Has any one stayed at this property and if so how was it?. I have Starwood points to use and it does look nice but looking to see if anyone has been. I am torn right now between this hotel at St.John and the Le Christopher St. Barths in which I can use AMEX points for. Feedback would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Have stayed at the Westin several times and thoroughly enjoyed our stay. The staff was very accomodating, room was pristine, truthfully we never ate in the resort except for breakfast or lunch, there are so many delicous restaurants on the island. While the beach is small, it is lovely and the service (ordering drinks/lunch from your lounge chair) was fast and wonderful. We did go for afer dinner drinks, listen to music, in the nice bar on site and thoroughly enjoyed that. They have some nice little shops, a nice palce where you can get cheese, crackers, hors d'ouevre type things for your balcony or rooom or if you choose to do a day boat trip to the other islands, which I highly recommend.

I have not stayed in the other place you mention, so can't help there; but we would return to the Westin without hesitation. It can be hilly, depending on which room you get, but they have little golf carts always zooming around to take you up or down also.

The pool and pool bar is also nice - I would add, don't know if you are a single, couple or with children - personally if I were going without my kids, as I did, I wouldn't want to be at the Westin during a school vacation b/c the beach is so small and I wouldn't want to be poolside with a million kids during an adult vacation, and if that was the case another good adult place is Caneel Bay which we have loved also,, but if you want to use points I doubt they take them -

thanks for the reply. Actually Canel Bay does except AMEX points but they are booked so The Westin was our next choice. I am going with my wife and we dont have kids.

Also... how is the weather begining of May in St.John?. We are looking at leaving May 9th for a week. Not sure what we are looking at for temps and rain... Thanks.

We stayed there in '03. Very nice property and great friendly staff. We were VERY disappointed with the beach.
We really loved St. John. The beaches on the island are BEAUTIFUL.

Here is the hotel part of my review from back then:

THE WESTIN: The grounds are beautiful and well-maintained. The staff was VERY friendly. We had a gardenview room in a building up on a hill...but we didn't just have a gardenview but the view of the marina as well..which was a really nice surprise. So we could sit out on our patio and have this lovely view every night.
I've read some complaints about the walk from those buildings to the pool or beach and how spread out things are, but we didn't think it was that bad. We actually enjoyed walking (with the baby in his stroller) because the grounds were so pretty. Yes, at the end of the day after spending an entire day at the beach, it can be hard walking up that hill (especially pushing a stroller and carrying all of the baby's stuff!) but they have motorized carts that come around every 15 minutes to get you. We were very lucky where they'd come around within 5 minutes of us waiting those couple of times where we just didn't feel like walking. If you're not in shape, then yes it can be hard.
The pool is really nice. The promo pictures make it look a lot bigger than it is, we thought.
We thought the food at the Westin was good, not amazing, but good. and yes, expensive.
Our room was spacious but just ok. Could use a face lift. One really bad thing, the carpet. It's dirty!! You can't tell because it's dark and I did see the cleaning lady vacuuming it. We noticed after walking barefoot on it, that our feet were dirty..every day!! I was grossed out by that. They seriously need new carpeting.
Now to the beach at the Westin. It is a joke, especially compared to the real beaches on the island. We really tried to go swim in that water but there was seaweed washing up all along the shore (lots of seaweed). It looked really gross. So we simply passed on it.

Adding...
The Westin St. John attracts families. I would advise you not to go during the summer and school breaks if you don't want to see/hear screaming kids. I would think May should be fine.

We didn't go in May (we went in June) so I have no idea what the weather would be like then.

Have you been to St. Barths as well? If so which do you prefer more?. We are torn and the hotel mentioned above does not look that great.

You should be fine in May at St. Johns, I can't imagine any schools having vacations then - you might have a few with smaller children.

To be clearer about the beach: it is small. It depends on what you are looking for in a beach and for this vacation, in my opinion. Ifyou want a beach you can walk, you can walk this beach in about 3 minutes it is that small. When we were there (04 and 05) the water was clear and no seaweed. Don't know if this was our luck with tides or timing, but water was fine and we snorkeled along the coastline of the cove.

If you are looking to sit in a beach chair, read, catch some rays, have drinks delivered to you, or go to the pool bar for lunch and back to your lounge chair or change to sitting poolside for a bit, it is fine for that. Ifyou are loooking for a place to sit in your lounge later in the day and be on the beach say also from 3-5, when many people leave the beach, we were the last ones there and it was quiet.

