My wife and I stayed at PPR during the last week of April. Since I relied on TripAdvisor to select a hotel, I thought it my duty to give back to the site. In general, there are bits and pieces of everyone's prior reviews that I found true. I will try to highlight my experiences here:

ROOMS: The rooms are quite worn, but very clean and comfortable. The amount of wear and tear was pretty similar to other Caribbean experiences I've had (including big resorts like Sandals/Couples/Breezes), and noticeably less well maintained than a typical hotel in the developed world. For example, the closets were a bit creepy with unfinished walls, the electric burners on the kitchen stove weren't quite level, the screens on the sliding doors were always bugproof, etc. All in all, for $140 / night in the Caribbean, I probably got what I paid for.

POOLS: The 3 pools were very nice. I am usually not a pool person but my wife and I retreated to a pool around 5 or 6PM and we were the only ones in the pool (probably because of the beach situation you'll read about later). It made for a nice, romantic experience as the Hilltop pool is quite secluded, albeit hard to climb to.

GROUNDS: I was actually surpised about how poorly maintained the "trails" were based on previous feedback. There was "Caution" tape, beer cans, and random plumbing all across the resort. I've found that these hotels usually made up for lackluster rooms with beautiful grounds, but not PPR.

CLIFFSIDE SETTING: Yes, there are *lots* of steps and *lots* of steep hills, but we thought it was pretty manageable. It was kind of a pain to climb up to Agave or down to Fungi's, but worth the beer at the end of the trip.

VIEW: Yes, the view is stunning. As other reviews have stated, it is THE highlight of PPR.

RESORT "BEACHES": Ugh ... there's potential here, but the owners aren't tapping any of it. Pineapple Beach is not maintained and sits in front of a closed resort. You can probably do the math - there are some sketchy people that seem to lurk around the ghost-town resort and the beach is generally strewn with seaweed, dead fish (we saw a 3 foot barracuda), and boating garbage. I'm not sure why PPR doesn't pay someone $20/day to go rake that beach every day (or at least part of it). Sugar Beach doesn't really fit my definition of a beach. It is more of a beachhead with some large, natural rocks protecting a 10 x 10 foot square of sand. You really can't enter the water here.

NEARBY BEACHES: Coki beach is a 10 minute walk. However, I wouldn't recommend it for the faint of heart as you need to walk across the deserted Pineapple Beach and across a sketchy road to get there. It's perfectly fine and somewhat safe, but not what I envisioned dealing with every day of 'vacation'.

*However*, there is a nearby beach called the "Lindquist Beach" - St Thomas is just beginning to develop it. It is down a dirt road right past the Wyndham Sugar Bay and has one of the most beautiful, undeveloped beaches I have seen in the Caribbean. You need to drive there as there are no sidewalks, but it realy was a great experience and one of my favorite beaches from the trip (and we did go to St John and BVIs on the trip). There were maybe 2 or 3 other groups of vacationers and 4 of 5 groups of locals. I actually hate to give the secret out, but you deserve if you stay at PPR and have to deal with Sugar "Beach" and Pineapple Beach.

OTHER BEACHES: Aside from Lindquist, the St Thomas beaches were fairly over crowded. We managed to hit Maegans Bay on a day when the boat people (ie cruise ships) weren't around and it was very gorgeous. Sapphire beach was nice as well. However, when the boat people show up on St Thomas, I found it miserable. The boat people park themselves 2 feet away from you on the beach, are loud and obnoxious for 4 hours, take their 5 pictures, drink their 6 beers, and then run back to their boat for the next island. To be honest, I'd probably avoid St Thomas in the future because of all the boat people landing there daily.

St John was magnificant - we took the vehicle ferry there on 2 days ($42 / round trip) and fell in love with that island. If you are looking for R&R go to St John and avoid St Thomas. Every beach on St John was gem.

GETTING AROUND: Rent a car. Again, rent a car. Especially if you choose PPR, rent a car. PPR has some pretty poor beaches - you won't want to rely on taxis to get somewhere better. The roads are okay and even fairly lit at night. We drove to Red Hook for 3 dinners and once I had the turns and twists memorized, it was a pretty tame drive on the left hand side.

RESTAURANTS: Agave was good but not deserving of the rave reviews I've seen in guidebooks. We ate there 3 nights and it was nice not to have to navigate the St Thomas roads. Fungi's was okay - I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any live entertainment there. I think the vacancy of the Pineapple Beach resort hurt the nightlife there. Nightly drinking was reasonable and scenic though at Fungi's. In Red Hook, Off the Hook and even Duffy's were much better than Agave or Fungi's.

IN GENERAL: Keep reading the reviews for PPR and St Thomas. If you see things coming up repeatedly (PPR steps, overcrowded beaches, reliance on rental cars), be prepared to deal with them on your vacation. We set our expectations appropriately and had a great vacation. Despite its flaws, I recommend PPR based on the view and value as long as I set the recommendee's expectations. Based on my own preferences (avid beachgoer), when I visit the USVI again, I'd spend the extra $ to rent a villa / room and car in St John without beach access, than pay for the "beach" access at PPR. St Thomas is a very busy island, but you can find some R&R is you seek it out and plan around the dreaded "boat people".

First of all, the place is incredibly QUIET, and that was exactly what I was looking for. Stayed there only for a day, but enough to get a good feel for it. Very clean pools, which for me is a must. Awesome nature trails to hike around. Not crowded, even though most of the units were rented at that moment. Friendly staff. Good shuttle system that takes you up and down the hill, they have those bus stops throughout the resort from where you can call them and they will pick you up.

Nice beaches. Pineapple beach was quiet and only a couple of people were sunbathing. Coki beach was a little bit more crowded.

Fungi's bar is very good, and sits right on the beach.

Great return on your money. Highly recommended.

We spent our honeymoon at Point Pleasant 20 years ago and have been back several times since. We decided to go back for our 20th anniversary. Was a little nervous based on some of the reviews I read here...but it was absolutely amazing.
Everyone was so friendly and helpful. Alot of the staff has been there since our honeymoon. The rooms were clean and well-maintained. A lightbulb blew out and they fixed it in half an hour and when the person who fixed it saw me walking by he told me it was already done.
The hotel on Pineapple Beach closed but Point Pleasant has lounge chairs on the beach and you can get free kayaks and snorkeling gear to use. They have someone raking the beach each AM. You can walk to Coki Beach and its amazing snorkelling in 5 minutes. We rented a car and went to Sugar Bay which is right next door to Point Pleasant when we wanted a more happening beach. As always the condos were gorgeous with their terraces overlooking breathtaking views.

First of all decide before you go to the islands whether you are going to rent a car or not. If you rent a car you will have no problems getting around (other than the fact that they drive on the other side of the road and they drive without fear) or if you stay a week, expect to spend between 300-400 dollars to get around per person.

The resort if you can call it that is up a steep hill. The view from our room was amazing but the room was old yet clean. The hair dryer was broken asked for it to be fixed but they never got around to that. They have all the things you need to cook a meal and they wash your dishes. Oh, they don't have anywhere near where you can get breakfast except the Wyndham for 20 dollars a person.

Just remember it's not the Ritz and that the service is slow but friendly.