St. Thomas/St. John question

[DragonflyinAmber]

Hello,

We are booked for an Eastern Caribbean cruise later this year. Question about the St. Thomas/St. John port....

Is there enough time to explore BOTH islands & do excursions? Or should we just focus on 1 of the islands?

Just curious what others have done. We'll have 11 & 7 year old with us.

Cathy

 

[_auroraborealis_]

There really isn't time for both in my opinion. Keep in mind that if you ferry to St. John, the Red Hook ferry is about 10 minutes away and takes 20 minutes. The Charlotte Amalie ferry is a half hour trip. Havensight to Red Hook is about 10-15 minutes. The Red Hook ferry is hourly; the CA ferry is at 10 and 1 outbound, and 11:45 and 3:45 back. So the more flex schedule is Red Hook, but the ferry schedule is a significant limiter.

Cruz Bay to, say, Trunk Bay, is another 15 minutes once on St. John. So just getting to one of the big beaches is going to be 15 minutes to Red Hook + 20 minutes to St. John + 15 minutes to beach, assuming no waiting for taxis to fill. An hour there. Then you could spend an hour on one beach. Annaberg Plantation or Salt Pond Bay take more time than Trunk Bay or Cinnamon Bay beaches, too.

To connect from Red Hook to anything other than Havensight or Charlotte Amalie starts adding time and complexity as well.

If you don't want to stress out: Pick one island.

 

[MUN]

Hello,

We are booked for an Eastern Caribbean cruise later this year. Question about the St. Thomas/St. John port....

Is there enough time to explore BOTH islands & do excursions? Or should we just focus on 1 of the islands?

Just curious what others have done. We'll have 11 & 7 year old with us.

Cathy

IMHO, No. St. John is time consuming to get to and from. I would stick with St. Thomas, there is plenty to do there.

 

[insureman]

We prefer St Johns. Red Hook is easy to get to by cab and once at St Johns you can catch an open air taxi to one of the beaches or sign up for a tour. A good portion of the island is a National Park and the scenery is spectacular.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

That said if you want to try to do a little of both, I'd suggest finding one of the 4-4.5 hour excursions to St. John (like https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/...-st-john-trunk-bay-beach-and-snorkeling-tour/ or https://disneycruise.disney.go.com/port-adventures/st-thomas-st-john-st-johns-eco-hike/) then doing the Skyride on your own when you get back to port.

 

[swimfin]

Hello,

We are booked for an Eastern Caribbean cruise later this year. Question about the St. Thomas/St. John port....

Is there enough time to explore BOTH islands & do excursions? Or should we just focus on 1 of the islands?

Just curious what others have done. We'll have 11 & 7 year old with us.

Cathy

We LOVED St. John as we prefer National Parks. The beaches were pristine and NOT CROWDED! I think this is the site we used last year for ferry travel times and pricing:

http://www.vinow.com/travel/virgin-islands-ferry-schedules/

Once we got off the boat, we caught a taxi to Red Hook. We timed it so we caught the 0900 ferry (maybe even an earlier one) from Red Hook to Cruz Bay and we were easily at Cruz Bay within 15 minutes according to my notes. We spent time at the National Park visitor center then headed to Trunk Bay and Cinnamon Bay is the next bay over. We had hours of beach and snorkel time. The taxis wait for you OR will come back at a specified time. I can't say enough about the lack of crowds on St. John. Besides the National Park, that was a HUGE selling point for us! There's also tons of hiking on the island!

Given all that, do watch for weather. We knew we were taking a risk with the ferry closing due to bad weather, so we kept our plans flexible. For us, it was a perfect day... low winds and no clouds! We also knew Disney had a few tours heading over to St. John so if the weather had been "iffy" we would have "watched" what they decided to do

Plan for taxi fare to Red Hook, ferry fare to Cruz Bay and back ($14/pp round trip) taxi fare to and from beaches on St. John, and taxi fare back to ship. The pricing was very reasonable.

ENJOY!!! We LOVED our cruise last year! Do you have plans for Tortola? If not, check out "Aristocat Charters" ... best day ever!!! Cheers!