We will be renting a villa called Cielo Vista on St. John from Friday, April 21st - Friday, April 28th - then to Secret Harbour on St. Thomas for the nites of Friday, 4/28 & Sat, 4/29 (we were there last year & absolutely loved it - so needed to finish up our trip with 2 days of R&R on their lovely beach!)

You are going to love your NHII trip!

cj & sue,

we stayed at cloud 9 on gifft hill twice last fall and did brief tour of plumeria with owner who happened to be there. views, especially at sunset are breathtaking, and all five gifft hill villas have great floor plans.

i'm partial to west views of sunsets and stt, car rentals at stt airport and using barge, and touring stj's great beaches. won't repeat again,but if you're interested in numerous commemts/suggestions on doing stj from a 60+ yr old with same bride of almost 40yrs who has done stj 5 times in last 18 months, do author search for my posts the last 8 months.

enough,

papbou

Papabou -- thank you for your comments. I was just curious if anyone had seen Plumeria. It is hard searching the web and making decisions based on photos. Sounds great though. I will do a search and review your comments.

cj

don't recall if i mentioned in a prior post, but plumeria's owner recently added a roof over deck at end of great house. will be a wonderful place to enjoy those fantastic views and be out of sun or rain. also has a nice gazebo near master bedroom.

i believe you will enjoy.

papabou

Thank you for this information. I still can't figure out where this house is. We stayed at Estate Lindholm last year and it was wonderful, but elected to have villa and privacy -- also another couple is going with us. Trying to decide on the car rental situation now. Still can't decide whether to rent on St. Thomas or St. John. I am getting different information on this. Some tell me to rent on St. John so that we can park at lots in town and some say to rent in St. Thomas so we will have car for the last day in St. Thomas. I have also been told that if we have car problems on St. John and the car was rented in St. Thomas -- that this could be major. What do you think?

cj,

i assume you're still trying to figure out plumeria's location. you must be as georgraphically challenged as my bride! take centerline rd to hwy 104 to right, there's a little store on right at corner, if you get to hospital on left you've gone too far.

after turning on 104, you'll pass school on left and start up long hill as road winds around to right. there's large condo complex on left as you approach top of hill. gifft hill sign on right and gravel dive by sign leads down hill. coconuts on corner, next drive is plumeria, up slight grade with alot of vegetation.

now on renting stt vs stj, here's my feb post

"cj,

my bride and i have always rented at stt airport (avis or budget) and take the barge without a hitch but an anxious moment on first return when we missed first barge we wanted but still made fligth in plenty of time.

what we like about stt rental is you put your bags in car at airport and take them out at villa going down. reverse on return and you have transportation for short tour of stt on departure day (always go to mountaintop and the char amalie overlook on mountain road) then have lunch at best western at emerald beach before afternoon flight. to us it's just simplier.

butttt (i always have a but since being a retired lawyer requires a disclosure of all risks involved in a decision), i know our luck is running out, we're going to miss a crucial barge or we'll have a breakdown on stj. what do you do then? if it weren't illegal, i'd probably report my car stolen and pray for the best.

any help?

papabou

I am a bit challenged, but basically because I have only been to St. John once. I think the main problem is that the only maps that I have are small ones that only have a few of the roads marked. There is a point in Cruz Bay and three roads leave from here -- North Shore Road, another road which must be Centerline Road and then Route 104. The map shows an outline of a distorted triangle area that appears to be Centerline Road and Route 104 (which is very curvy). Route 104 basically leaves Cruz Bay on this map and heads towards Chocolate Hole and Rendevous Bay and then heads north from there and connects back to Centerline -- at least on this map that I have. Does this sound right?

Still not certain what we are going to do on the car. Since Carnival will be going on, we might opt to go ahead and rent on St. John so we will have a place to park in town -- I am just tired of worrying about this now. However -- dealing with the bags sounds like a headache -- especially with 4 people, but I do not take much to St. John -- so hopefully this will not be that big of a deal. I will worry about that next week! Thanks. At least I think I know where this villa is now.

cj

i've never seen a really good map of stj. there is a fair map near the end of "stt/stj this week" magazine that you can pickup just outside airport baggage claim. gifft hill is about where "104" is on the map, closer to centerline road than rendezvous bay. while distance to ghill from cb about same either way, we found it easy to go to ghill via centerline and down to cbay by 104 which can be quite nasty when wet.

aside: don't try rte 108 from coral bay to centerline rd via bordeaux mt in anything less than big time 4 wheel drive; i've seen better goat paths starting about where "108" is on that map.

if you really haven't been all over stj, you need a jeep to see it all at least once, even if only for a day or 2. unless you get a big 4wheeler, no way to get 4 people and luggage in one. we did airport taraus and camry when we had 4 people then rented jeep for couple days for real island touring. also we have always been during offseason and parking in cruzbay was still awful, can't imagine during heavy season. are you really confused now? for about what a jeep costs on stj for a week you can rent full size car at airport and a jeep for couple days on stj IF YOU CAN GET ONE DURING CARNIVAL.

don't worry, be happy!

