We went to the Virgin Islands for our honeymoon last year and loved it so much that we decided to return this year as our late anniversary trip/Christmas present to each other. We had as great a time as we did on our honeymoon. We loved both islands for different reasons and will definitely be back again. We spent 5 nights on St. John and 3 nights on Virgin Gorda.

St. John
Hotel- Estate Lindholm
We were very happy with this bed and breakfast. It gets great reviews and it did not disappoint. I thought the room was nicer than the pictures on their website. We were in the Maho room, which is in the least expensive room category—a garden room. Even though it was a garden view, you could still see the ocean pretty well from our balcony. The view of Cruz Bay was great. The room was nicely furnished and the bed was very comfortable. There is also a sitting area with a small sofa and coffee table. There was even a little kitchenette area which had a sink, fridge, microwave and coffee maker—plus dishes, silverware, and stuff to make coffee, tea and cocoa . While not huge, the room was larger than I expected and the balcony was also very spacious. I only have two small complaints about the room—and these problems would definitely not keep me from staying there again. A few of the blinds were broken, so I felt the need to put pillows in the window so no one could see in (maybe I’m a little paranoid!). Also, there was not much water pressure in the shower. I remember having that problem at our villa in St. John last year also, so I don’t know if most places on the island have this problem. Or if they do it on purpose to conserve water. The grounds were beautifully manicured. The breakfast was sufficient. It was good, but not really anything special. We really liked that they had the honor bar with sodas, beers and liquors. That’s a nice touch and very convenient. The location was great. You could walk into town if you wanted (though we didn’t do this because there is no sidewalk). It’s a very short drive to town and also a short drive to the North Shore beaches. We liked not having to drive through town every time we wanted to drive to a beach. It’s also walking distance to Honeymoon and Solomon beach. It was about a 15 minute walk on a downhill trail to get to these beaches. To get back to the b&b you could either walk back up the trail, or you could take a short 5 minute trail to Caneel and take a taxi back. We took the easy way because we were tired after so much snorkeling, and we also wanted to visit Caneel B ay beach as well. We were also just plain lazy, afterall, we were on vacation! I also have to mention how wonderful our host was. Lauren was extremely helpful and answered all our questions about the island. She also arranged a great last minute snorkeling trip with Captain Rusty on Tressel. It was just the two of us and the captain, and it was a great price.

Beaches and Snorkeling

We love the beaches here and the easy access snorkeling.

Solomon Beach- on our first full day we hiked down to this gorgeous secluded beach. We were the first people there! We relaxed at this beach for a while and did some snorkeling. The water was a little bit rough so it wasn’t the easiest snorkeling. I only snorkeled on the left side of the beach. Saw a few fish and some coral, but nothing spectacular that day.

Honeymoon Beach- We then hiked over to Honeymoon Beach. This beach is beautiful! Very few people here and the beach is much larger than Solomon. Again, the water was a bit rough so we did not spend too much time here.

Caneel Bay-We walked the gravel road from Honeymoon to Caneel on our first full day as well. We had an overpriced lunch there and then went to the beach. It was so much calmer than Honeymoon and Solomon, so we spent lots of time snorkeling here. We actually came back to Caneel the next day as well because we were looking for calm snorkeling waters. Both days we snorkeled on the right side of the beach. One day I made it almost all the way around the point and the snorkeling was great. We saw a wide variety of sea life here. Every time I have been to Caneel the water was completely flat, when other beaches were rough (same thing happened last year). I suppose that the bay must just be more protected than others.

Frances Bay- On our second full day we visited this beach in the morning and were the first people there. We loved how uncrowded the beaches were! Last year when we visited this beach the water was rough and all churned up—we couldn’t see a thing when we tried to snorkel. This year the water was very calm. We first snorkeled the left side of the beach. Saw some schools of small fish here and it was interesting to see the large fish darting in and out of these schools. We tried snorkeling the right side of the beach as well, but we didn’t see too much. I feel like we just didn’t go out far enough though. That afternoon after lunch in town we went back to Caneel Bay.

Waterlemon Cay- We wanted to go back to Waterlemon this year, but were a little worried about making the long swim to the island. So we took a snorkel sail there on our third full day instead. The trip was with Rusty on Tressel, a small catamaran. It was just the two of us and the captain. Lauren at Estate Lindholm booked this for us last minute. We left at 11 am from Great Cruz Bay and returned around 4 pm. And it was only $150. I thought it was a great deal. Unfortunately, the snorkeling at Waterlemon wasn’t as great as I had remembered. We did not see any starfish this time. Also, there was a lot of coral, sea fans, and other more stationary underwater life—but it just didn’t seem like the fish were as plentiful this time. Don’t get me wrong, it was still beautiful, just not as great as I remembered. It was fun taking a rest on the sandbar there. And it made for a few pretty pictures.

