Ferry to St John / Car Barge vs Passenger

[5forcruise]

I noticed the passenger ferry from Red Hook to ST John seems to only run every two hours, yet the car barges have a more frequent schedule. Do the car barges take walk on passengers or passengers w/ vehicles only?

[Betsy's Mom]

The Red Hook ferry to St John runs every hour on the hour unless they have changed in the last 24 hours. The downtown ferry does not run as often and sometimes not at all. Where did you find this information? We live there.

B.

[5forcruise]

The Red Hook ferry to St John runs every hour on the hour unless they have changed in the last 24 hours. The downtown ferry does not run as often and sometimes not at all. Where did you find this information? We live there.

B.

 

My mistake, the two hour schedule was for the ferry from Charlotte Amalie and not Red Hook.

Since you live there I will pick your brain just a bit. We are in St Thomas, docking at Havensight from 9am-8pm. We want to get in as much time in St John as possible. We currently have two jeeps reserved in Havensight and were planning on using the car barge. Would it be more efficient on time to cab it to Red Hook and take the passenger ferry then rent a jeep once on St John? We currently have to have our rental back to Havensight by 5:00 and were planning on taking the 4:00 ferry. Is this cutting it to close? Our other option is the 2:00 ferry (using Captain Vics) and we dont want to lose that much time.

My thought was if we rent on St John, would we be able to stay longer on the island and do we have more ferry options than just the passenger ferry?

Also is it common that all three car barges are running, (as posted on vinow) or are there times of the year when they are not all running. We will be there October 10, 2007.

Thanks for any advice.

[Betsy's Mom]

I would rent on St John. The car ferries are or were not all runing a bit ago. The wait was long and congested. Some of the boats were under going repair. At one time only one was running.Repair here can be a looong process. I would forgo the hassle myself, but others may disagree. However, I do not think the rental agents is St John will rent ahead for just a day rental. In October, not a high tourist month, they might and if not you should not have any problem getting a jeep. Remember we drive on the left.:)

Enjoy!

B.

[danabobbyt]

Hello Betsy's mom. My family and I are planning the same thing as "5". We are renting a car at St. Thomas and ferrying it over to St John in November. Is that a busy month. Is there somewhere that you can see the ships that are in dock. I only found one site that has the ships for September.

[augie]

Here's a cruise ship calendar for St. Thomas.

 

September will come up (it's the current month), but click on the link at the top right corner to go to the following month.

 

http://www.cruisecal.com/portal/StThomas,USVirginIslands/tabid/2016/Default.aspx

[The Islander]

danabobbyt - High season gets going in late October, early November - so November isn't quite super busy yet but its not slow either. ;)

 

--Islander

[OC PAT]

Last November we rented a jeep and went straight to Red Hook. The ferries were delayed because one was under repair. We actually paid the one fee to enter the ferry pier and waited a bit and decided it wasn't worth the adventure between the delays and what not it would mean we would only have an hour. So this November we are renting our jeep when we get to St. John. They do not do advance rentals for one day so we will just have to get the jeep when we get there. Mind you our rental went smoothly but it still takes time to do the paperwork. Hopefully are experience may help you. We will be there Saturday 11/17 on the Adventure of the Seas.

OC PAT

[TravelGhuru]

Actually, the people ferry from Red Hook andback from Cruz Bay, St. John run every hour on the hour and are much more reliable as transportation goes to get back and forth from St. Thomas and St. John. The current fee is $5 per person each way. Go -enjoy St. John!