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Our group is renting a car and staying at STT. We want to hit a couple of the beaches over at STJ. Is it easier to take the ferry over and then take taxis to the beaches or drive our car over on the ferry and try to find parking etc. I think we want to see Cinnamon Bay and Trunk Bay, although not sure if we can hit both those beaches in one day.
Oops - I also wanted to know if we do go the ferry/taxi route, are taxis pretty available to get at the beaches?
Hi Kotis,
Be sure to check with your car rental company on whether they allow their vehicles to go over to St. John. Most do, but a few do not.
If you take your rental car over you can explore a bit, self guided driving tour and then head to the beach; do your own thing, beach hop. Also with the car you can easily bring a cooler with picnic lunch, snacks & drinks and all your beach gear.
OR...
Cinnamon Bay and Trunk Bay are popular beaches and easy to do by taxi; and yes both have taxis readily available. If you went this route the passenger ferry runs later than the car barge so if interested you could plan on spending the afternoon, early evening in Cruz Bay. Try to limit the amount of beach stuff you bring, but bring a change of cloths. Both Cinnamon and Trunk Bay have showers so you can rinse off after your beach time, change and then head into Cruz Bay for some shopping and dinner.
You can hit both Trunk Bay and Cinnamon Bay the same day; about a 5 minute drive between them.
You can find both the car barge and passenger ferry information for St. John at: Getting to St. John.
--Islander
As long as your not renting from Hertz, you should be good for the car ferry. That is going to be the least expensive approach with the best mobility and flexibility. You can do at least two beaches in a day with time for lunch somewhere. One thing to consider, is that the car ferries stop running by 7PM. If you miss the last one, you are going to have to pick your car up the following day.
Cheers, RickG
Budget lets you bring the car on the barge ferry, Hertz does not. It is about $40 round trip for the car and as many people as you can fit in the car. I have found it best to go over on the weekend, Sunday is better, because then you don't have to worry about workers traveling back and forth. You can definitely go to each beach for a few hours so that you can see each one. I would say to save trunk bay for last however, so that you can use the showers to clean up at the end of the day.
definitely take your car over. it's $50 each way including everyone in the car (it's usually $6 per person anyway) and you'll be able to see a lot more once you get there. taxis charge per person per direction. so with a round trip ferry and taxi per individual, you'll wind up paying the same amount of money by just bringing your car, plus you'll have a lot more freedom. have fun.
