TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums US VI and Puerto Rico Lodging options (including boats) for USVI?

Anyone have any suggestions on lodging options (looking July 24th-31st roughly) in USVI - Preferably St. John, St. Thomas would be fine too. Or charter boat options?

Our boat is in the BVI but it is unlikely we're going to have my son's passport in time for our trip. And in addition I forgot to renew our coast guard cert and just submitted that the other day. Our existing expired end of June so without us getting lucky and getting that in time, we won't even be able to have our boat moved over. So looking at options we're considering land options or even boat based options if they are similar in cost. Availability seems to be our biggest issue though as I've already checked CYOA and it doesn't look good.

So looking for any suggestions on might have. If it was just my wife, son and I on the trip, we'd just reschedule but my sister is going with us. She's an ICU nurse in Atlanta and getting off this much time isn't easy and she really needs the getaway! Thanks in advance!

USVI continues to have very large numbers of visitors as restrictions and protocols in/out are relatively easy for US citizens traveling from the mainland. It may be very difficult to find lodging, and even more difficult finding rental vehicles. All my go to places on St John are booked (did a quick search). Try this site: https://stjohn-villarentals.com/ White Bay Villas has a nice new villa on St. Thomas, Villa Solaire, but it is booked for your dates.

For boats - CYOA is the best. I would stay away from Dream Yacht - lots of horror stories on the USVI Cruisers FB page. Moorings has quite a few boats at the base at Yacht Haven Grande but I am not a Leopard fan so haven’t looked into things there.

Thanks. Looks like moorings has no availability. I've reached out to Virgin Island Yacht Charters and Tropical Yachts (two I found through searching). The latter has a couple options. The other is checking on a boat that hasn't been paid in full yet. We're still crossing our fingers we get lucky and things come through for us. Kicking myself for not expediting the passport originally, no idea what I was thinking - actually I guess I wasn't thinking.. but the woman who helped us at the post office thought we'd be fine too so I didn't question it. I called once it was showing in the system to expedite though and reached out to our senator. We'll see...

Then I realized I never renewed our coast guard paperwork which expired June 30th and it sounds like that prevents our boat from leaving the BVI to come to the USVI. Anyone have experience moving a boat with expired paperwork with the renewal in process?

Have you tried contacting your senator’s office regarding the passport? I have heard they can get things turned in a matter of days.

Yes, I did today, thanks!

Matt, if you are looking at St John in 2 weeks? first thing I would check is availability of vehicle rentals. With a vehicle your villa options open up, without you're tied to taxi's and might want to be closer to Cruz Bay?.

Thanks, didn't even think of checking that yet. I think we're likely going to end up on a boat. Frustrating since ours is right there in the BVI but the cost would be about the same to be on land and we'd prefer being on a boat. On the plus side it looks like we'd have a genset with AC

Look for a water and ice maker option as well!

I'd love to have the luxury of looking for any specifics at this point, but the options are quite limited.

Take a countertop ice maker with you if the boat doesn’t have one. Ice is hard to come by around St John. Lots of gallons of water too if no water maker. We were without a water maker for three days in Feb. in USVI until a chase boat finally appeared and it was no picnic.

Thanks. I imagine with only 4 of us on a boat meant for nearly double we'll probably do ok with water at least. We've come over to St. John from the BVI before and never had an issue with either and have stayed multiple nights. Guess we'll try to keep a close eye on it if we don't have a water maker. And even if we do just in case something goes wrong. I'll look to see if whatever we end up on has an ice maker.

We had 4 on a Lagoon 450 - the heads were freshwater flush..........

oh... yeah freshwater flush would change a lot!

I just want to thank everyone that's chimed in. We're waiting to hear back on a couple boat options but have also started looking at St. Croix and there are some options there that will work for us.