Trunk Bay with young children

[minniemouse1]

We will be on the April 2 Magic and are planning to go to Trunk Bay. We will be bringing our 4, 3 and 7 month old DD's with us. My question is that if there is alot of walking involved we will need strollers for atleast 2 of our children if not all 3. We do have a backpack baby carrier and a front carrier that we could use for the infant. We are up in the air if we should bring a small stoller with us on the plane or if we should bring our big double stroller if we are going to need it. We have gotten strollers on our past cruises on the ship but having the double stroller so one of us could have our hands free would be great.
Any suggestions or advise would be much appreciated.

 

[jel0511]

If you plan on taking taxi's to/from the ferry's and not to do much walking around on St. John (or St. Thomas for that matter), there is no need for a stroller. Taxi's should be waiting after you disembark, and they'll drop you off right in front of the ferry in Red Hook. The taxi's in St. John are at the end of the pier, not a long walk, and they drop you off right at the opening for Trunk. The only problem I could see you having is that most of the taxi's used for tourists are the open air type. They are just benches placed in the back of a pick-up bed, with rails (think of a rail with about 18 inches between each other) placed for "safety". I say "safety" because they really don't look all that safe to me, and with young cildren, even less so. There is no car seat law (or seat belt law either) on the USVI's, so to even find a public taxi with seat belts is a challenge. There are a couple ways around that. You can arrange to have a private taxi to pick you up in St. Thomas, but no such arrangement is available on St. John, so you'd still be stuck in the open air taxis. The only true way around it is to rent a car on St. Thomas and drive over to St. John. There is a car ferry that runs between the two islands and it leave every half hour. You can then drive to St. John yourself, and bring any car seats you feel necessary, I'm guessing at least for the 7 month old. You'll need to make sure that the car rental company knows you plan on traveling over to St. John, because some of the rental car companies on St. Thomas forbid their cars to be driven over to St. John due to problems trying to get the cars back to St. Thomas if there is an accident/breakdown.

If you have any more specific questions, please feel free to ask. We go to St. John about once per year, so we're veterens of St. John and how things work down there.

Edited to add: Here is a picture of one of the types of open air taxis. Usually they don't have the plastic drawn down, only when it's raining heavily. The other type of taxis (the smaller ones) have the seats running the other way, to face each other.

 

[slabeaume]

Our dinner mates wanted to go to Trunk Bay, but were told that children under 5 years of age weren't allowed on the excursions (or the public ferries )to St. John. THey have a 3 year old and really wanted to go, but were denied.

 

[jel0511]

Our dinner mates wanted to go to Trunk Bay, but were told that children under 5 years of age weren't allowed on the excursions (or the public ferries )to St. John. THey have a 3 year old and really wanted to go, but were denied.

The part about DCL not allowing any 5 YO's on their excursions is correct, the part about children under 5 not being allowed on the public ferries to St. John is a complete lie. I've been taking my kids to St. John since my oldest was 8 months old (the only way to St. John is to fly into St. Thomas and take the ferry). That was either a complete lie by the DCL CM, or they just don't know that it's public transport open to everyone. You do have to go at it on your own if you wish to go to St. John, you can't go on any DCL provided excursion.

 

[Joel110]

What would you say is the total cost roundtrip per adult and per child to pay for taxis and ferry rides? I guess that'd be a taxi from the Magic to the ferry, the ferry over, then the taxi on St. John to Trunk Bay, then back.

Thanks.

 

[jel0511]

Based on what I remember, I'd guess about $10 pp from the Magic to the ferry, it's $3 per adult and $1 per child eachway for the ferry, and probably say $10 pp from the ferry to Trunk. I've never taken a public taxi anywhere on St. Thomas or St. John, since we always arrange for a private taxi to pick us up at the airport and take us to the ferry and always rent a car during our stays on St. John, so these are just a guesstimate (the ferry prices are right though), but pretty close.

 

[Tylerandalliesmom]

We went to St John Trunk Bay a few years ago without kids for our anniversary in October. While the beaches were beautiful, the waves were very strong. They flipped me over and pulled me under the water. I'm not sure if it was the time of year or if that's the way it is all the time. I am just a little nervous to try it again with a 5 & 7 year old!

 

[slabeaume]

I was at Trunk Bay last week and the water and weather were excellent.