Lavongo Cay- This was our second snorkeling spot that we visited on our day sail. I thought this was the best place that we snorkeled while on St. John. Lots of coral and fish, and it wasn’t too deep so it was easy to see what was going on.

Salt Pond- Part of the reason we decided to go back here was just that I wanted to drive around more of the island and get some photos around the Coral Bay area. Again, this beach was deserted when we arrived, only 2 or 3 other people there. There were more than that by the time we left, but still not crowded. Last year we snorkeled the left side of the beach, so we thought we would try out the right side this time. It was great and we saw a wide variety of fish.

Trunk Bay- My husband wanted an easy snorkel so we decided to go to Trunk Bay in the afternoon of our last day. This was by far the most crowded beach we visited. But, it wasn’t as crowded as I had expected. The water was really calm this day so it made for easy snorkeling. We went beyond the snorkel trail on the left side of the island and that was where we saw the most.

I do want to mention that I was suprised at how uncrowded the beaches were. They seemed even emptier than they did when we were there in October. I realize we were there in low season, but being in December, I just assumed that there would be more people around (and from the fact that our afternoon ferry from St. Thomas to St. John was packed). The empty beaches were of course a very pleasant surprise!

Restaurants

It seems like all the restaurants were more expensive than last year. It could just be that since we were on our honeymoon last year, we weren’t paying as much attention to what things cost because we were going all out. We ended up spending a lot more on food than we planned. We were also surprised at how early restaurants stop serving food. I didn’t remember having this problem last year (but maybe we just always went to dinner early- I can’t remember!). Generally we would go to dinner around 7 pm. But one night we didn’t make it out until 8:30-9 pm, and we had to try 3 restaurants for us to find one that was still serving food! Also, my husband really wanted to visit Uncle Joe’s Barbeque on this trip, but both times we tried they were closed.

Café Roma-I really enjoyed the chicken parmesan here. My husband had seafood manicotti and liked it as well. I had a strawberry daiquiri that wasn’t so great here though.

Caneel Bay Beach Bar- This lunch was very overpriced. A $16 hamburger! It was good, but not that good. My husband had wings and liked them, but again I thought they were too expensive.

Simple Feast- we had some good sandwiches here for lunch one day. One of our less expensive meals on the trip.

Paradiso- The night we went they were having special—like a neverending pasta bowl. You could order a pasta entrée and then try another one. When we got there my husband was excited about that when we got there. They also had really good bread and a great appetizer (though really small for the price) of mozzarella fritta. I had lasagna and it was great. It was too much for me though so I didn’t order a second pasta. My husband had seafood pasta and really enjoyed it. Even he had too much to get a second order. The portions were quite large.

Asolare- This was very convenient since it’s next door to Estate Lindholm. This was our most expensive dinner on the island. The view of the sunset was nice, but it was really cloudy that day, so it didn’t make for a beautiful one. We really enjoyed our calamari appetizer. I had the filet mignon, and it was good, but nothing special. My husband had a soup (can’t remember what kind) that he enjoyed and he was thought that the lamb was great. I personally thought it wasn’t worth, because my steak just wasn’t anything special. We did have crème brulee for dessert and it was very good. But I guess you’re also paying for the ambience and view.

Baked in the Sun-- We took sandwiches from here with us on our snorkel sail for lunch. They were great! I had a turkey croissant and it was delicious. My husband said his tuna salad was the best he had ever had.

Margarita Phil’s- My husband was annoyed that they would not serve tap water here. He got it on every other restaurant we visited on St. John and it was fine. But at Margarita Phil’s you had to buy bottled water. He drinks a lot of water, so getting bottles can get expensive. I had great chicken quesadillas here. My husband had conch and shrimp fajitas. He said they were good, but nothing special.

The Balcony- I had a great burger here and my husband had a great chicken anq brie sandwich for lunch one day. This place also had delicious homemade potato chips.

Morgan’s Mango-My husband really wanted to try this place. There wasn’t much on the menu that I liked (I’m not much of a seafood eater), but I figured I would give it a try. I decided to go with the filet of beef—and it was just awful. I ordered it medium well and on the outside it was cooked, but the inside was at best medium rare. I sent it back and they tried again, but it was just completely burnt on the outside and still uncooked on the inside. We ended up not paying for that entrée—and I wasn’t the only person that returned the filet that night. I do have to say that the mashed potatoes were delicious, as were their frozen drinks. Instead of ordering another entrée I got keylime pie. It was good but nothing special. My husband had conch fritters which he really liked and a steak salad which was also good.

