Need help!! Trunk Bay on our own?

[momto2dkids]

I've heard wonderful things about Trunk Bay in St. John's and am seriously considering it for our cruise next year. While I know that there is a Disney excursion to Trunk Bay, it seems like the beach/swim portion is relatively short (1 1/2 hours out of a 5 hour excursion). We would love to spend more time at the beach.

Has anyone done Trunk Bay on their own?
How did you get there and back?
Was it fairly easy?

We will be traveling with our 3 children (11, 5, 18 months). Is it worth it?

Also, my husband, God bless his wonderful soul, his pretty paranoid about doing things on our own, since he is worried we will get left by the ship. If anyone with experience and could help me it would be much appreciated.

 

[RellingTwin]

We have done it both ways and going on your own is MUCH better! It really is very easy.
When you get off the ship, there will be loads of cabs (not typical cabs but more like open air buses) lined up, just go down the line asking for RED HOOK. Once there you will see a small ticket booth, get your round trip ticket and get aboard the ferry.Once off the ferry again the cabs will be lined up and will take you to Trunk Bay. We left the beach about 1:15(To be on the safe side we got the 2pm ferry back to Red Hook) and we were back on board with plenty of time to spare. It was a wonderful day at Trunk Bay.

 

[mickeyboat]

We did it too with DD3 and DD4. We didn't actually go to Trunk Bay - we spent time in Cruz Bay, but here are a couple of tips.

The cab ride to Red Hook will take over 30 minutes. DD3 gets car sick easily and she almost got sick in the cab. We spent $32 for the cab ride, although we tendered in at St. Thomas and there weren't as many cabs and riders at the taxi stands. Then I think we paid $3 for the ferry from Red Hook. A note of caution, if you take the ferry back to Red Hook, make sure you leave plenty of time to get back to the ship. Traffic in St. Thomas can be heavy when there are a lot of cruise ships in port.

There is a ferry which goes from downtown CA to St. John. I think it is $7 per head. We took that ferry back to St. Thomas and the ride was VERY BUMPY! Other riders said the way over to St. John was worse. But it left us off right at the tender which was very convenient. The ride was beautiful. We saw some incredible homes.

Don't miss St. John. It is amazing. Bring your stoller for the little one. Have a great time.

Denae

 

[rcdisneyfam]

We had 12 of us, 6 kids and 6 adults. We got off the ship and immediately found a cab that could take us all to Red Hook where we picked up the Ferry. The first Ferry is around 9 a.m. so we were there for that. The cab driver was great and he didn't charge for the 2 younger kids, 5 and 8 they were. Everyone else was like I think $7.00 each way. He radiod over to St. John's and had a cab all lined up for us there when we got off the Ferry. The Ferry was $3.00 each I believe round trip, it was 2001 so I can't remember totally, but I am sure it has changed since then. I know the cab driver was there and waiting for us as we got off in St. John's, he set up a time to pick us back up at the beach and was right there for us. I do remember that there was a charge at the Trunk Bay Beach area as it is a sanctuary and they keep it up very nicely. All around it was less expensive and we stayed till the time we said and we saw the DCL Excursion people come and go during the time we were there. They weren't there very long. We brought our own masks and snorkels it was the most beautiful place we have ever seen. You can definitely trust the cab drivers over there and they were very polite and very punctual. The orignal cab driver knew what Ferry we were taking back and he was waiting for us to bring us back to the ship too. No problems.

 

[momto2dkids]

Relling Twin, rcdisneyfam and mickey boat- do you recall what the total travel time (to include cab ride and ferry) to the beach?

Mickey boat- what is CA?

"But it left us off right at the tender which was very convenient."

Which tender did it drop you off at? Would that negate the need for the cab ride to or from Red Hook?

 

[Disneycrazymom]

If for whatever reason your pre-arranged cab did not arrive to pick you up was there some place to get a cab near by? We thought we would just rent a jeep for the day. Has anyone done that?

 

[mickeyboat]

I know this is a bit confusing. There are basically two ferry options to get to St. John - the Red Hook ferry and the downtown (CA = Charlotte Amalie) ferry. There are two possible ways you could be delivered to St. Thomas - at the pier or by tender. If there is not enough room at the pier, the Magic will anchor in the ahrbor and smaller boats will bring you in to downtown St. Thomas.

You will have to take a taxi to Red Hook no matter where you land on St. Thomas. The taxi ride is about 30 minutes long and the ferry ride is about 20 minutes long.

We had to tender in. We chose to take a taxi to Red Hook and the Red Hook ferry because I didn't know from where the downtown ferry departed. When we returned, we took the downtown ferry which deposited us right at the tender station.

I hope this cleared this up for you some.

Denae