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Arriving via cruise ship and will be on St. Thomas for 2 full days. Traveling with a 3 year old, do we rent a car or use taxi's? Cost of car or taxi is not the issue....it's more of which is safer, do taxi's require a car seat for 3 year olds? If we rent a car for the day, I assume that Budget will also rent a car seat....?
First day I will bite the bullet and do the ship's 'Coral World' Coki Beach tour, would like to beach hop on day 2. Any advice is greatly appreciated.
I say rent a car for the 2 days. Budget usually rents car seats with the cars. You will need a carseat, and taking it in and out of a taxi can be a pain. I used the SitnStroll stroller with my son. It is a car seat that has wheels that pop out of the bottom and then it is a stroller. It was great. www.sitnstroll.com
I still have it, but no longer use it.
It is my opinion that renting a car/Jeep is the easiest with a child. That way you don't have to wait when you are ready to come and go. You could also lock some of your 'just in case' gear (like a stroller) in the car so it's available if you need it and only take the necessities to the beach/etc. to lighten your load. If your child is cranky/needs a nap but can't settle down due to outside distractions you could take a leisurely drive around the island while your child naps in the car seat. Budget does rent car seats. ...I'm not really sure about how to compare a taxi to a rental safety-wise. We've always rented from Budget at the airport and taken a Jeep to STJ. Come to think of it...we've never used a taxi anywhere except on Jost Van Dyke and that was definitely a slow, safe ride.
We have a 2-year-old and just spent a week on St. Thomas. We also stopped there on a cruise several years ago, before we had our son. In my opinion, rent a car. We rented on this past trip and it made things very simple. For one thing, I'm always uncomfortable with the no car seat taxi issue. The driving is not the safest or most conservative on St. Thomas! When we were there on a cruise, we ended up in an open-air taxi and that wouldn't be my first choice for a cross-island trip with a toddler. We've rented car seats from the rental agencies in the past, but lately we bring ours with us from home for the plane rides. The seats they rent are not the highest quality but probably fine for a few vacation days.