Car Rental—Conrad Sutton
We rented from them last year and had a good experience so we decided to go with them again. We rented a Suzuki Vitara Hardtop. It was convenient being able to park in their lot. It was actually easier than last year because the lot was emptier (I guess since we were there in October before and December this time, they had more cars rented out). My only complaint is that the air conditioning didn’t work very well.

Shopping-- We did most of our Christmas shopping on St. John. I thought it would be fun to give friends and family something a little bit different. We were surprised at how early some of the shops closed—many of them at 6 pm. We liked doing our shopping after dinner, so it wasn’t so easy. We did end up finding quite a few shops that did stay open until 8 or 9. We ended up buying some liquor from Mixology, Christmas ornaments from Dreams and Dragonflies, wine stoppers and hot sauces from St. John Spice, and lots of jewelry from a place called Firebird (or maybe Freebird, I can’t remember exactly!).

Virgin Gorda

We took the ferry from St. John to Virgin Gorda. It left around 9:15 or so (even though it was scheduled for 8:30!). We made a short stop in the west end of Tortola to drop some people off and made it to Virgin Gorda around 10:30. We actually enjoyed the ride and the opportunity to see so many of the islands on the way.

Little Dix Bay

A driver from Little Dix Bay was waiting to pick us up at the ferry—this was very convenient. Coming into the resort I thought the grounds were really pretty and I liked seeing the boulders everywhere—it just gives the island a more exotic feel I think. Little Dix Bay was definitely the splurge of our trip. But it was SO worth it! We had visited the resort last year on a day trip and really wanted to return for a stay. We were on their summer rate which included a full breakfast. I had originally booked a Premium Oceanview Room. But I was looking at their site later and noticed that they had the Ocean Cottages for the same price, so we changed our reservation to that. These rooms are larger than the Premium Oceanview rooms, but also a little further from the beach. And when I say a little further, I mean only a few yards difference. We just had to go down a few steps, cross the lawn and we were at the beach! We were in room #109 which was towards the left side of the beach. We really liked the location. Far enough away from the pool and beach bar so we weren’t disturbed (we never even heard another guest when we were in our room), but close enough that we didn’t have to walk too far to get to the beach bar or taxi stand. It was a little bit of a walk to the watersports center, but definitely not what I would call a long walk (probably about 5 minutes). The room is large and hexagonally shaped. The bed was very comfortable and large. The room was nicely furnished in general. The free rum and coke on arrival is also a nice tough. The balcony is also large and even had a cushioned lounge chair. We had a view of the ocean and beach from the balcony. We never had any problems with the service here, in fact we thought it was great. Our room was spotless whenever we came back to it. We also enjoyed the breakfast buffet each morning that was included in our rate.. My husband really enjoyed the smoothies, and I particularly liked the omelet station. They also had a wide variety of juices and breads each day and they were great. We only had dinner here once, but it was one of the best we had on Virgin Gorda. I also had pizza one night after a disappointing outside restaurant meal and it was very good. I do think that the food here is overpriced, but I expected it to be that way. And I can’t forget the strawberry daiquiris here—I got one each day and they were very good. The beach here is very pretty, and the beach service is a nice touch. We also liked how the chairs are quite comfortable with cushions. But there wasn’t much snorkeling here, so we did not spend a lot of time on this beach. Instead, we took advantage of the beach drops—which are complimentary. We found some wonderful snorkeling spots and secluded beaches on these drops. We took the ferry from Little Dix to the airport and were so glad we did this. We originally booked the North Sound Express but cancelled it. The LD ferry was much more convenient because we didn't have to do a thing. The staff took our luggage to the boat, loaded it into the taxi to the airport and even took them into the airport line.

Beaches and Snorkeling

Spring Bay
When we arrived our room was not ready. So we changed and headed out to Spring Bay for LD’s picnic. I thought this beach was gorgeous! Again, I love the exotic feel that the boulders seem to give it. I also think this beach is prettier than the Baths. LD had umbrellas set up as well as a beach barbeque, steel drummers, and limbo. The barbeque lunch was very tasty. We enjoyed exploring the boulders here and getting in some swimming. We didn’t snorkel here because the water was pretty wavy.

Little Dix Bay Beach
We spent some time here in the afternoon of our arrival day, hoping to get in a little snorkeling. But the water was a little churned up on the left side of the beach where I heard there was some good snorkeling, so there wasn’t much to see. Even though the water was calmer in the middle of the bay, it was mostly sea grass and we didn’t see anything of much interest. We mostly lounged on the floats, and my husband did some kayaking.

