The post office will not hold anything for you.
You will have to mail them to a mail service or to your villa manager directly.

If you can not mail to your villa manager, I would suggest that you contact Connections www.connectionsstjohn.com 340-776-6922.
They will charge you a small fee to hold your package until it arrives.

No matter what your local post office says, send your package Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation. Even sending priority it can take 10 -14 days to reach the island so you want to send it as soon as possible. Trust me on this. It comes from experience. My post office tries to tell me every time that sending it first class will get it there in a week. It will not and you will end up with a box that arrives after you leave the island. It has happened to me and just happened to friends that were on island for 2 weeks last month. They send the package 10 days before their arrival, stayed on the island for 14 days, and the package arrived 2 days after they left.

second xislandgirl, speak with your island manager, or consider connections... and as far as mailing, highly recommend using a courier service like fedex since even priority mail will sometimes get stuck in puerto rico with the homeland security screening.

I don't think that using a courier is really necessary. I have been sending Priority Mail to STJ for many years and never had a problem with it getting there. Quickest time was a week, longest was 14 business days.

Connections really is your best bet, they do this all day every day and will give you the best advice.

the courier service can use connections as the delivery destination, and to me it's more worry free to do it this way. as for the usps, it usually works out but when someone is vacationing, they are taking a chance.

AS usual you guys rock. I have contacted Connections and I am having the package mailed this week. If it gets there in time fine if not I will just do without.

Can't wait to come to STJ.

June can't get her soon enough.

Barbie

good attitude! have a great time and hope to see a trip report!

This trip mail a box to connections, sent it priority, it arrived in just 3 days from states. Connections had it waiting for me, I called them from airport and they even stayed open a little later so I could get it upon my arrival, cost= $20.00.

Do you mean Connections charged $20? OUCH!!! And 3 days? That is pretty amazing.

Yes, they charged me $20.00 to hold the box I had sent via US Mail, I thought $20.00 was pretty reasonable considering they made sure it was waiting for me, I suppose you could save the $20.00 and see if the post office would hold it for you, I tried that once, finally got the box back to my US address three monsths after my vacation. They told me it got lost in their trailer they had at the time alongside the P.O. building.

For $20.00 connections seems to be a better route for me.

RM wrote:
Yes, they charged me $20.00 to hold the box I had sent via US Mail, I thought $20.00 was pretty reasonable considering they made sure it was waiting for me, I suppose you could save the $20.00 and see if the post office would hold it for you, I tried that once, finally got the box back to my US address three monsths after my vacation. They told me it got lost in their trailer they had at the time alongside the P.O. building.

For $20.00 connections seems to be a better route for me.

rm, i agree. after all it is a service you are paying for. it's not like you can call any schmo living on st. john and make them responsible for a package you thought enough of to pack for a vacation trip...

Keep in mind Delta, one of the major carriers to St. John, charges $23 for the first bag checked and $32 for the second bag checked. The arithmetic might very well favor shipping things down, depending on the weight and quantity...