U.S. Virgin Islands Honeymoon?

[SarahLovesJS]

I know there are some Virgin Islands threads already, but I thought I would post to make sure I am on the right track. We''ve decided we can''t really afford Hawaii right now..so I was thinking maybe we could go to the U.S. Virgin Islands. We''ve both never been. What should our budget be for about 4-5 nights in an ocean view room not including flight? I know some hotels are expensive than others, so I am really looking more for average cost of food and whatnot.

 

[Haven]

Hey Sarah!

It really depends on which island you'd like to visit. We went to St. John in the USVI for our honeymoon and ADORED it. It was really eleven days of perfection. I would highly recommend St. John. We also visited St. Thomas for a day and HATED it. Compared to St. John, it is really not very nice at all. I'm not exaggerating. I would never stay there, I won't even spend another day there on our next trip to St. John. I was surprised, because I've heard good things.

I'm not sure if other locations in the USVI are less expensive than St. John, or if Hawaii is just extremely expensive, but I can tell you that the USVI are definitely not budget destinations. We stayed at the Westin St. John in a suite. If my best friend hadn't given us her employee rate, it would have cost us around $700 per night for that room in the middle of July. I'm sure they have less expensive rooms, but I'd be surprised if you could find anything for under $300 a night.

Caneel Bay was another fabulous resort in St. John, I'd stay there in a heartbeat. Although I think it is comparable to the Westin.

Food is also pretty pricey in the USVI. They import most of their food, so even if you have a fridge in your room it doesn't really save you much to stock up and try to avoid restaurants. And it's your honeymoon, so you're going to want to go to nice places. We probably spent between $200 and $300 for dinner each night we went out to a nice place. Lunches were less expensive, and we ate the resort breakfast buffet each morning, which was around $35 per person, I believe.

I've never been to St. Croix, which is the third USVI, and I haven't really heard much about it.

 

[SarahLovesJS]

Thank you so much Haven!

In my opinion Hawaii is crazy expensive..we want to spend under 4,000 if possible..and it seems like Hawaii is like $6,000 minimum..but maybe I am wrong. Anyway, thank you again!

 

[Haven]

Do you know which island you''re interested in? Are you going on your honeymoon right after your 6/20 wedding (I checked the BWW list, is that date right)? I''ll ask around and see which hotels/resorts/islands people I know who have traveled to the USVI enjoyed.

And don''t thank me, I could talk about St. John endlessly. I really loved it there.

I just asked hubby about Hawaii vs. USVI, and he said it really just depends on where you stay in either location. (He''s been to Hawaii several times to visit family.)

 

[SarahLovesJS]

We''d like to go that next week I think it''s the week of 06/22, so yep that''s right! I was looking at St. Thomas (did some general hotel searches), but we''re open to the other islands, too!

 

[Haven]

Definitely check out St. John. It was really the most beautiful, most relaxing time I''ve ever had. It''s a tiny island, so you really feel like you get to know the place after just a few days, and it is a place worth knowing.

If you like nature you''ll be in your element. We went hiking in the mornings, 75% of the island is actually a protected national park, so there is a lot to see. The snorkeling is amazing. DH loved renting a JEEP and driving on the opposite side of the road

. The restaurants were delicious. The people were incredibly friendly. The weather was gorgeous. We took ferries to St. Thomas, Virgin Gorda (BVI), and Jost Van Dyke (BVI). Virgin Gorda and Jost were both incredible and definitely worth a trip. If you want to shop a lot and get souvenir-y things, then you might enjoy St. Thomas. But I thought it was dirty and overcrowded, and the people weren''t nearly as nice as in St. John.

I''ve traveled quite a lot, and I have to say that there is not one thing I would have changed about our St. John honeymoon. It was that perfect.

And the Westin really is phenomenal. Here''s the link to the Westin St. John. I just checked their website for rates around 6/22, it looks like they start at $355 and go up from there. The ocean view is $405 and the beachfront is $495. Really, though, there isn''t a bad room in the whole place. The "garden views" are just that--you look out your window and see a garden. It''s all gorgeous.

Check out Caneel Bay, too. Their beach is GORGEOUS, we spent an entire precious day there.

I''m so excited you''re considering the USVI. I really cannot recommend St. John enough.

 

[SarahLovesJS]

Haven your info is great and the Westin looks especially awesome!

I also found a deal on Costco.com which includes snorkeling, but it''s about the same price as the Westin''s website so not sure if it is worth it. Anyway, I have one more question for you! We want one or two days of relaxation and then we want more shopping and things like that..so would staying two days on St. John and two on St. Thomas be too much of a hassle? How does the ferry work and whatnot? Thank you again!

 

[Haven]

Hmmm, I would say that *for me*, I would not want to move between islands, but that's because I just don't like packing all my stuff up, especially if it's a shorter trip in general. As I said earlier, I really didn't see much value in St. Thomas, so hopefully someone who has been there and liked it will pipe in. I would never stay there, but that's just me. The shopping was nothing great. There is shopping on St. John, and the shops were cuter than on St. Thomas, there were just fewer of them. Mongoose Junction is a little strip of shops, and then there is a cute little strip farther down that side of the island with some FABULOUS restaurants.

The ferry was really easy, I think it took about 40 minutes between the Westin's dock and St. Thomas, and if you're staying at the Westin they encourage you to use their St. John/St. Thomas ferry and buy an unlimited use ticket for the duration of your stay. That meant we could travel back and forth as much as we liked without buying more ferry tickets. The ferry leaves right from the Westin's dock on St. John, and you arrive in the main port in St. Thomas. There are taxis everywhere to get you wherever you want to go on either island, and they usually cost $4 per person per trip. I have no idea what it cost, but I'm sure if you call or email them they'd be able to tell you.