However, if you are looking for an adult hidden spot/resort where there are no kids and no distractions and bigger beach at the resort you are staying, then choose somewhere else.

However, I would think you would go off a day here and there to the other lovely beaches on the island, to the old Annaberg Plantation, and it is that type of get a way, then this will serve fine. It is so easy to take the transport from the Westin to many fine restaurants and back, we did that every night.

So, it depends on what you are looking for.

I have just been back from trip to St. Bart's and was on St. John last year. Both beautiful, but very different "vibe" when it comes to the town itself. St. John is laid back Caribbean. St. Bart feels very European. Both lovely. Westin has lots of kids, although you will be there before summer vacations which would limit it. Good luck!

Westin is on a man-made beach on an island with some of the most gorgeous pristine beaches in the world. For couples, particularly ones looking for beach paradise, Caneel Bay is incomparable. SEVEN tree-shaded white sand beaches with wade-in snorkeling. All on extensive grounds with views. Sooner or later, Caneel will have rooms available.

No, sorry, I have not been to St. Barthelemy.

It looks as though our dates will be April 25th departing on May 2nd so it wont be late into May which I originally thought. Canel Bay was my first choice as AMEX does work with them but they were booked so The Westin is where we will end up. caribtraveler do you have an email address i can contact you at with some more questions. If anyone else has a take on The Westin let me know.

How long is the ferry from St.Thomas to St. John and how often do they go? Flying into St.Thomas I am curious to know how long we will have to wait to get a ferry across. Thanks

here is the web site with lots of ferry info:

www.stjohnusvi.com/ferry.html

I have never timed the ride, although taken it several times, I am guessing 30 min max, but it might be on this site which has schedules, etc.

it is easy to do and they run fairly frequently from different ports.

the easiest one from the airport is the Charlotte Amalie port.

Hi Bizman. I actually prefer not to put out my e-mail info on the web. You can ask me any other questions here and I'll gladly try to answer them.

Here are a few additional things I can say about the resort. Would I recommend it? Yes. I think that at the end of the day this is is still a nice resort. We knew the beach was not the greatest before we went (from comments on this site), so even though we were disappointed, we were not surprised. We actually were hoping that fellow Fodorites were just being difficult.
If a great beach at your resort is a must, then no I would not recommend it.
There could very well have been a storm before we got there and that's why there was so much seaweed. I just don't know. All I know is that the water was VERY unappealing and dirty-looking. My husband is VERY easy going compared to me (when it comes to hotels/beaches...) and he wouldn't step into that water as well. Without exaggerating, I think during our entire stay, we only saw a few kids at the beach. Most people were either at the pool or perhaps at other beaches on the island (the resort was almost full by the way).
The small beach is also home to the dock for the Westin ferry.

The Westin ferry was convenient for us because we had our toddler and lots of luggage (%^*^$@ diapers!). It had scheduled travel times. Unfortunately for us, our flight landed when a ferry had just left St. Thomas so we found ourselves having to wait for the next one. That was a bit annoying, especially for the price we had paid. If I remember correctly, I think I booked it via e-mail (or was it by phone??).

You saw what I said about our room. I have no idea how the pool view and the beach view rooms are.

Regarding the hotel food, it wouldn't be fair for me to comment since it's been close to 3 years since our trip. Cooks change, prices change, etc... I remember that there were 3 restaurants at the hotel. One is a beach bar (for lunch), the other is an open-air covered restaurant (for breakfast and dinner) and a more upscale one (just for dinner) in another section of the resort. We didn't do the latter.
We booked our rental car via the rental car company at the Westin. We booked the jeep a few weeks before we got there. The jeep looked a little beat up but we had no problems at all.

The hotel pool is nice. Not amazing though. Personally, I think that when you're on an island that has GORGEOUS beaches, it's really a shame to stay by the pool.
My advice: Absolutely rent a car! Drive around the island and go see all the beaches on the island. As I said before, just GORGEOUS.

That's really all I can think to add about the resort. If you have any other questions about the island, I think there are true St. John experts on this board who'd know more than me!

Have a great trip!

I think you are traveling w/out kids, so just as a note, if you arrive and get to Charlotte Amalie ferry and have to wait anywhere from 30 - 60 min or so for a ferry, there is conveniently a bar/rstaurant right next to the dock, and we sat there and felt like we were starting our vacation already with a drink and appetizer.