and it's still an amazing place. Plus Andy took us through some little nooks and crannies then I didn't experience before. Then at the end he took us through a little side route up to a 10 foot rock which we dove or jumped off into the water. You didn't have to do that if you didn't want to. Afterward we cruised over to Cooper Island for lunch. They called in our orders before we landed. Cooper Island is a small resort with only 12 rooms, I think it's pretty cool. It's very laid back. I had been there once before on a sailing trip and relaxed on the beach for half a day. Lunch was decent. I had the "famous" conch fritters, which were good for sure. Afterward we powered over to a reef to snorkel on Peter Island, which was definitely fun. The snorkeling up in the BVI seems really great from my two trips there. We snorkeled around for an hour, saw a huge barracuda, a! sand shark, a turtle and tons of beautiful reef fish. After snorkeling, there was lots of drinking of rum punches. By the time we got back to Red Hook we were pretty cloudy headed. My wife and I made friends with another couple on the trip and after we landed the four of us went over to a bar called Sop Choppy's and had more happy hour Rum Punch's and then pizza late into the evening. Sop Choppys was a fun little place to have some drinks, it's across the street from the Love Shack, which is another popular party spot. Sop Choppys is alot more low key, overlooking the harbor. By the time we stumbled out at 10:30 Sop Choppy's was basically closing and the Love Shack was getting crazy. In all a very fun day.
Day 5.
Today we decided to ferry back over to St. John and rent another jeep. This time we called ahead while eating breakfast so we had a jeep waiting for us when we arrived. This time we got a Suzuki Grand Vitara for $72. Definitely not nearly as nice as the newer Jeep Liberty. Today we wanted to get some great snorkeling in so we took the advice of Fodorites and Feet, Fins and Four-Wheel Drive and drove over to Waterlemon Cay. Like the book says, you basically park at a parking lot at Annaberg and then walk about 1-mile to where you would snorkel to the Waterlemon Cay. The walk is on a combination of a rocky trail along the water and dirt path through woods along the water. It's a very easy walk, but carrying snorkel gear definitely gets a bit heavy. No big deal though. Near the end of the walk you come to the beach, but you should keep walking and the trail picks up again further down the beach, stay to the left because the trail splits and you'll come to the rocky beach where you can snorkel directly out to the Cay. We did the walk in our flip flops. The snorkeling here was definitely awesome. It was actually alot more crowded then I expected, several boats had sailed in and attached to moorings nearby and several other people had hiked in. I kinda thought we might have the place to ourselves. Still it was all worth it. the reefs around the Cay are awesome and we saw lots of cool stuff. Eagle Ray's, flounder, starfish, turtles, and lots of awesome reef fish we hadn't seen before. Another cool thing is that the Cay has a little sandy beach so you can go over and take a little break on the beach. It's really great, you kind of feel like your on your own mini island. We snorkeled and hung out for a few hours then hiked back to our car and drove over to Trunk Bay and got a little snack at their snack stand, we wanted to go to a beach just to relax and we debated whether or not to go back to our favorite beach Cinnamon Bay or check out Caneel Bay. We decided to go to Caneel Bay. You can just drive into the resort, they don't make you pay a fee. Park in the lot and walk through the resort down to the Caneel Bay beach. Overall we were unimpressed with the beach, it just wasn't as beautiful as many of the other beaches we've been to. I know Caneel has 7 beaches but this one is no big deal. That is not a commentary on the resort itself, we barely got a feel for the resort except that the beachfront cottages did look on the rustic side on the outside. After Caneel, we dropped off the car and did the same thing we did on Monday, went to the Westin and got a massage, cleaned up to get ready for dinner at Asolare.
Before our massage, we took some time to walk around the grounds at the Westin and I'd have to say that if you are debating whether or not to stay at the Westin or the Ritz on St. Thomas, as we did, there is really no comparison between the resorts. The Ritz is much, much more beautiful, so unless being on St. John is very, very important to you I'd stay at the Ritz and do day trips, which is easy enough to do. The difference being if you are traveling with children. The Westin seems geared much more toward kids. There are tons of kid-oriented stuff at their beach, in the water of their bay (which is amongst the least attractive we'd seen. It's a very busy harbor, not beautiful at all). There are kid-friendly activities planned, playgrounds, etc. If you are not traveling with children, really keep this in mind when you are considering the Westin. There are really lots of young children running around.
