Thread: St. John: Freestyle/Self-booked arrangements

We're scheduled for the Magic Eastern Caribbean departing on 1/28/2012 with the usual stops at St. Maarten, St. Thomas/St. John, and Castaway.

While at St. Thomas, we really would like to go to Trunk Bay. My family and I tentatively booked the excursion through Disney. However, we're traveling with my sister and her family as well. They have daughters aged 11, 6, and 4.5. Disney's policy on the St. John Trunk Bay beach/snorkel excursion is that it's for ages 5 and above. My wife called DCL and the rep she spoke with said they have a firm policy on this and won't make exceptions. So, we can't book the 4.5 year old on the excursion which means a) either we don't go or b) we need to arrange our own tour since Disney can't or won't accommodate. Honestly, it's a little disappointing. It's not like we're expecting that the 4.5 year old will be snorkel ready. Frankly, we just want to go for the beach for the most part, as that's all kids really care about.

So, any advice regarding how to go about booking a St. John excursion on our own? My family and I have three cruises with Disney under our belt and we're comfortable just getting off the ship at most of the ports and doing our own thing, but with St. John, it's a ferry ride to another island and we need to make sure it's well planned so we can make sure we get back to the ship on time.

My wife has done some preliminary research and she's found that there are ferries to St. John that leave from Charlotte Amalie and also from Red Hook. What we're not sure of are the travel/cab arrangements from the port to the ferry terminals (both Charlotte Amalie and Red Hook) and the cab arrangements on St. John itself. Are we better off cabbing to Red Hook and jumping the ferry there? Can we depat out of Red Hook and return to Charlotte Amalie? Are there lines for cabs or are they immediately available?

Any insight would be appreciated! Should I be putting this in the St. John or St. Thomas forum instead?

Thanks.

Hi Inor,

I can help a little bit and hopefully a few other people will get on to help you out with the other bits. Charlotte Amalie is definitely your closest port. It's only a 3 minute taxi ride and very easy to get there and back. Taxis are readily available but from what I can remember they are the ones where you pay per person (about $3) and they go once the van is full so it might be a little more difficult to go to Red Hook, but your group is large enough that you can probably book the cab out.

However in saying that Red Hook seems to have the majority of the arrivals and departures.

I found a website that runs the ferry company and they have an e-mail address at the bottome and I'd say they can probably let you know whether you can book from one departure area and return to the other. Varlack Ventures - Car Rentals, Ferry Service, Island Tours on St.John, US Virgin Islands

INOR - Just keep in mind that if an excursion is not booked through DCL and ANYTHING delays you from getting back to the ship in time to sail, they will NOT wait for you under any circumstances. I realize that the problem is the age restriction so booking through DCL is not an option for you, but the "too late" scenario is something to keep in mind. I've seen it happen a few times.

I hope everything works out for you.

Thanks to both of you for the initial feedback.

Taswira....that's exactly the thing I want to avoid, as I know that the ship won't wait. If we go it alone, we'll leave loads of travel time on the back end to get back to the ship. If we get back a couple or more hours before the ship is to set sail, I'm ok with that. We'll just wander about and do some local shopping closer to the port.

We took a taxi to the ferry. It was not horribly expensive if I recall. And there were plenty of taxis there when we returned. It takes about 1/2 hour or so depending on the traffic.