St. John Eco Hike?

[CRSNDSNY]

Has anyone ever done this excursion?

St. John Eco Hike (5.5 hours)
Cruise via ferry from St. Thomas to Cruz Bay, where you'll have 90 minutes to enjoy a guided 1.2-mile hike. While venturing through the lush forest, you'll enjoy stops at Lind Point Lookout and Honeymoon Beach, where you'll have time for swimming before continuing your tour to the famous Caneel Bay Plantation. Please wear tennis or hiking shoes.

If so, what did you think? Would you recommend it?

 

[shellbelle11]

We did this last August with the gang of 8. I thought that it was incredble. A wonderful way to see the island, since so much of it is a national park. When you arrive on the island you walk through the city for about 5 minutes and meet in a little park area where you meet your guide. This is the last chance for a pit stop until you finish the hike. The guide gives you a bottle of water to take with you and off you go.
The guide was fantasitc, he pointed out different plants, little creatures, even a termite mound and tunnels on dead trees. When you get to the lookout point your breath is taken away- and not from the hike. It is a GORGEOUS view! When you finally get to Honeymoon Bay, it's such a relief. It's so hot that to finally get in the water it's wonderful. The only downside was that we had only 30 minutes in the water.

Be sure to wear your bathing suit under your clothes because there are no changing rooms or rest rooms at the beach. The guide had granola bars for us to snack on at this point. They take agroup picture that is posted on their web site- let me know if you want to see their web site.

When you leave the beach you continue on to Canneel Bay Plantation and see the sites around there. After you hop on a van and are taken back to the starting point for the hike. You then walk back through the town- we had enough time to stop in a souvenir shop, and go back to the pier to pick up the boat back to St Thomas.
I loved this excursion, it was a great experience!

Let me know if you have any other questions!

 

[CRSNDSNY]

Wow! Thank you so much for the details! That is exactly the information we were looking for! Can't wait to share with DH.

Last 7-day we did the Champagne Catamaran which took you to Honeymoon Bay. We loved it. This time we're looking to go to a similar or same area, but get a different experience. The Eco Hike seems like it might be the one!

Couple of questions...
1 - Were there a lot of younger kids on this excursion?
2 - Do you think it would be difficult to take a back pack with us to carry snorkel equipment for Honeymoon Bay?
3 - Do we bring our own towels?
4 - I would love to see the pictures if you can link me to them.

THANKS SO MUCH!

 

[westjones]

So this is part of a National Park? Is there a visitor center there? We have those National Park Passports we like to get stamped whenever we visit national parks. It would be great to get one like this!

DJ

 

[CRSNDSNY]

 

[CRSNDSNY]

 

[shellbelle11]

I'm glad that I could be of help!

Our guides told us that usually there are smaller hikes, ours had probably 25 or so people. There were people of all ages, probaly 5 or so little ones, under 10. They thought it was great seeing all the little creatures. Most were teens and up. The group I went with consisted of my friend and I (26) my sister, 14, my parents, their friends and their daughter (16). The girls were the only ones with complaints. They weren't a fan of seeing the bugs. I though they were going to turn right around when the guide showed us a tarantula hole!

I had my backpack with me, just to take the odds and ends, extra sunblock, water bottles, etc. So you can toss whatever you need into you backpack. It's hot carrying the thing so we just took turns with it.

We brought towels- a must for this excursion- from the ship. We had 2 for each of us which worked out great. There's nowhere to wash off the sand after going swimming so we each used 1 to dry off and wipe off sand, the other we wrapped around ourselves while we air dried, rather than putting our clothes over our wet swim suits while we continued to the plantation.

It's such a great experience, it's beautiful place to go. We had done an excursion to Trunk Bay a few years ago and wanted to see the island in a different way. This is a great way to do it!

westjones- I didn't see a visitor center, but I wasn't looking for one. I was too busy looking all around, my brain was on overdrive taking it all in.

The site for the company that does the tour is www.hikestjohn.com

I'm more than happy to answer any other questions!

 

[geffric]

shellbelle11 thanks for all the info..what time do you leave the ship and what time do you get back?? Also, is there time to explore the island on your own??

thanks

 

[shellbelle11]

We had a very early departure time. Made even earlier because of immigration. We got in line for immigration at 6:15. Didn't get through until about 7:15. Ran upstairs, got dressed and spf45 sunblocked (I turn such a lovely shade of crimson). Literally inhaled breakfast- one great tip is to grab some friut and little boxes of cereal. Munching on those fruit loops later on seemed like a 5 star meal after the hike! We had a 7:45 meeting time. It was a little crazier for us this past year because we had to tender in. It was very disorganized (not Disney's faullt at all!). We had to take one tender to the pier, then we had to walk 5 minutes to where we met the boat to St John, everyone had a hard time because 2 other ships were in port, everyone was getting mixed in with everyone else.

Because of the chaos of the morning we were about 30 minutes late to the island, but they let us stay 30 minutes longer before going back. After the hike we had maybe 20 minutes or so before we had to make it back to where we caught the boat back to St. Thomas. It was enough time to do some souvenir shopping. You could stay on the island I'm sure but you would have to pay to go back, since you're not staying with the group.

We had enough time when we got back, about 2, to go shopping in St. Thomas.

Shell