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Happy Holidays!
My husband and I will be staying on St. John the first week of January, and want to take a 1-day boat excursion to the BVI. Our desired BVI stops include the Baths, Jost Van Dyke - including the bubbling pool - and Sandy Spit or Sandy Cay. We looked into chartering our own boat, but decided that its more economical to just join a group tour.
After researching the options, I don't think any company hits all of these sites in 1 day, but the 2 companies that people seem to mention most often for BVI trips are New Horizons Charters and Stormy Petrol/Pirate Penny's.
Does anyone have an opinion about which company offers a better trip, or if there is another company that is better?
The person I spoke with at Stormy Petrol/Pirate Penny's was very, very nice, but the time the tour generally spends at the Baths and Jost is shorter than on the New Horizons excursion.
Any thoughts? Thanks so much! I can't wait to be in St. John!!!
Lisa Marie
Look into Bad Kitty
Great day trip to Virgin gorda-and tour through Baths,.Cooper Island for lunch at beachside at the resort there. ,snorkeling at the caves at Norman Island and finish day at White Bay-Yost Van Dyke. Great day , Great trip.. . Leaves from St John. .It is a unique Power catamaran and it can move along fairly quickly to get you to each site.
NEW hORIZONS OUT OF SAPPHIRE
lisa marie: The problem is that the places you want to go see are fairly far apart. The Jost destinations (White Bay, Foxy's at Great Harbour, Sandy Spit and Cay, the bubbly pool and Taboo) are all close together. If you want to take a leisurely day, you could do all of these. However, the Baths are on the other side of Tortola, so you are spending some time motoring. Most of the day trips are set up as samplers- a little here, a little there. You really can't stay anywhere for too long. You will just have to prioritize! 😉
Where can you park for these day excursions from STT/STJ? If I have a rental car, is there somewhere safe that it can stay for the hours that I would be gone? What are the times typically for these day excursions, do you get back after dark?
Thank you to everyone that replied! I will also checked out Bad Kitty on the advice of boodles, and then make my decision.
As for the last poster (speedr1023), one of the companies told me that the customs/border rules are such that the day excursion companies are required to go through customs by 5:00 PM. That means that most tours will start back to the USVI by 4:00 PM in order to get back and through customs by 5:00.
As for the car, I plan on leaving our rental in Cruz Bay (we are staying on STJ), although I know that parking is at a premium and it could be difficult to find a spot...
Lisa
If you're going out of STT on a day charter the paid parking at Red Hook is more than adequate while if you take a charter out of Sapphire there's plenty of free parking there.
Thanks STT Resident, but we are leaving from St. John, and will have a rental car that we picked up at the airport. As a result, we won't have a rental lot where we can leave the car. I'm sure we'll figure something out though...
Happy New Year!
Lisa
