HI Tammy,

Why don't you post a trip report or at least a posting with your experiences/comments. That's the beauty of the bboards.....if you only respond to emails, all the rest of us fail to get the benefit of your travel experiences.

Schultz

I didn't want to just blab on, but since you asked...

If you asked my kids, they'd probably say playing in the resort's pool was their favorite activity. My son begged constantly to go to the pool. I took my daughter also, but of course had to hold her up - I saw another baby in one of those inflatable rings with the seats in the middle and wished I'd bought or brought one to float her around in.

They did enjoy going to the beaches but the water was rather rough when we were there, so we had to keep calling my son back since he can't really swim yet. He was constantly in the water, though - no real interest in playing in the sand. We never got around to getting any beach toys - in retrospect I wish I'd brought a few small things with us. I'd heard they can be rented at the beaches, but we must have missed those booths.

One thing I was really glad I did was to buy my son a set of snorkelling equipment before we left. I got a set at Walmart for @$18.00, in the camping/outdoor gear department. He didn't really use it to snorkel that much, but since he's just learning to swim, having the mask and snorkel seemed to help him feel more confident, especially in the pool. Be careful if you take them to the beach, however - he let go of his mask (fortunately not until our last day), and it's now swimming with the fishes in Magen's Bay.

We went on a few excursions, although mostly on St. Thomas - we went to Charlotte Amalie a couple times, shopped in Red Hook, and visited Coral World (a small but pretty nice marine park). They did pretty well as long as we took frequent breaks, had snacks available. We did a day trip to St. John, where we found a nice little playground outside the National Park Headquarters - we had to drag them away after an hour or so.

We didn't eat in restaurants all that much, but our experiences were pretty positive at the ones we went to (Molly Molones, Cuzzins, Blue Moon, Fungis, & Cafe Wahoo in St John) - they all had high chairs, and most had some sort of kid's menu or at least a grilled cheese sandwich, which satisfied my son. Not all of them had kid-friendly cups, though (i.e. plastic w/tops, straws) - I kept wishing I'd popped some extra straws in my purse.

Obviously, bring lots of sunscreen. My son got a little red on his shoulders one day, when I'd have sworn he had enough on!

Hope this is helpful. We had a great time - wish I were looking forward to going like you are!

Hi Again,

Great report. Thanks for sharing with us.

For those who encounter some of the same 'problems', from my experience the KMart at Tutu usually has a pretty good selection of kids stuff for use on the beach. (toys, pails, plastic shovels, swim accessories).

Schultz