The above Board "bites the dust" as far as I'm concerned! How sad!!

How do you mean?!!

probably the best source of information and boards on the web <BR>maybe you were one that abused their policy of no advertising or malicious attacks?

www.caribbean-on-line.com is unsurpassed for its island-specific boards. Although those boards may have slowed with the tourism slowdown, the archives are goldmines of information, and are easily searchable.

I agree because I don't like their format. Fodors is so much better with the questions on the left and the replies on the right. Sometimes too, if there's a break in the line of answers with a comment or a question, you have to go back to the main page to access it. Back and forth, back and forth.

The problem with Fodors board is a high percentage of the info is garbage. Like this thread, which was obviously started by Evan just to bash and hopefully get a response. How sad!!

"can't we have both!"<BR><BR>--- trading places

Just to throw my 2 cents in, I like Caribbean-on-line!!! They don't have the bashing that this board gets!!

My opinion follows: caribbean-on-line.com is an exellent site for info. I hate the format too but I struggle through to get the info. It is moderated and the crap is deleted which is a good thing. <BR><BR>Fodors has a good format, but mostly unmoderated. I think alot of posts with an ulterior motive "commercial interests" for financial gain end up here. You just have to figure out what's sincere and what's not, all by your lonesome.<BR><BR>The best site I've found is traveltalkonline.com The format is better than Fodors. It's moderated 24-7 and has many registered users who call people on the carpet to support what they say. Crap isn't tolerated and the result is accurate info.<BR><BR>Doug

I have to agree that the fodors.com board seems to have a lot of "commercial interests" in the mix. But I like fodors for having a slightly different format and approach than the rest of the Carib boards.<BR><BR>Although traveltalkonline.com has a big St. Martin base, it's fairly weak for most other areas. IMHO, for USVI and Cayman, nothing beats caribbean-on-line, especially their archives. One other site, traveltalk.com, had extensive archives, but the site was hacked.

I agree Caribbean-On-Line is a great source of info for some islands, but I also agree that the format absolutely sucks. It takes forever to read a whole thread and the way it's constructed doesn't make any sense. I, like others though, wade through it because it is a great source.

Each island and each message board has its strengths and weaknesses. In addition to those already mentioned, I also scan the newsgroup rec.travel.caribbean, and occasionally wheretostay.com<BR>

I think that caribbean-on-line is a great source of info and exchange of information. The webmaster does work hard at keeping an even balance of good information flowing and deleting the crapola. Traveltalkonline was a big advertising site where people promote either anonymously or openly their own businesses/villas/etc and some of the posters are suspect and I seldom go there anymore. The one moderator, Ray, is an excellent source most of the time for VI information. At times the monitoring there is not very objective by one of the monitors if you dare disagree with him. I think you see more flamers here and more people troll this board than the others which do have some tighter control by the webmaster. Glad to see one of my favs mentioned where2stay but it doesn't get as much traffic as the other boards.

Have any of you people taken a look at the new format? There are no longer any forums!! THAT is what I was referring to!!

And Karen, where2stay also used to have a great board, but no longer! THAT is why there is a considerable slowdown of "traffic" there!

Evan, sounds to me like you might be confusing traveltalk.com with caribbean-on-line.com? <BR><BR>traveltalk.com has a new format, carib-on-line still has the same format with forums.

Okay, well, I suppose I have to eat some crow since the usual format is back! But on Wednesday, I saw a completely DIFFERENT format after being taken to the site several times just to make sure I wasn't mis-clicking. My apologies, everyone!

Bottom line:<BR><BR>Best Format: Fodors...no contest<BR>Unfortunately too many idiots with no life come here to entertain themselves.<BR><BR>Best Info: Caribbean on Line...no contest.....downside is what was mentioned above....WAY to slow to click back & forth to read an entire thread. I get tired of that after 2-3 threads.<BR><BR>WheretoStay.com is okay, and good for simply looking up certain hotel info on certain islands, but the boards get very little traffic since they changed their very simple format.<BR><BR>Traveltalk.com had great info, and very good traffic, with recent postings everyday, but after they got hacked, and changed their format, the traffic has slowed to near nothing.<BR><BR>Now if Caribbean on Line could only aquire the Fodor format, that would be the king of all travel sites. Simply doing something about the speed of the site would get me to stay there longer.<BR><BR>Just my .02....okay...maybe .04

<BR>Scott,<BR><BR>You missed one. traveltalkonline.com not the old traveltalk.com ---check it out.

I agree with Doug. I LOVE Fodors' format and the amount of traffic that it gets, but I get tired of sorting through all the commercial interests. In fact, I have been critized by people with commercial interests in this Forum for denouncing them.<BR><BR>I really like traveltalkonline.com, because even though many people advertise their business there, they do it openly, without trying to disguise themselves as fellow travelers (which is what happens in this forum). Unfortunately, traveltalkonline only gets traffic for the BVI and St. Martin forums, so it's not really a resource for other islands. Also, the BVI forum is very heavy on the sailing crowd. But, at least it's moderated. The Caribbean On Line forum is great for some islands, but not for others. I think it's fantastic for St. Lucia. I was considering a trip there, and got a lot of useful information. For Antigua, the Interknowledge.com forum is great.<BR><BR>My feeling is, if you don't like a forum, don't browse it. I sometimes don't read this Forum for weeks and sometimes I check it almost every day.