Hi all.

After much checking in with the forum here leading up to our STJ trip, I promised myself that I would keep a journal so I could post a report afterwards. I love reading others' reports and found them so useful for recommendations or warnings, not to mention just plain entertaining. So I want to do the same and hope this is at least half as enjoyable as other reports have been.

One warning: I'm a writer by trade and also really wanted to capture all the details of the trip so my journal was lengthy. I'm trimming it down for forum purposes and hope that it's a respectable length and not too demanding on forum readers' time. 🙂 This is also the first post that I'm attempting to include photos. Hopefully I read the instructions correctly and they'll appear. They add so much to the synopsis of another's trip!

Off we go!
My hubby John and I left Atlanta headed to Paradise on 6.23.07. We were up at 6, out the door at 7, to Marta (it’s SMARTA!) at 8 and to the airport about 9 for a 10:02 flight. Cutting it close but I cannot compromise my reputation of perpetual tardiness, even for vacation; I have my standards. Alas, no issues and we were soon in the sky, on our way.

We arrived in STT…

… and met up with our friends Lori and Joe who’d gotten in just 30 min before us. They had their luggage and met us with drinks in hand. Coladas do start a trip off nicely. Baggage claim was quite a crowded locale thanks to 4 planes arriving close together:

Once we retrieve our bags, the four of us weighed getting a private taxi that would take us directly to Red Hook vs a shared taxi that could potentially make multiple other stops. Private was $90 and shared was $60 for the 4 of us. We figured we’d save the $30 since it’s not like we were pressed for time. It was 2:45—we certainly weren’t making the 3:00 ferry (CA ferry was out of commission still) and had more than enough time to make the 4:00.

Our driver was great, we had just one other stop and were in line for ferry tickets when the booth opened at 20 til 4. We debated taking our bags down to the ferry ourselves rather than using the porters there. I know they're working for a living but they kind of drive me nuts b/c they take your bags like it’s part of the package you pay for and only after getting them loaded on the cart, their hand comes out looking for a tip that doesn’t appear to be optional here. But then we figured what the heck—let the guy load them, tip him, be done with it. I could’ve done without him snapping his fingers at me demanding to know “who was taking care of [him].” Oh well. Not getting upset on vacation kick off day! The ferry ride was glorious. Nothing like glimpsing STJ for the first time, again.

At the dock, we met with Alissa of Destination St John. I retrieved our vehicle from Conrad Sutton—an apple green, you-can’t-miss-it Jeep Wrangler. Nice folks there. And then we were off to our villa, Paloma Blanca, following behind Alissa. Up, up, up the island we traveled to Gifft Hill. To get to the villa, you take a turn onto a gravel road and proceed past a broken down car on a road that got progressively narrower as it went along, while also being encroached upon on both sides with jungle foliage. I knew when booking the villa that the road to it was “dirt” and being from GA am certainly familiar with dirt roads—the two lane’d, relatively flat variety. Not so here! This adventure trail is so narrow that if you met another car on it going the opposite way, there’s no squeezing to the side to pass. One of you is backing yourself up a good deal of the road until you came to one of the smattering of locals’ homes that offered a place to get your car out of another’s way.

At last we happened onto our villa, which I will now affectionately dub the Jungle Villa because that’s precisely what it seemed like. It is surrounded by trees and shrubs so deep I immediately wondered what all inhabited them. The driveway would prove to be a nail biter with every arrival and departure--but we were up for the challenge!

Walking in, there were a zillion birds all welcoming us, loudly, including a rooster who was making his presence known to all, over and over again. And I thought roosters only crowed at sun-up. So much for what I know! Alissa had another party to meet shortly so she showed us everything quickly and was on her way. The villa was certainly pretty enough, but it was hot as the dickens inside. We opened doors, cut on the bedroom AC and dove into the nice welcome basket that was in place for us.

After exploring around, we found some issues with the place but are pleased to say that Destination St John's service was stellar in addressing these. The most concerning was the AC that seemed to be limping along in one bedroom and not on at all in the other. The blinds in the master (which has facing sliding glass doors, one to the deck and one to the courtyard at the front of the house) was missing enough slats in it to make us question what privacy we would be getting. We love our friends but we weren’t putting on a show for anyone, if you know what I mean… 😉 The sliding door to the courtyard also would not lock.

The gal at Destination STJ had a fellow out to us 20 minutes after calling who tweaked the AC (admonishing us “not to touch it!”), fixed the locking mechanism on the door, but said nothing could be done about the blinds. The agency gal called back to offer us an alternate place to stay but it was a condo with a shared pool. So we doctored the blinds by taking slats from the ends to fill in the center vacancies and opted to stay put at Paloma, aka Jungle Villa, largely b/c of the stunning pool:

With all that done, we opted to skip unpacking in favor of heading to town to soak up the atmosphere and get a bite to eat. Last time here, we couldn’t get into the Fish Trap so we tried there first and hoped we got lucky. We did.

We enjoyed the calamari but the king crab legs Lori and I shared left much to be desired—so rubbery you could bend them completely in half without them breaking. The hubs each enjoyed their meals, but in the end, we couldn't give it rave reviews, which I wish we could have for the $200 tab.

We strolled around for a bit (St John Spice: very cool, didn't get to meet Ruth tho) and then hit the Starfish for some necessities (beer and mixers). On the way back to the villa, we came across the first of our funky animal sightings: a big mama pig strolling down Gifft Hill Rd. We laughed at that. We recalled the donkeys and chickens on the island but a pig? That was new. At the villa, we hung out by/in the pool for a bit and then turned in for the night. That evening, a big storm blew through, which was heavenly to listen to from the comfort of our snug bed.