Yes -- I am totally confused now. I do not see Route 108 on any map that I have. My husband and I did drive on some road last year and went to Chateau Bordeaux -- think we were on the road marked "10", but not sure. I think that is Centerline, but not sure. We are planning to rent a Jeep Liberty since we have 4 people. We have driven over most of the island, but only had a few days so we are really planning to explore this trip.

Where is Route 108? Maybe that is some of those "dotted lines" where it says not to take rental cars.

Thanks!

I would definitely suggest finalizing your plans on a jeep soon. We're going the last week of June/beginning of July and when I started calling a few of the car rental companies last week I was finding that availability was starting to get limited. I was doing the same thing as you, debating between renting on STT or STJ but when I started reading posts about people having trouble getting rentals that same week on STJ I figured I better hurry up and arrange a rental on STJ before there's nothing available to rent.

cj

108 turns off to right from centerline rd (rte 10) next to chateau bordeaux and winds down mt to coral bay. starts out paved on both ends however the middle portion should NOT be on a ROAD map. rte 10, north shore road (rte 20), and 107 from coral bay to salt pond are the islands best roads, all else are suspect but many are drivable.

a liberty will take you most places on stj, we did 108 in one last april, but probably shouldn't have, but were afraid to take the liberty past pavement at end of 107 just past salt pond (which we did another time in a wrangler - once you get up first rocky hill at end of 107, road is mostly paved (concrete) and easily drivable all way to little lameshur bay).

to me (not the bride who has to keep her eyes closed while we are moving to get to any place on island) one of the fun things about stj, is you never know what to expect just around the next rough spot or sharp turn in the road. if you rent a liberty or jeep, you should also take south shore road on past fish bay (go to right instead of hard left to go up 104 to gifft hill). starts paved, then intermitten dirt and paving till you reach a high bluff that offers a fantastic view across reef bay to the "white cliffs".

peace,

papabou

OKAY..this post has gotton really long and I'm not not sure what to do! I would like to visit Jost from ST John for the day. Just the fastest and best way to Jost so I can spend as much time on Jost as possible. I thought we would take the ferry but if there is another way could someone give me advise. And if I could go on a day other than the weekend it would be nice. Is there any other charters straight to Jost in the morning and back later in the day. I read somewhere about water taxis. Are these expensive? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much.

Papabou -- I am going to print all of this, get a map of St. John and give all of this to my husband and tell him I am not riding on any unpaved roads -- he can get me where we need to go with your directions!

P.S. I promise not to give him your name and e-mail address after he reads all of this!

Thanks.

Good Morning Marty,

You said you rent a boat drive over to Jost yourself. I would like to do that since Ferries take forever. Who do you aquire your boat from any information would be great we usually stay over at Ivan's 2-3 days while we are in the Islands I have reservations for Ivan's campgroung for Dec 13, 14 heading back to STT Friday Dec 15

You can rent a boat from Nauti Nymphs, Pocket Yachts, Sea and Ski, etc. but most will not let you take them for the wekeend or overnight unless you know them fairly well. I know one guy pretty well and he will let me take his cuddy cabin for 2 days for $400 but if you are just hanging out at Ivans and staying there its not worth your moeny, I'd just deal with the ferry as much of a hassle as it might be.

We have reserved a trip on a motor boat called Lion in da Sun to Jost Van Dyke. They do private charters or you can pay per person and go on their trip out of Maho Bay Campgrounds. Watch for my trip report after Easter. Here is the link for them:

http://www.lionindasun.com/index.html

Dawn,

My wife and I with our two boys (8 and 10) are arriving on 4/18 and staying in Crystal Cove Condos at Sapphire Village. Like you, we can't wait. Maybe we will see you there or on the Ferry over to Red Hook. Eric

Hey Kraushaus ...
Thanks for the info. Lion inda sun looks great. I emailed and got immediate response. There are only 2 of us. How many are there of you and when is your trip? Looking to share expenses!

Anyone else had experience with or heard about the Lion inda Sun that you could share. Thanks!!!!!

Sunluvn,

There are only two of us going out as well. The private charter was rather expensive for only two people so Josh from Lion in da Sun suggested that if we just wanted to pay a per person rate ($125 plus $25 customs) they ran a trip once a week out of Maho Bay Campgrounds activities desk. Our trip is going out on Tuesday April 12th. I spoke with Deb at Maho Bay 340-776-6226. They did charge the $250 for the trip to our credit card when we made the reservation. We could have up to 4 others join us. I liked this trip because it gives us more time for exploring Jost Van Dyke than the ferry boat option and we have a tour guide. With a motor boat we can also get to more places in one day than going out on a sail boat. I also requested that if the conditions were right we wanted to hike to the Bubbly Pool. Deb made a note of that so I have my fingers crossed. Deb mentioned something about lunch at Foxy's Taboo and good snorkeling around Jost Van Dyke. I believe getting to the Soggy Dollar is a given.

Can you tell I'm excited? When are you going?

Kraushaus,
Thanks again for the info. We are not arriving until the 13th. I too heard back from Josh about this charter from Maho. Sounds like a great trip. Have a great time.