Vacation time

[Apoc]

Just rent a place in St. John and then you don't have to see anyone. Ever.

The food at all inclusives is crap and it's not worth all that cash to get someone to pour your drinks for you.

[WRXtranceformed]

Like rent a villa or something? I found a somewhat reasonable all inclusive at Caneel Bay (the Hermitage looks freaking ridiculous but it is priced accordingly). That might be ambitious for my booking skills. I book and eat out all the time domestically, but heading across the pond a bit I have no experience with. The mindset behind the all inclusive was I could just be mindless and enjoy being drunk in the sun.

[Apoc]

USVI uses the dollar and they speak English... so it's really not any different than here. Think Hawaii, but the natives aren't Hawaiian. It can be pretty touristy, depending on where you are, so you could prolly trip into dinner most days. From my experience, even the most expensive and ridiculously awesome looking all inclusive on the website is still kinda "meh" when you're there.

In the end, you gotta do what you're comfortable with. Just google a few rentals and see what's out there before you dump a load of cash on a resort.

[D_Eclipse9916]

. The mindset behind the all inclusive was I could just be mindless and enjoy being drunk in the sun.

This is how I do my vacations. I want to be mindless, in the sun and drunk doing random adventures like exploring the island, horse riding, jetskiing etc.. Call me a tourist all you want, I dont care :lol: . My friend spent 3 months in St Johns by renting out a place and it was more than reasonable. I would highly consider that (well renting a place for a little bit). If I just wanted to sit at some "local" bars outside, I would just do certain sections of florida, but you definitely need someone who lives there to actually find the ones that arent obnoxious tourist places.

[WRXtranceformed]

So unless I'm looking in the wrong places, rentals there will probably be just as expensive as some of the all inclusives once I factor in food / drink / airfare. At least the rentals I'd actually want to stay in. This is a more daunting task than I expected

[Steve85]

have you tried...

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.vrbo.com/">http://www.vrbo.com/</a><!-- m -->

We booked our last couple family vacations through here. We weren't looking for anything more than a place to stay at a beach and it's worked out pretty good.

[Apoc]

So unless I'm looking in the wrong places, rentals there will probably be just as expensive as some of the all inclusives once I factor in food / drink / airfare. At least the rentals I'd actually want to stay in. This is a more daunting task than I expected

A lot of them are. It's just a matter of what appeals to you. Some people like having a pool with drinks brought to them. Some people like having their own space and being able to do everything. You seem like the former.

[REED]

have you tried...

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.vrbo.com/">http://www.vrbo.com/</a><!-- m -->

We booked our last couple family vacations through here. We weren't looking for anything more than a place to stay at a beach and it's worked out pretty good.

The last 2 years we've used vrbo to book ski houses and its always worked great

[WRXtranceformed]

<!-- w --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.cheapcaribbean.com">www.cheapcaribbean.com</a><!-- w --> was recommended to me by a client. Seems to actually have some pretty good prices. ~$3k total with airfare for all inclusive Sugar Bay at St. Thomas (close to St. John for a day trip)

[Mike]

st thomas does very little for me.

[WRXtranceformed]

I like the all inclusive aspect of St. Thomas, and when we want to do the national forest and less commercialized thing we can hop the ferry to St. John.

[WRXtranceformed]

Looked REAL hard at Antigua, but the resorts I really wanted to go to there were super expensive and would probably be better honeymoon spots.

Just booked 5 days 4 nights at Sugar Bay resort in St. Thomas. Ocean view room & all-inclusive. Should be fun! Thanks for all of the ideas.

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[ScottyB]

that's the resort we stayed at man! recognized it as soon as i saw that first picture. the first image from my post on the other page was from our balcony (we were on the right half of the building in that pic, top floor of the lower section) .

Enjoy! we had a very good time. if you have any specific questions about the hotel just let me know.

[WRXtranceformed]

I just realized that after I read back through the last page of posts! That's awesome man! I will probably give you a ring at some point before we leave to discuss and get your feedback!! Thanks

I reread a few reviews on TripAdvisor and some of the recent ones have brought the resort's score down...but it looks like there was an A/C outage in a bunch of the rooms over Christmas that made some people salty. I'm not that worried about it, most of the reviews were great including yours.