In short, you could definitely use the ferry to go to St. Thomas for a day of shopping, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't feel like you were missing out if you weren't staying there.

If I had four nights in the USVI, this is what I would do:

- Stay at the Westin or Caneel Bay all four nights

- DAY 1: Leisurely breakfast on the resort, spend a few hours on the beach at the resort, then take a taxi into town to explore a bit. Find a small place for lunch, do some browsing in shops. Dinner at a nice romantic restaurant. Hang out at resort pool for a while, probably with a pina colada in my hand. Get into island mode, basically.

- DAY 2: Ferry to Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Island. The baths at Virgin Gorda are AMAZING. I can't tell you how incredibly they are. They are these huge rock formations that you crawl through from one beach to another, and beneath the rocks there are beautiful "baths" you can linger in. The beach you reach on the other side has little shade, so bring an umbrella or a tarp with sticks to sit under. This is a full day thing, but well worth it. So relaxing. There's a little stand to buy beverages and food at the first beach. It's really incredible. Decent snorkeling, too.
OR--I'd spend the day at Jost Van Dyke in the BVI. It's really just a gorgeous, white sand beach. But it is GORGEOUS. And Foxy's is there, it's a famous bar. I had my best day at Jost. I spent about six hours in a hammock drinking Painkillers, looking out on the water, and reading. It was incredible. AND there were dolphins near the beach when we first got there, it was so cool. You can snorkel, too.

- DAY 3: Do the morning hike (I think it's called the Reef Bay hike) in the National Park. It takes somewhere between 3 to 4 hours. It's really beautiful, you have a tour guide, and you get to see a lot of interesting nature and hear cool stories about the island. Pack a lunch, you eat during the hike. You end up on a little beach and then take a boat back to the Nat'l Park Visitors Center, which is really fun, too. Then I'd spend some time in town, as that's where the visitor's center is, and then I'd take a taxi from the Visitors Center to a good snorkeling beach, and spend the rest of the day there. Waterlemon Cay was amazing for snorkeling. We say humongous sea turtles, which was my favorite. They were literally a foot away from us under water. There's a little cay you can swim out to and the sea life is breathtaking out there. Dinner at a fancy shmancy restaurant. *If you end up going, I'll tell you our favorite dinner spots from our trip. YUM!

- DAY 4: Rent a JEEP and snorkeling gear, drive around St. John, see the sights, and get in one last day of snorkeling. There are so many different places to go, and the Nat'l Park Visitors Center sells a great book with JEEP tours to take around the island. You can drive through the entire island in a day if you want to, which we did. It was really fun. We stopped to snorkel, take pictures, go into interesting looking bars and restaurants, and just explore. We found this bar called Skinny Legs, which is owned by two guys from Boston, and met the owner who said, upon hearing that we were newlyweds, "It's incredible to live your life with someone, isn't it? What a wonderful thing." I loved that.
Then I'd go back to the resort, have a nice meal there, and lounge on the beach or by the pool to relax.

I'm not a big shopper, though, but if you are you could totally ferry over to St. Thomas to shop one day.

If you stay at the Westin they offer a 2-mile morning hike every other day. It's free, and guided by an employee, and it's really cool because you walk to some amazing points for seeing the island, and you get to see the local real estate, which is quite impressive in areas. They also show a movie at the pool on Wednesdays, which I didn't think we'd do at first because I thought it would be a waste of our time there. HOWEVER, it was so nice to relax outside, watch a movie on a giant screen TV while moving from our loungers on the deck to our loungers in the pool. They also served free popcorn, which totally fed my salt needs for the day.

Of course, we didn't see or do everything there is to do in St. John, but we did a lot. Between snorkeling, dining, hiking and walking around to take in the gorgeous views, meeting incredible local people, and learning about the island, every minute of our honeymoon was either entertaining, relaxing, or awe-inspiring.

I don't know how heat tolerant you are, but I tend to wither up after hours in the sun every day, even with my sunscreen and enormous hats. SO, hubby and I were really wiped out at the end of each day after being outside for so long. It was really nice to go back to the resort and relax a little. We really didn't need much night life because we were wiped out, but if you're a go-to-the-clubs-until-4-AM type of couple, there isn't much of that there. We stayed out until 2 one night at the restaurant on the resort, but that was because we met a cool bartender who loved literature and travel, so we had a lot to talk about with him and he kept the bar open for us and a few other people.

Oh my gosh, talking about St. John in detail like this is making me miss it so much. It was really the best vacation I've ever had.

Let me know if you want any more details about anything, I'm happy to talk about St. John! I really hope you guys can make it over there some time, even if you go elsewhere for your honeymoon.

 

[SarahLovesJS]

We''re looking at Caneel now..they have a sale/discount through this Friday I believe which is a really good deal. I''ve read some reviews that there were tons of bugs there..even roaches in the rooms at times

. But I know it''s a tropical area so I understand there are bugs everywhere especially since it''s so lush. Should I just ignore this, have you heard it about Caneel? I mean I could encounter roaches anywhere potentially.

 

[geckodani]

Caneel bay is GORGEOUS. My sister got married and honeymooned there, and had an amazing time. Can''t say enough about it!

But if you''re going to stay at Caneel, you could probably do Hawaii for the same price.

Hawaii can be affordable, depending on where you stay. We stayed at the Hyatt on Maui for our honeymoon, and honestly liked the Whaler (condo resort) where we stayed before the wedding just as much. And the beach was better.... And we could cook, LOL. I''d say either would be gorgeous.

We also have been to St. Thomas, and found it much more crowded then St. John, but still beautiful.

 

[eks6426]

There are a lot of vacation rentals on St. John too. If you don''t have to have a resort, you can get some very nice accomodations. Many of them have private pools as well. Check out vbro.com & homeaway.com.