We have been shipping some items with us for years, for several years we sent it ahead so we did not have to haul it with us on plane. Each year we bring lese and less as the markets on the island have really improved and have a great selection.

The Starfish Mkt. is great to shop at and has about anything you want. I have never gone over to St. Thomas for the purpose of buying groceries, I am sure there are many stores.

I realize the prices are high for many items, however I know that if I buy on the island I am helping someone to have a job and an income. So my wife and I try to justify it all by saying that we get the use of a beutiful island that is someones home and that the lest we can do is buy our food there.

Plus we have found that each year we take less due to the fact that we never use all of the items we take. End of leaving them in the house we are renting.

I think you will like shipping items ahead if you do decide to take your food with you. I watched last year as a couple was having their box of food totaly destroyed as they went thru security and then had to repack it all.

Enjoy your trip

RM

Thanks, RM. I guess it's good to support the local economy......a good way to justify things. Shipping ahead might be the way to go.........next year!

Hello-ok when you say expensive, can you give me an idea of pricing, say like a gallon of milk or pound of butter? How much for meat, ribeye steak? Thanks, d

Go to the attached website, you will see a current list of food stuffs for St. Thomas, I have always found that St. John is higher.

http://vimovingcenter.com/cost_of_living/

living or vacationing is not cheap in paradise.

RM

I wouldn't travel to STT from STJ just to shop fpr groceries. However, if you are renting your car on STT and taking the car barge over when you arrive, I would stop to provision on the STT side.

I was on island for two weeks in summer of 05 and provisioned at the Cost-U-Less. Granted, this is a bulk store, so some things needed to be purchased at the regular market. For non-bulk shopping, I owuld go to the Food Center on STT.

It is VERY close to Red Hook and you can map a route to Red Hook from Charlotte Amalie so that you pass the Food Center on the way. It is like a stateside market - large and carrying typical stateside items at reasonable prices (I guess reasonable is relative. I live in the Northeast, so things are somewhat expensive here anyway).

You can load the bags into your trunk or back seat (will you have room with luggage?) and unload at the villa.

On the other hand, I have never provisoned on STT for a STJ trip. I just pay the higer STJ prices and try not to think about it. Doing it that way is probbaly more out of excitement and desire to cross to STJ and start the decompression than it is about anything more noble like supporting the economy over there.

You know, I'm not sure if there are restrictions agains this or not, but we buy all of our meat and much of our dairy items ahead of time...usually in bulk from Costco. We then place them in our collapsable coolers and place the coolers in our suitcase. Or, we have also used actual ice chests (though they can be heavier than a suitcase, so be careful). Being that my husband and I can cram all of our clothes and snorkeling gear into about 1-2 suitcases, it leaves us 2 extra checked bags in which we can bring food. The nice part about buying the bulk-size meat is that costco's chicken breasts are $18 for about 12-14 large breasts, vacuum packed in groups of 2. This means that we can take each small pack and thrown them in the cooler wherever they can fit. Also, when frozen, it does the same job as an ice pack. Ground beef and steaks will act in the same manner. It's a great money-saver and your meat quality will exceed what you find on the island (costco has wonderful meat!) The best part about all of this is that we travel all the way from San Diego and from the time we pack the cooler to the time we unpack the cooler is usually about 20-24 hours. Well, the meat is always still frozen, so nothing spoils!

Last year, when going with our parents, we packed 2 large boxes of food and 2 coolers. The only thing we bought at the grocery store was milk, veggies, fruits, alcohol, bread, and other snacks we randomly got cravings for. The food lasted 2 weeks. We made detailed lunch and dinner menus ahead of time so we knew exactly how much we needed to bring. Don't forget to weight all of your bags if you do this...and don't save packing for the last minute. We had a scale out for 2 days so we could spend time carefully packing everything. The airlines will not hesitate to charge $25-$50 when you're 1-2 pounds over. Our scale wasn't that accurate and we actually had to remove a couple of cans of beans and stick them in our carry-on because of the people at the counter. Some are super-nice and let it slide; others are crabby at 5am and make you pay for one measly pound.

Hope this helps someone!

