Getting to St. John on our own?

[frofro]

So it sounds like Cinnamon Bay over Trunk Bay, perfect! :)

[Chesneygirl]

If our ship docks at Crown Bay and we take a ferry from Red Hook, what is the total time I can expect to spend traveling each way by land and water? I am trying to plan accordingly because our ship leaves at arrives at 7 AM (but I have read there is a immigration process to go thru and I don't know how long that takes) and the ship leaves at 4 PM.

[C&F]

Chesneygirl,

If your ship goes to Puerto Rico first, you will not have to go through customs in St. Thomas. At least that's how it was last year.

I'd say you will be travelling each way (if you take the Red Hook way) about 60 to 90 minutes each way. If there are alot of ships in the port, you may want to go from Charlotte Amalie. This ferry is closer to Crown Bay. The ferry ride is longer, but the cab ride is shorter, thus less traffic to get caught in. We did it from Red Hook last year, but I may try it from Charlotte Amalie this year.

 

http://www.usvitourism.vi/en/stjohn/sj_Travel_Transportation.html

 

This is a good link with ferry times and other useful info. Hope it helps.

Freddie

[4cats4me]

Definitely plan on a good 90 minutes each way at a minimum.

We were lucky because our ship got in at 8 a.m. -- we actually

cleared immigration at 7:45 -- no, I think we got in at 7 a.m., but we

were told 8 a.m. was the earliest we'd be able to disembark. At any

rate we were off the ship at 8:10. We were on Caribe deck, so they

gave us a time of 9:30 a.m. -- well, I ignored that and simply proceeded

through and they gave us a tender to get off the ship immediately.

 

Our ship did not depart until 6 p.m., however, so we had plenty of time.

We ran off the ship, caught a taxi to Red hook; they will wait to fill

up the taxi with 10 people. We were the 7th and 8th. Didn't take long,

then at least a 25-minute ride to Redhook. Also, there can be a long

line to purchase ferry tickets each way, so buy the round trip ferry

ticket to save yourself the hassle of having to stand in yet another

long line once you leave from St. John in the afternoon.

 

Anyway, then we waited for 15, 20 minutes until we caught the 9a.m.

ferry and from there it was a 15-minute ride.

From there it was another taxicab ride of 10 or 15 minutes to

Trunk, and Cinnamon was the very next stop over...

 

The afternoon gets more crowded, and remember, they like to

FILL UP the tram taxi before it departs, so give yourself plenty of

time.

We arrived at Trunk Bay by 9:20 a.m. and we decided to leave at

1 p.m. to catch the 2 p.m. ferry. The traffic was fine once back

at Redhook, we sailed along the road pretty good until we dropped

down into Havensite where it was gridlock, so we waited about

15 minutes to go half a mile. I can't even imagine how long

it might have taken to get to Crown Bay, so if one has to be

back on the ship by 3:30 pm. for a 4:00 departure, one

should either consider taking the Charlotte Amalie ferry back instead

of the Redhook OR leaving plenty of time for the return, more like 2.5

hours, just to play it safe.

[Chesneygirl]

Thanks for all your great information and tips! This will be our first time visiting the islands and this thread is a huge help to us.

 

Our ship does go to San Juan first....so that is very good to know that we will not have to go thru immigration again in St Thomas.

 

Just another question, if I understand this correctly, it would take us approximately 90 minutes to get from Crown Bay to Cruz Bay, ST John's by taking a ferry from Red Hook.

 

Approximately how long would it take to go from Crown Bay to Cruz Bay (land and water) by taking the ferry from Charlotte Amalie?

 

The only thing that makes me a little nervous about going from CA is that the waters are supposedly very rough? Are they any rougher then going from RH?

 

And lastly, because we are not spending much time on ST Thomas would the ride from Crown Bay to Red Hook give us the opportunity to see and get a feel for ST Thomas?

 

We would love to be able to spend some time on both islands but the ships schedule unfortunately does not allow us to do both.

 

Sorry that's more then one question! :p

[SCUBA Mark]

332 days ~ 86 countries ~ 29 cruises ~ 16 ships ~ 10 years ~ 6 continents ~ 4 cruise lines

 

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[C&F]

Just another question, if I understand this correctly, it would take us approximately 90 minutes to get from Crown Bay to Cruz Bay, ST John's by taking a ferry from Red Hook.

 

Yes it should be an average of 90 minutes from getting off the ship at Crown Bay and stepping off the ferry onto St. John.

 

Approximately how long would it take to go from Crown Bay to Cruz Bay (land and water) by taking the ferry from Charlotte Amalie?

 

I have not done this, but may do it this year. I have heard its about the same, but once again there is no traffic in the water, BUT the ferry from Charlotte Amalie is only every 2 hours as opposed to Red Hook where it is every hour.

 

 

The only thing that makes me a little nervous about going from CA is that the waters are supposedly very rough? Are they any rougher then going from RH?

 

It's really the same set of island chains and inlets, so I don't think it would be too much rougher, if any. Someone else may know better.

 

And lastly, because we are not spending much time on ST Thomas would the ride from Crown Bay to Red Hook give us the opportunity to see and get a feel for ST Thomas?

 

You do get to see a bit of the island. Our taxi last year we were mostly inside the island as opposed to coastline, until we got closer to Red Hook. You will however see interesting sights.

 

We would love to be able to spend some time on both islands but the ships schedule unfortunately does not allow us to do both.

 

Another hour or 2 would be nice. Considering the distance from St. Thomas to Grand Turk can be done pretty quickly and our ship doesn't get to Grand Turk until 1:00pm, this does seem possible, but who knows?

 

Sorry that's more then one question! :p

 

 

Hope this helps.

[mnnjcouple]

Just got back from a Princess cruise. We docked at Crown Bay at about 7am. You do have to go through a little immigration process but it was essentially doing a walk-through at a club showing your passport and getting a disembark pass. Long line so get to the area early! We were able to take a taxi by 7:20am, got to Red Hook by 7:50am and easily made the 8am ferry (which left on time!) and got to Cruz Bay by 8:30am.

 

On the way back, we took the 3pm ferry back to Red Hook, got back to Red Hook by 3:30pm, and took a taxi back to Crown Bay. We were back by 4:15 or 4:20pm (at least an hour to shop around at the little stores at Crown Bay before "all aboard" at 5:30pm). Traffic was exceptionally bad coming back from Red Hook to Crown Bay due to a holiday carnival so your commute back may be shorter.

 

Have fun! We miss it already!