Finally dinner at Asolare. We were excited about dinner here based on the many good reviews. However it definitely was not our favorite dinner to this point. It was definitely our favorite space though. A beautiful stone house with a balcony looking out onto Cruz Bay and to St. Thomas. Even at night when you couldn't see, it was really nice eating out on the deck area. Great open oval doorway, with wide swinging red doors that recalls a wine cellar feeling. Gorgeous. The food was good, not great in our opinion. Definitely good, just not memorable. We didn't have wine with dinner that night. We started with a shrimp appetizer wrapped in a thin potato which i liked a lot. Then we had a calamari dish with a very nice dipping sauce. For entrees, my wife had an herb encrusted tuna rare in some kind of lobster wasabi reduction, over an herbed potato dish. I had the lamb chops, which was served over a mashed potatoes and spinach dish. Both were very good, just not a meal we would remember. I did finish off with an excellent desert though, an apple strudel with vanilla ice cream which was seriously great. Several taxis and a ferry later and we were back at the Ritz.
Day 6
Today we were supposed to go on a full day snorkel sail on the wooden boat Winifred. It was kind of a last minute booking. In the end it got cancelled because the winds were supposed to be high and the captain was concerned. Truthfully we weren't that disappointed because we were both feeling tired with all the running around we've been doing. We slept in a bit and in the morning it was raining for the first time during the day, it rained pretty hard for a little while but by the time we finished breakfast at 10:30 the sun was coming out. It was very windy though. We really took our time and decided to go check out Meghans bay, which many people told us was a really nice beach. When we found out it was going to cost 20 each way, I thought about renting a car for the day on St. Thomas. But decided against it.
My opinion about renting a car is that you should avoid it if you are planning on trying to park at Cruz Bay or Red Hook. Those little towns are just not designed with parking in mind. For example, parking at the Red Hook ferry during the day would require you to park along the road, in unmarked spots up to a mile away from the ferry if you get there a little later. We passed all these parked cars on the way to Meghans bay and it made me glad I didn't bother with the stress of dealing with the car. However if we had rented a car, parking at Meghans bay would have been easy enough. We never had a problem parking at any of the beach areas we went to in St. John with our jeep either.
On the way to Meghans bay our we had our Taxi driver take us up to some place called Drake’s Seat on the advice of someone we met. It’s basically just a high point on the Island where supposedly the explorer Drake climbed to to get a view of the sea to see if the Spanish Armada was near. You get a pretty stunning view of Meghans Bay and beyond. It was clear and we saw Jost Van Dyke and Tortola. Just as an aside, we really liked talking to our taxi drivers. Since we were taking so many cabs we made a point to chat with the drivers a lot and most of them were pretty interesting in their experiences and perspectives of living and growing up on the islands. When we got to Meghans bay it was pretty packed with a cruise ship group, their matching yellow towels tipped them off right away. Meghans bay has a beach bar, chairs and floaties and all kinds of stuff you can rent. We stopped at the beach bar had a few pina coladas and went and relaxed. Waitresses from the beach bar will come out on the beach and take your order here. In our Fodors guidebooks it mentions that some consider Meghans bay to be one of the “top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world.” Hmmm it’s pretty nice but not sure if it would make top 10 in the world. It is unique in it’s own way though, how the mountains rise up on both sides of you and certainly the sand has that beautiful talc-powder feel. By 4pm the cruise ship crowd has cleared out and the beach was practically empty. Now it was really beautiful. We stayed there until it was almost dark to enjoy it.
We got back to the Ritz and cleaned up for our final nice dinner reservation of the trip. Stone Terrace in St. John. I hoped it was going to be really good since we were making a trip to St. John specifically to go there, which meant an instant $36 “travel surcharge.” We caught the 8pm ferry and walked over to Stone Terrace, it’s near the ferry dock. Our table wasn’t quite ready and we had a drink at the bar, which was cramped and had several people smoking at it. The smoking thing is hard for a Californian to get used to. We sat out on the terrace and I didn’t get a chance to really look inside. But the atmosphere was nice. Beautiful hanging plants, friendly wait staff. Stone walls with arched doorways which was not unlike Asolare, but not as nice. We weren’t starved so we were going to keep things low key for dinner. We ordered a tuna tartare tower (which is basically pieces of raw tuna formed into a little tower that you can break apart to eat) which had little pieces of avocado in it. We loved it so much we ordered a second one. For our main dish my wife had dayboat scallops and I had the filet minion with potatoes au gratin and sautéed mushrooms. We were both a bit burned out on all the tuna and mahi at that point. The dinners were excellent though. The food here was amongst our favorite. Perhaps our favorite of all.
