St John USVI: Natural beauty abounds, forget the cities
Written: Jun 23 '04
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: It really is beautiful, private beaches, awesome sea life. Easy access to snorkeling.
Cons: The service of restaurants is lousy, choice of restaurants narrow.
The Bottom Line: Enjoy the beauty of US Territory, easy access to snorkeling and enjoy seeing lots of sea life. Just be prepared for the poverty, the rudeness of some of the islanders.
|
|
|
| floridawannabe's Full Review: St. John |
I’ve always envisioned the Virgin Islands as a rich and exotic place, sort of lifestyles of the rich and famous. After all, the airfare to get there is expensive, food is expensive and there are up scale shops. We landed at Cyril King Airport. We exit the plane to an open area to pick up your luggage. It’s not air conditioned, it’s dirty and there are people coming up to you left and right to manage your bags, get you a taxi. How nice? It would be nice, if it was not such a beggar and pushy con act. Then we were cattled into a van with nine other people to the ferry at Red Hook. Landing at the airport, the water was most beautiful, and the mountains gorgeous with lush greenery and a few palm trees. Imagine my surprise after we leave the airport, to drive through ghetto land of St.Thomas(you arrive in St. Thomas and take a ferry to St. John). I was amazed at how trashy the island was, and how down trodden the place was. There was graffiti all over buildings, abandon cars, bums walking around carrying brown paper bags of I assume alcohol. Small shacks of homes. Litter on the streets. Signs everywhere asking people to stop the spread of aids, were condoms, prevent the spread of HIV. There was even a nasty drawing of a private part, to make you want to wear a condom. I thought “What have I gotten my family into?” The tour books did not indicate any of this doom and despair.
We were dropped off at the ferry dock. We bought our three dollar tickets for the ride over to St. John Island. You could see St. John in the distance. We had a nice ride on the ferry, the Caribbean Sea vibrant with hues of blue and green. Houses set up in the mountains, sail boats in the water. Beautiful! Post card pretty!
We rented a villa for a week in Coral Bay. We arrived at Cruz Bay. The place we used was Windspree Vacation (www.windspree.com) Rentals (check out Sun Moon and Stars house that is where we stayed). They had someone there at the dock to greet us and had the rental car that we rented from St John Rental Car was also at the dock. All went very smoothly. The villa met our expectations and more. I recommend renting a villa over staying at the two big resorts here. We had our own pool, and privacy. It was nice to take off from Cruz Bay and drive up and over the island to our villa in Coral Bay. Coral Bay is the quiet side of the island. Less construction, less night life, less everything. That means stores too. There are mini marts abound, but they are very expensive.
The villa overlooked a beautiful bay. We could see Tortola Island, Peter Island, Norman Island and many more small islands in between.
We went snorkeling everyday at the many different beaches that line St John. I believe there are about 33 different beaches. We were there for a week, so we saw about 9 different beaches. I will highlight my favorite, and why.
Waterlemon Cay We had to hike a mile to get to this beach. Hike? Well more like walk a rocky shore line of another beach to get to this beach. Well worth the walk. Here, there is a little cay about a 100 yards or more. We snorkeled out there, and around the island. Snorkeling out there was awesome. The whole bottom of the sea was filled with huge starfish. Multiple different colored starfish in all sizes. Just scattered on the smooth sandy bottom of the sea.
Hawksnest This was the first beach we stopped at, and it was absolutely breath taking. The one nice thing about the beaches of St John, at least during off season (April-November) there are not a lot of people. We practically had this beach to our selves. One guide book showed people sunning themselves in a private cove area. Yep, sure enough we had that same experience. No one near us for yards, and yards. Only the beautiful white sand on our feet, and the awesome multi hued Caribbean sea in front us. So stunning, words hardly do it justice. We hurriedly took off our shorts and started to get our snorkel gear on. Then my husband said, wait what’s that. I thought he was pulling my leg, trying to scare me about something. We had read that we could see sharks, turtles, etc., here. He pointed to the water and I saw a black tipped dorsal fin. Mmmh. What else could have a dorsal, besides a shark. Surely it’s not a shark. People, it was a shark. A black tipped shark, about three foot long, flopping around in the shallow water. I scanned the horizon and didn’t see another one. Then this one, swam off. I said, it’s okay, let’s go snorkeling. My husband thinks I’m crazy. But we did see a turtle here too, and tons of colorful fish, fauna and flora.
