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I have been reading all of the posting on this site for several weeks and have enjoyed all of the information and comments. After reading some of STJ's dirty little secrets I would like to solicit advice from the experienced USVI travelers.
We will be making our first trip to USVI next week and will be staying in a villa on STT. We plan to make several trips to STJ during our stay and have been planning on taking the car barge from Red Hook to STJ. Looking at the ferry schedules on this website I see that there are three options; Republic, Boysons, and Global. We would like to catch an earlier ferry in the am and a late one in the pm to maximize our time on STJ. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on which service to use and what times would be best to shoot for? Is it better to go on a day when the cruise ships are in STT or when there are no cruise ships? How does a weekend affect the traffic on the barges?
We are all looking forward to our "virgin" visit to USVI and would like things to go as smoothly as possible.
Hello Reprek,
On Sundays there are usually more day trippers using the barge. On weekdays more commercial activity. Cruise ships... its off season so its not the big of a concern; some cruisers rent a car on St. Thomas and take it over to St. John but I don't think that many do to make it much of a concern. But certainly you could go for non-cruise ship days that way beaches like Trunk Bay would be quieter.
Ronnie had posted this advice:
"If any one or two of the barges are down, don't go, unless you have to! I have turned back several times and will continue to do so."
So what you can do is call the day before you want to go to St. John and double check to make sure all the barges are operating.
If you want to get over real early you could aim for the 7am (Republic) or 8am (Global) barge.
Anyone else have tips for using the car barge?
--Islander
Hi I was wondering about car ferry prices I know on a previous post one had gone up to $55 and another was $35 but was expected to go up in price also. But I noticed on your info page it says about the
St. John Car Barge Services
Car barges operate daily between Red Hook, St. Thomas and Cruz Bay, St. John. Car passengers are allowed to ride in/with the car at no extra cost. The ride lasts about 20 minutes. Tickets are $35 round trip.
Be careful during low season. One of the car barges does not operate (sorry, can't remember which one) on Sunday. Some folks have bought a roundtrip ticket on Saturday, stayed over on STJ on Saturday night and found out they couldn't use the other half of their ticket to get back on Sunday. Bummer!
Hello Bobbi,
Sorry about that. We updated the ferry page but not the Getting to St. John page with the new rates.
Republic Car Barge is $35 round trip.
Boyson is $50 round trip.
Haven't been able to get through to Roanoke, they were $35 the last time I checked.
--Islander
Six of us will be traveling to STJ in September of 2006 and were wondering about whether or not we can rent a vehicle in STT and take it over to STJ on the car ferry. The rental rates seem to be substantially less expensive on STT than on STJ ($389 for a minivan on STT as opposed to $570 for the same on STJ). The reson I ask is because we read that the either the rental companies or the ferries may not allow rentals to go from one island to the other. Anybody have some insight on this? Any assistance will be greatly appreciated!
Avis and Budget let you take them over - Hertz does not.
re: the car barges:
I never plan the barge trips...
I just drive to the car barge dock when I am ready to go and there always seems to be a barge sitting there, with room. I back on and wait for it to depart. Same on the return. Others seem to have a much harder time with it, so i guess I have just been lucky. I never know whose barge I am on until the agent comes over to collect money. For this reason, I wouldn't buy a round trip. It isn't necessary and limits you to taking that specific barge.