Day 7
This is our final day of vacation. We’re really sad! We decided that we were going to do some serious relaxation on our last day. And that meant just hanging out at the Ritz and enjoying the resort. After breakfast we went down to the beach and grabbed two lounge chairs. Here at the Ritz they have people “set-up” the chairs for you, which meant laying out towels, adjusting umbrellas, etc. We relaxed in the sun and ordered tropical drinks and snacks for a lot of the day. The beach at the Ritz is pretty nice, the bottom of the bay is not as soft and sandy as a lot of the other areas and that is the one downside, when you want to go in the water, the bottom is kind of rocky and not as soft and nice as say Meghans or Cinnamon or Trunk Bay, but its not much to complain about when you are at a place that nice in paradise. The staff at the Ritz is super-nice. It seems like half are native islanders and the other half are U.S expats. By the end of the day we were loving the Ritz. Our final activity was a sunset sail back on the Lady Lyndsey. It was a spectacular night, and a perfect sunset for the 90 minute cruise. There were about 29 people on the night sail (including 4 noisy kids) so it wasn’t exactly romantic though it was a romantic environment. My wife and I enjoyed it a lot despite that. The Lady Lyndsey is a really nice boat but they can definitely pack ‘em on. It’s authorized to carry up to 49 people! That would not be that fun. After the sail we went and bought a few gifts at the gift shop and had them sent to our room. Then we went down and went to the beach and sat by the water on the sand and looked at the stars. There was no one else on the beach and it was a nice way to end the trip. Finally we went back to our room and actually packed that night, we had to get up at 6 am to begin our long trip back to San Francisco. I ordered up a little room service while we packed and we had some dinner in the room. Unfortunately we had to take three different flights to get home which was a serious expedition. No wonder we didn’t meet one other person from the west coast on this trip, it takes two days out of your vacation just to get there and back. I was envious of people from NY who had a 3 hour direct flight from St. Thomas.
Anyway that was it. A spectacular vacation, which was helped in large part from this board. I hope someone gets some value out of my trip report as I did from many others. Now that we’re back home it almost seems like it was a dream.
Trip Report
Day 1 (Saturday Night/Sunday)
We flew from SFO to Newark - Newark to St Thomas on Continental. Flights were okay. Fairly average service on Continental, but they weren't full so we got extra seats. Two hour de-icing delay leaving Newark. Took a shuttle van/taxi to the Ritz from the airport. $28 for two people, much better deal then a private cab. Got to the Ritz at about 4pm. It was really beautiful, we debated long and hard on whether or not to stay here, my wife had been to the property 11 years ago when it was the Grand Pallazzo and remembered it as very beautiful, it is even nicer now and perhaps nicer then I expected. They gave us a Rum Punch when we were checking in. Everyone was very nice. We were booked in the Fresia building which in my opinion is the nicest of the buildings because of its position. It is the furthest away from the main building, but it faces directly onto the bay and toward St. John, so you have more of a direct ocean view and less of a view over the resort to the water. It's not really that far away from everything though so if your the type of person that likes to be at the center of everything it's still a fairly short walk, you do have to walk up and down a bunch of stairs though, which can get a bit tiresome, but you can also take a shuttle back to your building if you get home from dinner and are at the front. The room had a beautiful ocean view and a nice sized balcony which had a table and chairs and a lounge chair. Our room had a king bed, TV, air conditioning, marble floors, dual sinks in the bathroom, mini bar coffee machine with everything you need for coffee. The only thing it was missing was a spa-tub, but why nitpick. Haha.
On our first evening, we relaxed by the beach bar, and had a few tropical drinks, I had one of the Painkillers, and something else, my wife had two frozen drinks. They were great! I'm not a big drinking of these kinds of drinks but you can get used to them, of course they are basically sugar and alcohol so how bad can they be? It's vacation though so Yum! After we each had two of those, we were so tired from our red-eye and then second flight we basically went back to the room and fell asleep til the next morning.
Day 2.
We got up and ate breakfast at the Ritz. We are on a package we purchased and breakfast is included. We get a voucher for $54 dollars for breakfast. Wow, you'd think that'd buy you a few breakfasts but guess what that's exactly how much a breakfast at the Ritz costs you. In fact everything here is expensive. We knew we'd be spending a ton of money of this vacation and the Ritz matches those expectations. You pay for everything and everything is expensive. $54 breakfasts, $10.25 for drinks, $20 for a chicken quesadilla at the beach bar, $7.00 for a water in the room, etc. If you want to save a few bucks take some time to buy some waters in Red Hook and snacks. You have to make a point to do this unless you've rented a car, which we didn't. Breakfast was great, omelets, pancakes, bagels, lox, French toast, waffles all kinds of good stuff.