Cinnamon Bay We left busy Trunk Bay and came here. Another pretty bare beach. Smooth sandy beach and water. We saw cuttlefish (they resemble miniature squids). It was very nice here at this beach, not crowded and the beach curves around.
Trunk Bay This is the most photographed beach. It really is spectacular, but then almost all of the beaches of St John are spectacular. What makes this one so special? It has a little island not far from the beach, and it has the most amazing coral around it. There are life guards at this beach. This area also has a snorkel trail, for the novice, listing information about coral, and fish. The down side of this beach is that a lot of the cruise ship passengers come here, and day trippers from St. Thomas. It did get crowded around 11:00. One great thing about this beach, and snorkeling area? We saw a baby octopus here!!
The snorkeling in St. John was breathtaking, we did a lot of snorkeling and had a great time. The clarity of the water is excellent, the blues and greens are a sight.
Now, here’s the bad part of St. John. Cruz Bay and Coral Bay. The restaurants are horrible! I mean horrible. The food is nasty and the service at most places was to be desired. First let me explain, that the city of Cruz Bay doesn’t really have that many restaurants to choose from for sit down dining and such. There are a lot of shacks and food stands (think of state fair food vendors). We heard Chilly Billy’s serves great breakfast until 2 pm. We went there. Parking is a problem in the city, the rental car companies let you park in their lots which is very helpful. At Chilly Billy’s there were only two other patrons in the place, and the wait staff was very rude. Dropping menus and walking off. No greeting, no hello. We waited five minutes and then they finally came to take our order, again no small talk. Be prepared for high prices at restaurants and really even grocery stores. A breakfast burrito, about five inches long and three inches thick, without any meat (none offered) was $8.50. Nothing else served with it. Four slices of French toast, $8.50. We also went to the most talked about place Chateau Bordeaux. It is suppose to have the best look out and view of the islands, and great food. We went for lunch. The place is basically a little house turned into a restaurant. Lunch is served on a deck. The deck slants and was questionable in its integrity. Meaning, we wondered if it was going to hold us! Seriously. Lunch was burger and chips only. Nothing else offered. We ate at what we thought was a fancy restaurant in Coral Bay. It had all the ambiance of a nice place. Soft lighting, linen table clothes. Yet again, the staff doesn’t greet you, doesn’t make small talk. These are Americans folks, not islanders that may have not understand English. These were people who didn’t like working in restaurants, but apparently the choice of jobs are scarce and they have no choice. They also apparently don’t feel bad about being rude. The meat here was nasty, I ordered a seafood dinner and for $22 here’s what I got. A small piece of mahi fish, three shrimp, and ONE quarter sized bacon wrapped scallion and about two tablespoons of dried rice. UGH.
The beauty of the island, our private villa, and being able to walk into a beach and snorkel, all made up for the terrible “city” experiences. We really appreciated the spectacular beauty of the island, the lush greenery, the mountains, and the wild goats on the roadways, wild donkeys, and all the cool sea life. I just was very disappointed in the city life and how shabby the cities were. Only on our return trip to the St. Thomas airport near where the cruise ships dock, did we see upscale shops. I guess to trick people to think that St. Thomas is fabulous. Bon Voyage!
Recommended:
No
Best Suited For: Couples
Best Time to Travel Here: Anytime
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
floridawannabe
|
|
Reviews written: 127
Trusted by: 5 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.