Hi there,

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding you have picked a wonderful island to honeymoon on. As far as getting to Caneel Bay it can easily be done on your own. Grab a cab from the airport to either downtown CA (approx $8.00 per person) or to Red Hook (approx $12.00 per person) and then ferry over to St John. Ferry's are $7.00 each from CA, and $3.00 each from Red Hook. Taxi's are readily available once you arrive on St John and should cost no more than $5.00 each to Caneel Bay. So for a total of approx $20.00 per person I would rather do that and save my money for a wonderful dinner in town. Ferry times are as follows: From CA: 9:00 am, 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm, 4:00 pm and 5:30pm. From Red Hook: 6:30 and 7:30 am, then on the hour. As far as restaurants go there are so many to choose from. Upscale you can't go wrong with ZoZo's, Tage, Chateauz Bordeaux, Asolare, Chloe and Bernards. Casual among our favourites are Morgans Mango, Lime Inn, Fish Trap, Skinny Legs (Coral Bay side) to name a few :-) Hope this helps.

ps: the cabs do also charge $1.00 per bag (most of the time)

I completely understand your hesitance with the cost. The Caneel Bay ferry is more convenient, but you're definitely paying for it. If you take the CB ferry, you won't have to touch your bags from the moment you get them off the conveyor at the airport. Their porters take care of it.

Some other pluses: you get rum punch during the trip, and there will be a CB representative waiting for you at the dock.

If you do decide to take an independent ferry, however, I'd seriously consider using that savings to rent a jeep one day. Caneel Bay has some nice snorkeling on premesis, but it's far outpaced by Trunk Bay and Waterlemon Cay. There are small coolers in the rooms, so you can take your complimentary bottle of rum, a few cans of coke, and have cocktails to go.

I second the zozo's, Chateau (rent a jeep to get there, too) and Asolare.

Enjoy your trip!

Thanks Pia and Melvin both -- after reading some other posts I do think that renting a Jeep for a day would be really fun. Thanks for the restaurant recommendations also. Here's another question, when do you get to decide about whether you will buy the meal plan or not? We probably won't as neither of us are huge eaters, but wanted to keep our options open. Also heard that you can request an in-room refrigerator -- I assume there is decent grocery shopping in town for fruit, cheese, etc to snack on?

Thanks again

Hi there again,

I personally have never stayed at Caneel (been to the beaches there though- fabulous) but after reading the comments about the food, and the prices of the food at this resort, from other sights, I don't think I would be inclined to do so. There are fabulous restaurants in town for both breakfast (Chilly Billy's, JJ etc) along with fruit stands, fresh smoothie stands and deli's for sandwiches to take on your travels :-) Just take a taxi into town approx $4.00 pp and experience all of the flavour of STJ. Highly recommend renting a jeep and seeing the island. There are many fabulous beaches to see in addition to the ones at Caneel. The other option is to use the money saved from arranging your own transportation, to rent a dingy for the day from Noahs Little Ark and visit all the beaches from the water. Enjoy your trip.

Pia

Stayed at CB this past July for 8 nights and loved it. We did have a car and I would suggest you get one for at least a few days. Food at the resort was very good. We ate at all except Turtle Bay. I would discourage the meal plan since St John has fabulous places to eat. In addition if you are not hungry one night you can have a burger in their beachside pub/bar---so why pay for a meal plan. I ditto all the restaurant choices and must add"Skinny legs" for lunch one day.

Hi AFwife -

every room we've stayed in at Caneel has had a small refrigerator. I also think the meal plan is unnecessary. The food is good, but it's fun to explore the other restaurants.

Enjoy your trip - I wish I was going back!