After breakfast, we finally got going and caught a 11 am ferry to Red Hook. Taxi from the Ritz to the Ferry was $10. Most short taxi rides seem to be $10 no matter how far you go, 1 block or 10 blocks. I could see we were going to be spending a lot of money on taxis. Got to Cruz bay and we walked around with our snorkel gear looking for a Jeep to rent. Didn't reserve anything in advance. There are a zillion jeep rental places, a few of the popular ones were sold out but found a Jeep Liberty for $82. Pricey for basically a half day rental but we really wanted to be able to drive around. We drove to Trunk Bay first. Driving on the left was no big deal. Just kept saying to myself "stay to the left, stay to the left" Trunk Bay is nice, tons of facilities and wasn't insanely crowded with cruise ship groups on Monday. We snorkeled for an hour or so, the visibility wasn't great, it was decent. Not a ton of fish. My wife had snorkeled at Trunk Bay 11 years earlier and remembered it being much nicer back then. Hopped back in the Jeep and drove to Cinnamon Bay. We loved the beach at Cinnamon Bay. We didn't snorkel just relaxed on beach and swam in the water, it was great. Cinnamon Bay also has some nice facilities. Supposedly it has nice snorkeling somewhere in the bay too according to one of our books. Might go back there in a few days.
At 4:30 pm we drove back to Red Hook and returned the car. It had to be back by 5:30 but we had massages set up at the spa at the Westin at 5. We dropped the car off and hopped in a taxi to the Westin. Another $10. both got 50 minute massages and then got cleaned up there and changed for dinner, this was our solution to figuring out how to get cleaned up for a nice dinner on St. John when you've been snorkeling around all day and aren't staying on the island. We took our dinner clothes in a separate backpack, kept it locked in the car while we snorkeled. After we got dressed we took a cab to Paradiso for dinner. It wasn't too crowded but we read it was a top place. We had a great dinner there. Bottle of Cabernet, appetizers of Gnocchi in an outrageous cream sauce, appetizer of tuna tartare which was great. A poached pear gorgonzola salad, excellent. I had a pan fried beef filet with mash potatoes and mushrooms which I liked a lot. My wife had an herb encrusted Mahi. Then we shared an apple tart with caramel and vanilla ice cream. We liked dinner alot. It was on the expensive side no doubt. $50 bottle for an average cab, $14 appetizers, $15 salad, $30 entrees on the average. Hopped on the ferry back to Red Hook, called my parents to see how our beloved dog was doing. BTW we got pretty strong Sprint PCS service everywhere on St Thomas and St John.
Day 3
Another beautiful day. We ate breakfast at the Ritz and relaxed at their beach for a little while. The beach is pretty nice, and so is the infinity pool if your the type of person that likes to relax around. I'm looking forward to hanging out in that infinity pool for awhile. At the beach you can use snorkel gear, sailboats, and a variety of other equipment as part of your $35 daily resort fee. In the morning we noticed a powerboat had driven in and docked at a buoy with the words Parasail written on the side. My wife decided she wanted to go parasailing so we booked it through the Ritz and 5 minutes later they were taking us out to the boat in a dingy. 5 minutes after that my wife was in the air out in the bay around the Ritz. They didn't drive her around at high speed like I always imagined but it looked fairly fun. Maybe next time I'll do it with her even though I don't love heights.
At 1pm we took a half day sail on the Lady Lyndsey. In all it was alot of fun. the trip wasn't crowded since it rained for 10 minutes just before we were supposed to leave, a bunch of people cancelled. Good for us since the boat is built to hold up to 49 people and there were about 8 of us. It was nice having that sweet boat almost to ourselves. We sailed out for an hour and then stopped and snorkeled for about an hour, came back and sailed back while eating and drinking several tropical drinks. I definitely recommend the Guava Colada. ha-ha. In all a lot of fun, great boat, great staff. We stopped back at our room and took a little nap, then got up later for an 8:30 dinner reservation at the Agave Grill.
Took a cab to the Agave Grill, another 12 bucks each way. We started calling it our "dinner surcharge" but still cheaper then renting a car. Agave Grill was really nice. A beautiful night to dine out in the open air area they have. I've read the views are great from there but we could only tell we were up high and see lights on the islands around us. I bet it's a great lunch spot. Dinner was excellent. Enjoyed a nice wine list, but had wine by the glass tonight. It's funny to be drinking our favorite California wines here in the Caribbean. Started with the grilled scallops and then we had the fish that they are known for. They had four fish in the daily catch, and you can get them prepared 4 different ways with 12 different kinds of sauce preparations. Fun! I had the Mahi, pan seared with a pineapple glaze, my wife had the Grouper, grilled with a garlic herb sauce. We enjoyed them both a lot. Then we finished with some simple vanilla ice cream scoops. Good food good service. Fish was about 30 each, appetizers around 13. The chef came out and chatted with us for awhile, and went to each table, he was pretty nice we actually spoke to him for awhile.
Day 4.