Ain't Cosco great....you mean you don't get those great steaks, NY Cut or Strip. Lot's of shrimp. Some great hot links.

Your husband is married to a wonderful woman.:)

Oh, steaks for sure! Their ribs are pretty amazing, too. We have never taken their shrimp with us, but we do buy it from time to time. I make a citrus/soy sauce base marinade cut with water (add fresh garlic, onion powder, ginger, sesame seed oil, and maybe a few other spices...depends on my mood), let the shrimp soak for 30 minutes or so...then lightly sprinkle it with cayenne and throw it on the bbq. It is the best spicy bbq shrimp...we love it! Their crab legs are awesome, too. Costco really does have the best meat/seafood.

Their baby backs going to be going on the grill for some indirect cooking in about another hour. That and some margaritas should make for a wonderful Saturday evening.

Ha! That's funny...one of our friends sent me a text message a couple of nights ago saying that we need to have a "rib party". She's having us over to make them next weekend. Ribs 'n Poker....haven't had them in about three years....can't wait!!!!!

I want to point out, since this thread and my comments on it are pretty old, I NO LONGER recommend Food Center. Subsequent trips have proven to me that they have rotten food - green meats, spoiled veggies (mushy and gross inside), etc.

I now recommend heavy shopping at Cost-U-Less and everyday stops or prepared food stops at Marina Market in Red Hook, Gourmet Gallery in Havensight, northside area at Mandahl Market (near Magens Bay - very small- but nicely stocked)...and, on STJ, Starfish and Dolphin, as well as the smaller markets that I can't recall names of - Pine Peace and some other one over in Coral Bay whose business card I have somewhere.

NOT Food Center! (I am grossed out thinking about their food)

Blu,
Have to agree, the produce & meat were scary when we stopped in Dec. Wish I knew about Cost-U-Less b.ack then!! I would also have packed more food. Hate grocery shopping on vacation.

Hi. We are going to be in St. Thomas for four nights, then in St. John for 10 nights ar a Villa. We have 14 adults and two children in our group. We would like to ship some items down to our villa, but where do you ship it? I would prefer to ship a package by US Postal Service, but you can't just mail it to the post office in St. Thomas or St. John, can you?

Thanks for all of your tips and help with this. Groceries are going to cost a fortune for a group of our size, so we need to try and cut corners everywhere we can.

Thanks for your help!

How do you get to Cost-U-Less? We usually go to the Food Center, but if it's getting bad, then we'll go somewhere else. Thanks 🙂

You should beable to ship it to your villas managment company or to connections

You can ship a box of provisions to The Mail Center or Connections. They will charge a small fee for this service. We used The Mail Center. Worked out great!

In looking over the link of food prices that Rm provided, with a few glaring exceptions (the fish prices in particular), the prices are not that much nigher than we pay in the Chicago area. They are higher, but not enough to make me worry about it. It's only a week and we'll probably be eating in restaurants most of the time.

...ron

I live in the Chicago area and I find the USVI prices to be pretty outrageous (we vacation there every year).

Paying around $6 for a gallon of milk makes me cringe when I'm used to paying $1.92 for it at Wal-Mart. Orange juice is also pretty high, and fruit/veggie prices can range drastically. We still joke about the $18 watermelon we saw in STT in 2003 🙂

I count on everything costing at least twice what it would here.

As for posts about spending the money on the island and encouraging others not to bring food, consider this (some of us are on a budget):

We cook at our villa about half of the evenings we're on vacation. We go out to dinner the other half. If I didn't bring food along and had to pay island prices for the meals we eat in, I wouldn't have anything left over to spend in the restaurants. So, I'm either going to bring food with me and be able to go out to eat, or I'll have to eat in every night because the high cost of groceries down there...regardless, I'm still spending the money...it just might be at a restaurant instead of the grocery store.

Thanks for your input on prices compared to our area! Milk was one of those exceptions that I noticed! We'll probably only go through a couple of gallons. The list that RM linked to was also a year old, so things are probably more expensive now. For our first trip down there I'm not going to bring anything, but we'll see for the next trip!

...ron