Hello Deb,

There are two departure areas for the St. John Ferry; one is from the Charlotte Amalie waterfront and the second is from Red Hook. Cruise ships dock or anchor in Charlotte Amalie; either at the WICO dock in Havensight or at the Crown Bay Dock. Ships anchoring do so in the Charlotte Amalie harbor and passengers are tendered to the Charlotte Amalie waterfront.

If you dock in Havensight, then the CA ferry is about 1.4 miles away. Crown Bay to the CA ferry is about 1.7 miles. And if your ship is anchored in the harbor then once tendered in you can walk to the CA ferry. The CA ferry doesn't have as frequent a schedule as the Red Hook ferry so check it out and see if it will work for your plans. The Red Hook ferry is about a 20 minute drive from Havensight and about 30-35 from Crown Bay in low/medium traffic. Takes longer if there is traffic. You can find the rates, schedule, travel time and operators for the ferry at Getting to St. John.

It is possible to do St. John on your own while visiting on a cruise ship. Some passengers do it that way so they can do their own thing and spend more time on St. John. Others stick with the ship excursions since the transportation is planned out for them so no worries about things like possiably missing the ferry they planned to take if they were to do it on their own.

--Islander

Last February, we brought a family of 6 on a Royal Caribbean Cruise. My wife and I go to STT/STJ every year and are very familiar with "how" it all works - rental cars, ferry, driving on the left, mountain roads, where each beach and parking is on STJ. Even with all that, we still ended up with a stressful day. Traffic gets really bad in Charlotte Amalie and around the Havensight piers. We were actually a few minutes late getting our rental car back, but luckily the car/lot attendant at Budget was kind enough to hang around a few minutes since I called ahead to let them know.

No doubt you'd love the flexibility of going on your own. If you rent a car, count on spending around $120 ($70 for the car and $50 for the car ferry round trip). If you don't rent a car, taxi fares and ferry fares will just about equal the expense of taking the organized tour. Taxis on the island are "per person" so the taxi to Red Hook from the ship will run around $8 per person each way. Ferry from Red Hook is another $6 per person ($2 for children) each way. Taxi on STJ will be similar to STT (another $8 each way). So - a family of 2 adults and 2 children will spend somewhere around $160 just in transportation to visit one beach on STJ. Might be a few dollars more for the organized tour, but remember - stress free vacation!

My advice for first-timers is to take the organized tour. You are on vacation and just don't need the stress that being on an unfamiliar island with all the unfamiliar items I described above. That's what we did our first time to STT on a cruise day and it remains our most favorite cruise day of all (and we're Platinum Royal Caribbean level).

Good Luck! Have Fun!

Ferry price from Red Hook to St. John is now $5.00 each way plus $1.10 fuel surgcharge. Think it is $3.00 for children.

Hello, Debbie. Depending on what cruise line you are on and which facility the ship will be moored to, there is a vessel called, "Island Girl" that has certain cruise line excursions from St. Thomas to St. John. Basically, the vessel picks up cruise ship passengers at the Havensight Facility (West Indian Company, aka WICO). The vessel is basically a ferry to The Creek in St. John for certain excursions. You may look into that depending on what you would like to do on St. John.