USVI - St. John - Day 1

Our balcony from Lily Guest Room @ St. John Guest Suites

Day 1 of our vacation was devoted solely to travel. If you plan to visit St. John, I recommend planning in your travel day because it took us an entire day to get to the island from the Midwest.

We started our day departing from Indianapolis at 6:15am. I am a huge Southwest fan, but Southwest does not fly to the USVI. We flew American Airlines and could not find a direct flight from Indianapolis so we ended up having a layover in Charlotte. From there we flew to Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI. You cannot fly directly to St. John as the island does not have an airport. We were scheduled to arrive in St. Thomas around 4:30pm. Before we left, I had scheduled a taxi from the airport to Red Hook Ferry. It's about a 30 minute drive across the island, and we were trying to catch a specific ferry so we pre-arranged a taxi. The villa we stayed recommended using Rachael. I HIGHLY recommend her. If you decide to take a trip and want her contact information, just message me and I can give that to you!

The views on the plane ride in are Amazing!

Rachael was unable to pick us up upon arrival, however, she had one of her other drivers meet us at the airport. It was $50.00 (including baggage) for us to taxi across the island to the ferry to St. John.

Due to the weather, our flight was a little delayed which in return made us a few minutes late for the 6pm ferry. Once we arrived in Red Hook, we waited in the ferry terminal until the next ferry ride left at 7pm. You can find the ferry structure and pricing here:

https://www.vinow.com/travel/virgin-islands-ferry-schedules/

The ferry from Charlotte Amalie is not currently running due to the Hurricanes in 2017. If you choose to take the passenger ferry to St. John, you will have to take it from Red Hook which is approximately a 20 minute voyage.

Another option is to take the car barge ferry from Charlotte Amalie, however, we rented our vehicle on island so this was not an option for us.

By the time we took the ferry it was dark, so that was a little upsetting, but still a cool experience. Don't expect the ferry to be a joy ride, because you may think that it's going to breakdown in the middle of the voyage....we made it safely so that's all that matters!

Once we arrived on the island, we had arranged to pick-up our Jeep with Aqua Blue Car Rental. Again, HIGHLY recommended. They picked us up from the ferry and we drove straight to their office to get all paperwork signed for the week. This was a super easy transition and the lady from the office had great communication with me leading up to the trip!

https://aquablucarrental.com

Make sure to reserve your vehicle early if you decide to reserve from a location on St. John. We reserved 3 months prior to our trip and we were only able to find a four-door Jeep. Don't rent anything other than a Jeep if you rent a vehicle, it is really worth it on the island.

The owner of our villa met us at the car rental and lead us up to the villa to get all checked in. We stayed at St. John Guest Suites, again, HIGHLY recommend! It was absolutely gorgeous and our experience was WONDERFUL! We were a little late in planning this trip, so they only had 2 suites left. We decided to go with Lily Guest Room, it was a little cheaper, and no room views, but we were thankful that we ended up with this suite for the week because no one stayed in the room next to us and we were able to utilize the entire balcony!

Our hosts gave us a nice basket of goodies in our room to snack on and a bottle of rum. I could not partake in any of that (thanks to little guy inside my belly) but I'm pretty sure Chase enjoyed it during the trip :). Our room was small, but just perfect for the two of us. We had a small kitchenette area with a fridge, freezer, and microwave. The room was also supplied with ample kitchen utensils and items to cook with. We used the grill to cook a couple of nights, it also had a small stove attached.

Once we were checked in, we were STARVING! At this time of night, we ended up finding St. John Brewers-The Tap Room in Mongoose Junction (which is SUCH a cute place....more about that later). We enjoyed the food here and were able to watch the game! It was a perfect way to end our long travel day! I was just soooo thankful to be on the island!

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Restaurant_Review-g147410-d3292885-Reviews-The_Tap_Room-Cruz_Bay_St_John_U_S_Virgin_Islands.html