Today we took a powerboat trip on the Pirate's Penny up to the BVI. The Pirate's Penny is the sister boat to the Stormy Petrel, and it's basically the same boat. We had a great time, our boat had 8 people plus the captain and 1 crew. 2 people didn't show up. I think the boat holds 12 passengers so we had a nice amount of room. From St. Thomas in Red Hook, the boat picks you up at 7:30! Ouch, I don't even get up this early on working days, this better be good. Then you go over to St John and pick people up from there and then head up along Tortola to Virgin Gorda. Our captain was Andy, he's a Lance Armstrong lookalike, and a great guy. We had a lot of fun on this trip, Andy has been doing it for 8 years and definitely knows every nook and cranny of the Islands. He talks and jokes about stuff most of the way. The mate was Tamara, who was cool too, and made a great Rum Punch, which we were all drinking quite a bit by the afternoon! First you stop at the Bath's on Virgin Gorda. You dock at a buoy and then snorkel in. The snorkeling around the Baths was actually pretty nice and I wish we had more time to explore. It was my second trip to the Bath's and it's still an amazing place. Plus Andy took us through some little nooks and crannies then I didn't experience before. Then at the end he took us through a little side route up to a 10 foot rock which we dove or jumped off into the water. You didn't have to do that if you didn't want to. Afterward we cruised over to Cooper Island for lunch. They called in our orders before we landed. Cooper Island is a small resort with only 12 rooms, I think it's pretty cool. It's very laid back. I had been there once before on a sailing trip and relaxed on the beach for half a day. Lunch was decent. I had the "famous" conch fritters, which were good for sure. Afterward we powered over to a reef to snorkel on Peter Island, which was definitely fun. The snorkeling up in the BVI seems really great from my two trips there. We snorkeled around for an hour, saw a huge barracuda, a! sand shark, a turtle and tons of beautiful reef fish. After snorkeling, there was lots of drinking of rum punches. By the time we got back to Red Hook we were pretty cloudy headed. My wife and I made friends with another couple on the trip and after we landed the four of us went over to a bar called Sop Choppy's and had more happy hour Rum Punch's and then pizza late into the evening. Sop Choppys was a fun little place to have some drinks, it's across the street from the Love Shack, which is another popular party spot. Sop Choppys is alot more low key, overlooking the harbor. By the time we stumbled out at 10:30 Sop Choppy's was basically closing and the Love Shack was getting crazy. In all a very fun day.
Day 5.
Today we decided to ferry back over to St. John and rent another jeep. This time we called ahead while eating breakfast so we had a jeep waiting for us when we arrived. This time we got a Suzuki Grand Vitara for $72. Definitely not nearly as nice as the newer Jeep Liberty. Today we wanted to get some great snorkeling in so we took the advice of Fodorites and Feet, Fins and Four-Wheel Drive and drove over to Waterlemon Cay. Like the book says, you basically park at a parking lot at Annaberg and then walk about 1-mile to where you would snorkel to the Waterlemon Cay. The walk is on a combination of a rocky trail along the water and dirt path through woods along the water. It's a very easy walk, but carrying snorkel gear definitely gets a bit heavy. No big deal though. Near the end of the walk you come to the beach, but you should keep walking and the trail picks up again further down the beach, stay to the left because the trail splits and you'll come to the rocky beach where you can snorkel directly out to the Cay. We did the walk in our flip flops. The snorkeling here was definitely awesome. It was actually alot more crowded then I expected, several boats had sailed in and attached to moorings nearby and several other people had hiked in. I kinda thought we might have the place to ourselves. Still it was all worth it. the reefs around the Cay are awesome and we saw lots of cool stuff. Eagle Ray's, flounder, starfish, turtles, and lots of awesome reef fish we hadn't seen before. Another cool thing is that the Cay has a little sandy beach so you can go over and take a little break on the beach. It's really great, you kind of feel like your on your own mini island. We snorkeled and hung out for a few hours then hiked back to our car and drove over to Trunk Bay and got a little snack at their snack stand, we wanted to go to a beach just to relax and we debated whether or not to go back to our favorite beach Cinnamon Bay or check out Caneel Bay. We decided to go to Caneel Bay. You can just drive into the resort, they don't make you pay a fee. Park in the lot and walk through the resort down to the Caneel Bay beach. Overall we were unimpressed with the beach, it just wasn't as beautiful as many of the other beaches we've been to. I know Caneel has 7 beaches but this one is no big deal. That is not a commentary on the resort itself, we barely got a feel for the resort except that the beachfront cottages did look on the rustic side on the outside. After Caneel, we dropped off the car and did the same thing we did on Monday, went to the Westin and got a massage, cleaned up to get ready for dinner at Asolare.
