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Back to St. John?

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 3:38 pm
by jmq
Greetings

Began last October/November planning a trip this year to celebrate 60th birthday (yikes) that happens to fall on peak $$$ time the week before Easter. My 24 yr old daughter will also be off that week and we want her to come too.

Originally considered Key West for 4-5 nights of birthday shenanigans but jeez the prices for the nicer places and airfare for that week was pretty dam high (I refuse to pay $600 to fly to FL), so then you start to say for just a little more maybe lets go back to St John and save Key West for some other off peak time when we can also take the time to do the Keys Overseas Highway at least one way.

We love Gallows for views, sound of the ocean, and the morning and evening walk to town stuff including “no shower happy hour” but really didn't want to pay the now crazy $700+ per night prices for Gallows. It's also difficult make a nice villa with great view & location be cost effective for 3 people who are not interested in kitchen duty while on vacation i.e. time and effort to buy/prepare/cook/cleanup. But then we stumbled onto a decent Grande Bay unit open for the days we needed for ~$500/night (total w/taxes etc) so booked that for 6 nights.

Then we played the waiting game on airfare and just watched it go up and up and up from the time of Grande Bay booking in late November. Subscribed to all the apps, email tracking alerts etc. Was starting to have to reconcile paying >$900 which was not thrilling at all considering I was open to all NYC airports and PHL and we have never paid more than ~$430 even peak time.

So then I even started considering canceling the Grande Bay res and started looking elsewhere. This led to doing a bunch of research on Bahamas out islands and found Eleuthera including flights with good logistics for $661 and a nice VRBO house on the beach that was walking distance to best mid-island beach bar for $325 night.

But the girls weren’t on board with it (“too much like our Virgin Gorda trips”) even though it’s “for” my birthday (sad!) I would’ve enjoyed exploring that island, including a daytrip up to Harbour Island, but my wife also persuasively argued that this would be a better future trip for just me and her.

Then last week, lo and behold on my daily airfare check, American flights started popping up out of NYC for <$700 and many of them for some reason were also FIRST/BUSINESS class at that price point. So we actually scored those for $624 each out of LGA (1 stop) landing before 2pm and departing six days later at 4:35pm.

That’s a nice bit of luck as we've NEVER flown First Class. My notification apps and email alerts let me know a few hours later than I discovered these on my own. The wrinkle to this is that when you put in for 3 fares on AA.com, the prices jumped to >$900 each, so had to book 2 together and 1 separate using separate computers after clearing cookies and history. I know LGA is a hell hole but the departing flights are 6:15 am so getting there shouldn’t be an issue (besides getting up God-awful early) and I assume that flying first class will help relieve any of that stress LOL

Re: Back to St. John?

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:30 pm
by hoosierdaddy
St. John is a great place to celebrate big events. My wife and I celebrated our 25th anniversary and have plans for our 50th birthdays. Congrats on getting back.

Re: Back to St. John?

Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 6:55 pm
by cindygad
Here on island and just celebrated my 60th last week. I must admit being here helped ease the pain. Dinner at ZOZO;s helped too. Enjoy

Re: Back to St. John?

Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 8:17 am
by jmq
I'm thinking Zozo's also...

Re: Back to St. John?

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 11:26 am
by liamsaunt
Definitely Zozo's!

We are staying within walking distance to town both in March and in July. I don't think John and I will do the "no shower happy hour" in March, but my whole crew is already looking forward to finally doing this in July based on your recommendations :D

Re: Back to St. John?

Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2017 2:42 pm
by RickG
Excellent!!

We just spend a week sailing around St. John. Still my favorite place in the world! But, Culebra is making its way up the charts past the BVI contenders.

Cheers, RickG

Re: Back to St. John?

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 2:51 pm
by jmq
Haha Becky does this mean that next time we go we should try to roll like you guys usually do which includes making some great meals in a comfortable villa with killer views? I might be up for that, but it would be a tough sell with the girls...

Re: Back to St. John?

Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2017 3:07 pm
by jmq
Thanks Rick. You just made me look for and find your TR on TTOL. I will have to look at the "Spanish Virgin".

How would you characterize the main town? Does it have any charm, and enough fun bars and decent eats? And any impressions about accommodations and getting about for landlubbers?

PS I am thoroughly entertained by how hard you got bit by the sailing bug and how quickly you gained your new skill sets. You can now give any of those long timers over there on TTOL a run for their money.