Rent a car in St. Thomas for St. John stay?
 

Can anyone share experience with renting a car on St. Thomas for St, John vacation. We have always rented on St. John but much cheaper in St. Thomas and they will let you take the car to St. John. Any recommendations?

2 biggest problems: if there is car trouble while on St John, could take a while to get help. Also, the car ferry may not have return trips that will get you to airport on time if you have early morning flight.

Hertz at the airport allows you take car to St. John, cheaper and better tires and brakes than St. John rental, save money as well with not taking taxis and paying for luggage and ability to shop at Cost u Less on St.T.

Note that if you rent from St. John rental, you can get free parking in Cruz BAy (which could be essential in a busy week).

After two trips when we had unsatisfactory experiences renting cars on St. John, last year we rented from Discount on St. Thomas and took the ferry to St. John. We were amazed at the professionalism of the personnel at Discount, our car was new, and everything went smoothly. Since there were 7 of us, taking the car on the ferry was cheaper than paying individually plus taxi fares.

So what's the deal? All the rental places I find say that you are NOT allowed to take the St. Thomas cars off-island.

Hertz even specifically says that if you try you are subject to arrest and $1000 fine! That doesn't sound anything like the info I am hearing above.

Can somebody help clarify? Thanks.

Some rental agencies allow and some don't. A few that do (and get good reviews) are: Discount, Dependable and Amalie. Discount has a mechanic on St. John to assist in the event of a breakdown. Dependable does not.

Excellent, thank you for the prompt and detailed response! Any knowledge of the St. Johns rental places? The people who are brokering my house rental have found me a jeep on St. John but it seems more expensive (which I expected). Although they will pick us up in St. John, we can avoid taxis and schlepping our stuff across the ferry by hand if we rent on St. T.

Thanks again.

We used O'Connor before and they were fine. Conrad Sutton seems to be the least expensive but they require that you turn your vehicle in by 10:30 AM on your last day (if that makes a difference). And I know a lot of people like St. John Car Rental. I have just been through an exhaustive search for rental cars so all the info is fresh in my mind :) If we end up renting on STT we will use Discount, if we rent on STJ, we will use Conrad Sutton.

Wow, again, great information. Thank you!

We have stayed at the Westin St. John twice before and we are headed there again from 11/13-11/20. We are so excited to be going back to such a beautiful island. On both our previous visits, we rented a 4 wheel drive Jeep Liberty from Discount Car Rental on St. Thomas and took the car ferry to St. John for our week long stay. This rental car company is fantastic in all aspects. Not only are there prices reasonable (compared to the rest of the companies), but they allow you to take the car to St. John and the best part is, if you have an issue with the car while on St. John, they have someone that stays on St. John to come fix the car for no extra service charge. For our upcoming trip in 3 weeks, the total cost for the Jeep is $499 for 7 days. All you do is call them when you land in St. Thomas and they pick you up right at the airport. One important note: make sure you check the car ferry times back and forth to St. John so you don't miss your flight back home. The ferries have a tendency to be on "island time" and don't adhere to exact time schedules sometimes. HAPPY RENTING! (We're from New Orleans, LA)

Keep an eye on the Westin. Their pool and pool area is closed through 11/14. A mudslide took out everything and I hear it is a real mess right now. We cancelled there 11/3 for five nights and rented a villa in Cruz Bay instead. More info is on their website but it bears watching.

Terrible experience at Dollar Rent A Car!

Most of their cars were missing 1-2 nuts per wheel! I insisted on having all 5 for safety reasons and had to wait for them to put them on.

Then I found that I was overcharged by $75. When I called, they told me that was the fee for cleaning it because it was too sandy! But they didn't bother telling this to me when they inspected the car at drop off!

Had to dispute the charge, and sure enough, they responded. Of course, this fee isn't mentioned anywhere, not even buried in fine print.