Before our massage, we took some time to walk around the grounds at the Westin and I'd have to say that if you are debating whether or not to stay at the Westin or the Ritz on St. Thomas, as we did, there is really no comparison between the resorts. The Ritz is much, much more beautiful, so unless being on St. John is very, very important to you I'd stay at the Ritz and do day trips, which is easy enough to do. The difference being if you are traveling with children. The Westin seems geared much more toward kids. There are tons of kid-oriented stuff at their beach, in the water of their bay (which is amongst the least attractive we'd seen. It's a very busy harbor, not beautiful at all). There are kid-friendly activities planned, playgrounds, etc. If you are not traveling with children, really keep this in mind when you are considering the Westin. There are really lots of young children running around.
Finally dinner at Asolare. We were excited about dinner here based on the many good reviews. However it definitely was not our favorite dinner to this point. It was definitely our favorite space though. A beautiful stone house with a balcony looking out onto Cruz Bay and to St. Thomas. Even at night when you couldn't see, it was really nice eating out on the deck area. Great open oval doorway, with wide swinging red doors that recalls a wine cellar feeling. Gorgeous. The food was good, not great in our opinion. Definitely good, just not memorable. We didn't have wine with dinner that night. We started with a shrimp appetizer wrapped in a thin potato which i liked a lot. Then we had a calamari dish with a very nice dipping sauce. For entrees, my wife had an herb encrusted tuna rare in some kind of lobster wasabi reduction, over an herbed potato dish. I had the lamb chops, which was served over a mashed potatoes and spinach dish. Both were very good, just not a meal we would remember. I did finish off with an excellent desert though, an apple strudel with vanilla ice cream which was seriously great. Several taxis and a ferry later and we were back at the Ritz.
Day 6
Today we were supposed to go on a full day snorkel sail on the wooden boat Winifred. It was kind of a last minute booking. In the end it got cancelled because the winds were supposed to be high and the captain was concerned. Truthfully we weren't that disappointed because we were both feeling tired with all the running around we've been doing. We slept in a bit and in the morning it was raining for the first time during the day, it rained pretty hard for a little while but by the time we finished breakfast at 10:30 the sun was coming out. It was very windy though. We really took our time and decided to go check out Meghans bay, which many people told us was a really nice beach. When we found out it was going to cost 20 each way, I thought about renting a car for the day on St. Thomas. But decided against it.
My opinion about renting a car is that you should avoid it if you are planning on trying to park at Cruz Bay or Red Hook. Those little towns are just not designed with parking in mind. For example, parking at the Red Hook ferry during the day would require you to park along the road, in unmarked spots up to a mile away from the ferry if you get there a little later. We passed all these parked cars on the way to Meghans bay and it made me glad I didn't bother with the stress of dealing with the car. However if we had rented a car, parking at Meghans bay would have been easy enough. We never had a problem parking at any of the beach areas we went to in St. John with our jeep either.
On the way to Meghans bay our we had our Taxi driver take us up to some place called Drake’s Seat on the advice of someone we met. It’s basically just a high point on the Island where supposedly the explorer Drake climbed to to get a view of the sea to see if the Spanish Armada was near. You get a pretty stunning view of Meghans Bay and beyond. It was clear and we saw Jost Van Dyke and Tortola. Just as an aside, we really liked talking to our taxi drivers. Since we were taking so many cabs we made a point to chat with the drivers a lot and most of them were pretty interesting in their experiences and perspectives of living and growing up on the islands. When we got to Meghans bay it was pretty packed with a cruise ship group, their matching yellow towels tipped them off right away. Meghans bay has a beach bar, chairs and floaties and all kinds of stuff you can rent. We stopped at the beach bar had a few pina coladas and went and relaxed. Waitresses from the beach bar will come out on the beach and take your order here. In our Fodors guidebooks it mentions that some consider Meghans bay to be one of the “top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world.” Hmmm it’s pretty nice but not sure if it would make top 10 in the world. It is unique in it’s own way though, how the mountains rise up on both sides of you and certainly the sand has that beautiful talc-powder feel. By 4pm the cruise ship crowd has cleared out and the beach was practically empty. Now it was really beautiful. We stayed there until it was almost dark to enjoy it.