Mountain Trunk
We took an afternoon beach drop here. It was just a few bays over from Little Dix Bay. When we arrived, there were only about 5 or 6 other people on the beach. The beach is wide, but not one of the prettiest on the island. It has a bit darker sand than most of the others. But we weren’t really there for the beach anyway—we were there for the snorkeling. The snorkeling was fantastic! I thought it was much better than anything we had seen on St. John this year, and even what we saw last year at Peter Island, St. John, The Indians and Caves. We snorkeled the left side of the beach near the rocks. It was nice because there was a lot of reef to explore, it was pretty easy to get to, and there was so much underwater life. Lots of coral and fish. I was very impressed.

The Baths
Even though we had visited the Baths before, I wanted to come to get some photos. We arrived before 9 am by taxi, and were the only people there, until about a half hour later when a few people arrived on a dinghy. We decided to go through the trail again. We did not see a soul until we got to Devil’s Bay. We spent some time swimming and snorkeling at Devil’s Bay. It was nice, but I couldn’t get as far as I would have liked, since we didn’t bring our flippers with us through the trail. You have to do some climbing and ducking, so carrying the flippers would have been annoying. We just had the mask, snorkel and camera. Unfortunately, I guess we spent a little too much time on Devil’s Bay, because as we made our way back through the trail there were about 200 cruise ship passengers going the other way. We had to do a lot of waiting for this huge trail of people and that was no fun! When we got back to the main beach we did some snorkeling. We saw a bit, but it definitely did not compare to Mountain Trunk.

George Dog
We took an afternoon beach drop to George Dog, a small island probably about a 10-15 minute boat ride from Little Dix. It had a small beach, which was almost like a sandbar—with water on both sides, and land on the other two sides. The snorkeling here was absolutely spectacular—the best I have ever seen. The reef is very shallow (in some places too shallow, so it can be tough to navigate your way back to the beach). It’s also extremely close to shore, so it was a very easy swim to get to it. The fish, coral, sea fans, etc were fantastic. It’s a pretty large reef too, so we did not even see a quarter of it in our 2 hours of snorkeling. It’s also probably the healthiest reef I have seen. I can’t wait to go back here!

Restaurants

Pavilion and Bar at Little Dix Bay
This was the only place that we ate in Little Dix Bay. The buffet breakfasts that were included in our rate were delicious. One day I had pizza here. It was good, but nothing spectacular. On our last night we had dinner. I had a delicious filet mignon and my husband had the vegetable pasta. Aside from the expensive price, we were both very happy with our dinner. I thought it was much better than the dinners we had at other restaurants on the island.

The Rock Café
Because of the weather, we ate inside instead of “in the rocks”. We ordered an appetizer of calamari—it was ok, but the rings were very chewy. For my entrée I had a chicken pasta that was good (not great). My husband was very disappointed in his pork entrée.

Bath and Turtle
We had lunch one day at this restaurant. I had a burger (I’m a picky eater, so I ended up having burgers often on this trip!) and my husband had a fish sandwich. Both were good, but nothing special.

The Flying Iguana
My husband was initially disappointed with this place because the first 3 items he asked for on the menu were unavailable. But he ended up with a curried shrimp dish which he said was his favorite meal on the island. I on the other hand ordered blackened chicken. After eating a few bites I noticed that the chicken was pretty pink. So I lost my appetite! Luckily I didn’t get sick But, by the time we got back to the hotel I was hungry, so I ended up having a pretty good pizza there.

Top of the Baths
This restaurant has a great view of the baths. I ordered chicken tenders and French fries. I have to say they were some of the best chicken tenders I had in a while! My husband had a burger which was good, but not great.

Shopping
Since all the shops close around 5 pm, we went into Spanish Town one morning to do a little shopping. I found a great print at Dive BVI. There really weren’t many shops to choose from. So we were only here for about 2 and a half hours (including the time it took for lunch)

As an overall island I think we would choose St. John over Virgin Gorda. There are more restaurants to choose from, and I think better quality food there. There are also more choices for shopping and entertainment. The beaches of St. John are great and we really like that there are so many to choose from.

But if I were only looking at beaches and snorkeling, I would choose Virgin Gorda. I like how different the beaches at the Baths and Spring Bay look with the boulders. The island is like no other that I have visited. I also like how there are more typical pretty white sand beaches there as well (such as Savannah Bay). And the snorkeling. I just can’t express how much we enjoyed it. We were only there for three nights, so we had just a small sampling of snorkel spots. I would love to go back and explore a new snorkeling spot every day.

Here is a link to my pictures if you're interested:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=15cbf3jr.66vebzw3&x=0&y=cr0bax