Island Girl day sail with sea scooters?

[toad2]

Full day is $125 per person plus tip.

 

This is the first I've heard about a tip..Guess I thought $125 was enough. How much of a tip do you give them? Is this customary?

 

We gave a $55 tip for the 6 of us for the half day sail. Since I had my son's college friends with us, and college kids never have money, it was up to me to leave the tip. I have read where some of these day sails request a 15 to 20% tip.

[fufanu]

As far as tipping is concerned, YES it is customary! You tip the same as for any other service profession 15%-20% more if the service was above and beyond. The Mate relies on tips for most if not all of their pay. Same as the wait staff at a restaurant except the difference is the mate gets in the water with you and shows you things you might not have seen on your own, and the mate is trained to help save your life in the event of an emergency as well as takes care of all your onboard requests. You probably wouldn't go to a restaurant and not tip, so please take care of the crew. :)

 

Thanks from a former mate

[deb63]

Those that have sailed on Island Girl - how many "crew" are on the boat usually? Do you tip each one individually? Or is it okay to tip one person (like the captain) and it gets shared?

 

Thanks for any information!

[Name Of The Game]

These type of daysails only carry 4-6 people and don't need a big crew. There will be the captain and one crew hand. Not sure what the proper procedure is but we gave $5.00 to the crew hand and about $15.00 to the captain, who really was more hands on.

[ItsAllAboutTheSass]

We sailed on the Island Girl in Sept 08, and are booked again in Oct 09. We had a great time in Sept. While you may be able to find a 1/2 day sail cheaper than $75, Mike is the only one that I found that will pick you up at the ship. This and the scooters are the selling point to me. Communication is quick and timely with Mike. The only draw back is that I don't want to send a check to STT, and I hate paypal. I bit the bullet and used paypal to pay the deposit. I will probably pay the remainder before we go so that I don't have to worry about it. Last Sept, we gave Mike a tip of $30 and his mate $20. Best trip we ever had.

[West Coast]

We went in Dec 2007 and it was just the two of us. We had a great time!

This year, mys sister and her son are coming along so we booked with Island Girl again. Hopefully it will just be the 4 of us this time as well!

 

The folks are friendly, the sail boat is great and the sights (and scooter) are fantastic :)

[PrettyMama]

sorry to drag up an old thread, hope this is ok! I am wondering about the Island Girl. I was about to book when I was informed that they no longer have the sea scooters (they haven't updated the website yet).

 

I was thinking of doing an all day as it sounded so amazing. Now I'm wondering if we should do just half day or not at all. Our group has 3 not so strong swimmers so the sea scooters were a huge selling point. We have snorkeled in the past in the Bahamas and Turks & Caicos and these three (grandma and 2 kids) get worn out pretty quickly even in very calm waters.

 

So if you have sailed on Island Girl, would you do it again without the sea scooters? Was that a critical part of the experience?

[topspot]

We did Island Girl in '09 and then again this summer, both time half day. When we finished I said to my DD if we ever come back to St. Thomas, I want to do this for a full day. With the fins, all you really do is kick. There isn't lots of swimming involved. They do have "noodles" if your weaker swimmers want something to hang onto. This time Heather was our guide. She came into the water with us, pointed things out to us. She also kept a head count and stayed in the water with us.

[OC PAT]

I am so looking forward to this sail. Since it was just the two of us we can only book 1/2. If another couple signs up then he will let us do a full day. I am hoping that will happen. He said the scooters were very difficult to maintain and the parts were costly and hard to get so he had to stop using them. I was disappointed but the fact they they pick you up at the dock is a real bonus. Plus it is a small boat with few people. Love the romance in that. I'm hoping they still do the cd. By the way my dh is not a swimmer at all so we use a safety vest on him and he can swim/snorkel w/o any difficulty. I am sure they will have those vest.

 

Love to hear from anyone who has used this tour, recently. Thank you for bringing this old thread back up. I missed it in my research and enjoyed reading the posts. Now I do not know how to tip. Do we tip just the mate or the captain as well?

[topspot]

Confirm that he will pick you up at the dock. The first time when we docked at Crown Bay, and we were the only ones on the daysail, he picked us up at the dock. This pas time we were in Crown Bay and we had to take a taxi to the "vendor 'area" it was a very short ride ($4.00), and he picked us up here. There was a family of 4 that were on this sail with us. They docked at Havensight and he picked them up. The pick up site was very close to Havensight. I didn't know I was going to have to take the cab until a few days before our cruise. I was trying to avoid a cab ride as we had a horrible cab experience in St. Thomas on a previous visit. It is such a short ride that it wasn't an issue.

[OC PAT]

He's picking us up at Havensight right next to the ship. I will confirm again in December. Thanks topspot.

[debt]

I booked Island Girl today for a half day AM sail on Nov 2, 2011. As stated here earlier, there is a maximum of 6 people per sailing. If anyone is interested for this day, there are 4 spots open! :) it's a nice alternative to 5 ships and 17263 other cruisers!