We got back to the Ritz and cleaned up for our final nice dinner reservation of the trip. Stone Terrace in St. John. I hoped it was going to be really good since we were making a trip to St. John specifically to go there, which meant an instant $36 “travel surcharge.” We caught the 8pm ferry and walked over to Stone Terrace, it’s near the ferry dock. Our table wasn’t quite ready and we had a drink at the bar, which was cramped and had several people smoking at it. The smoking thing is hard for a Californian to get used to. We sat out on the terrace and I didn’t get a chance to really look inside. But the atmosphere was nice. Beautiful hanging plants, friendly wait staff. Stone walls with arched doorways which was not unlike Asolare, but not as nice. We weren’t starved so we were going to keep things low key for dinner. We ordered a tuna tartare tower (which is basically pieces of raw tuna formed into a little tower that you can break apart to eat) which had little pieces of avocado in it. We loved it so much we ordered a second one. For our main dish my wife had dayboat scallops and I had the filet minion with potatoes au gratin and sautéed mushrooms. We were both a bit burned out on all the tuna and mahi at that point. The dinners were excellent though. The food here was amongst our favorite. Perhaps our favorite of all.
Day 7
This is our final day of vacation. We’re really sad! We decided that we were going to do some serious relaxation on our last day. And that meant just hanging out at the Ritz and enjoying the resort. After breakfast we went down to the beach and grabbed two lounge chairs. Here at the Ritz they have people “set-up” the chairs for you, which meant laying out towels, adjusting umbrellas, etc. We relaxed in the sun and ordered tropical drinks and snacks for a lot of the day. The beach at the Ritz is pretty nice, the bottom of the bay is not as soft and sandy as a lot of the other areas and that is the one downside, when you want to go in the water, the bottom is kind of rocky and not as soft and nice as say Meghans or Cinnamon or Trunk Bay, but its not much to complain about when you are at a place that nice in paradise. The staff at the Ritz is super-nice. It seems like half are native islanders and the other half are U.S expats. By the end of the day we were loving the Ritz. Our final activity was a sunset sail back on the Lady Lyndsey. It was a spectacular night, and a perfect sunset for the 90 minute cruise. There were about 29 people on the night sail (including 4 noisy kids) so it wasn’t exactly romantic though it was a romantic environment. My wife and I enjoyed it a lot despite that. The Lady Lyndsey is a really nice boat but they can definitely pack ‘em on. It’s authorized to carry up to 49 people! That would not be that fun. After the sail we went and bought a few gifts at the gift shop and had them sent to our room. Then we went down and went to the beach and sat by the water on the sand and looked at the stars. There was no one else on the beach and it was a nice way to end the trip. Finally we went back to our room and actually packed that night, we had to get up at 6 am to begin our long trip back to San Francisco. I ordered up a little room service while we packed and we had some dinner in the room. Unfortunately we had to take three different flights to get home which was a serious expedition. No wonder we didn’t meet one other person from the west coast on this trip, it takes two days out of your vacation just to get there and back. I was envious of people from NY who had a 3 hour direct flight from St. Thomas.
Anyway that was it. A spectacular vacation, which was helped in large part from this board. I hope someone gets some value out of my trip report as I did from many others. Now that we’re back home it almost seems like it was a dream.
Dec 14th, 2005, 03:23 AM
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Thanks for the great report!I love St John...did not really check out St Thomas too much but would like to next trip.
As for the long flight...I know exactly how you feel.I live on the Southeast coast and my husband and I flew to Kauai,Hawaii 2 years ago...what a long flight but it was worth every minute of it!
Christie
As for the long flight...I know exactly how you feel.I live on the Southeast coast and my husband and I flew to Kauai,Hawaii 2 years ago...what a long flight but it was worth every minute of it!
Christie
Dec 14th, 2005, 08:41 AM
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kcopen: Thanks for a great trip report. It's nice to get a good report about St. Thomas as well as St. John. I've never tried the Stone Terrace and after your report, I definitely will do that next trip. I agree with you about Asolare, unforgettably beautiful setting, and pretty good food if not completely memorable. Cinnamon's my favorite too. Too bad you didn't make it out to the island. Next time, right?
Dec 16th, 2005, 12:18 AM
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Thanks KCopen, for your great trip report, filled with numerous intersting and useeful detials. I particularly liked your method for cleaning up for dinner after snorkeling (BTW, did you perhaps mean returning the rental car that day to Cruz Bay--not Red Hook? I'm thinking folks who don't know St T /St J might be confused by that.)
Thanks too for descriptions of St john's restaurants /beaches,which I'll save for upcoming trip.
(BTW, did you perhaps mean returning the rental car that day to Cruz Bay--not Red Hook? I'm thinking folks who don't know St T /St J might be confused by that.)Thanks too for descriptions of St john's restaurants /beaches,which I'll save for upcoming trip.
Dec 16th, 2005, 01:17 PM
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Great trip report. My husband and I are heading to The Ritz Carlton in January for 4 nights. It's a short trip.. flying out of JFK. We are staying in the residences at the Ritz Carlton as a gift from my husband's boss. Did you happen to see where the residences are located in proximity to the hotel. Also, I'm just curious as to how much the Lady Lyndsey boat excursions cost.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Dec 16th, 2005, 05:42 PM
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Kcopen,
Loved your trip report, all the details about beaches, restaurants, meals and drinks. We’ll be in St John in February, so this is very useful.
You mentioned ‘lots of pics’ – please share
Thanks
Loved your trip report, all the details about beaches, restaurants, meals and drinks. We’ll be in St John in February, so this is very useful.
You mentioned ‘lots of pics’ – please share
Thanks
Dec 17th, 2005, 08:35 PM
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Hey, glad people took the time to read through my report, after a stressful week of work I wish I was back there! Definitely will make it out to the island at Cinnamon next time Tuxedo.
CaliNurse, your right about the rental car return, I noticed I wrote that after I posted. The car was definitely returned in Cruz Bay, not Red Hook.
JennyMary, the residences kind of have their own section of the bay, with their own beach, we did not walk over there but you you can see them from where we were, the Fresia building that we were in was on the exact opposite side of the residences. I can't comment on how convienent or inconvenient it would be to get from the residences to the main area of the hotel but they are definitely a little ways away. You can actually see them in some of our pics. I will try and actually take the time to post a bunch of my pics in a public Yahoo album tomorrow and let everyone know what the link is.
As far as boat excursions go the Lady Lyndsey is on the pricier side. The half-day sail we did was included in our package, but I think it was $170 for two. The sunset sail we did was $150 for two. You can get trips for less then that if you look around. There are so many boats doing trips in the USVI. But if your staying at the Ritz the convience of taking the Lady Lyndsey is worth the money.
CaliNurse, your right about the rental car return, I noticed I wrote that after I posted. The car was definitely returned in Cruz Bay, not Red Hook.
JennyMary, the residences kind of have their own section of the bay, with their own beach, we did not walk over there but you you can see them from where we were, the Fresia building that we were in was on the exact opposite side of the residences. I can't comment on how convienent or inconvenient it would be to get from the residences to the main area of the hotel but they are definitely a little ways away. You can actually see them in some of our pics. I will try and actually take the time to post a bunch of my pics in a public Yahoo album tomorrow and let everyone know what the link is.
As far as boat excursions go the Lady Lyndsey is on the pricier side. The half-day sail we did was included in our package, but I think it was $170 for two. The sunset sail we did was $150 for two. You can get trips for less then that if you look around. There are so many boats doing trips in the USVI. But if your staying at the Ritz the convience of taking the Lady Lyndsey is worth the money.
Dec 17th, 2005, 10:24 PM
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I posted some pics of our trip in a Yahoo album. It doesn't have pics of the inside of the Baths since we snorkeled there from our boat.
Jennymary, if you look at USVI_3 001, you can see the residences, they are the buildings in the background of the photo, you can see that there is a little point and then it wraps around again to where the residences are and they have their own beach area.
My Yahoo pics are at: http://photos.yahoo.com/kencopen.
The album is USVI, I wrote little captions for each pic if you want to view them one by one or a slideshow you can see the captions.
Jennymary, if you look at USVI_3 001, you can see the residences, they are the buildings in the background of the photo, you can see that there is a little point and then it wraps around again to where the residences are and they have their own beach area.
My Yahoo pics are at: http://photos.yahoo.com/kencopen.
The album is USVI, I wrote little captions for each pic if you want to view them one by one or a slideshow you can see the captions.
Dec 19th, 2005, 03:45 PM
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Hey kcopen:
Really enjoyed your trip report, especially the excursion to BVI. When I did my day sail back in Feb on the "Forever Young" captain Larry commented on the beauty of the Ritz. I can still picture and thinking how it was a great location, looking out over to St. John. I remember thinking "how nice it must be to lay one's head there" and you've just confirmed my assumptions (thanks).
Did you book most of your day sails before you left Cali or once you arrived at the Ritz? Oh yeah, luv the idea of the massage/clean up for dinner routine. Lots of planning went into this trip and it sounds like you guys had a wonderful time (sigh). I wish I were there.
Thanks.
-k
Really enjoyed your trip report, especially the excursion to BVI. When I did my day sail back in Feb on the "Forever Young" captain Larry commented on the beauty of the Ritz. I can still picture and thinking how it was a great location, looking out over to St. John. I remember thinking "how nice it must be to lay one's head there" and you've just confirmed my assumptions (thanks).
Did you book most of your day sails before you left Cali or once you arrived at the Ritz? Oh yeah, luv the idea of the massage/clean up for dinner routine. Lots of planning went into this trip and it sounds like you guys had a wonderful time (sigh). I wish I were there.
Thanks.
-k
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