TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands water taxi to Tortola

We are heading down next Friday for a week of sailing and it's our first charter. We've been to the BVI twice before. We are flying into STT and are looking for options to get to Road Town. Does anyone have any affordable options other than the ferries? We are anxious to arrive and start provisioning and don't want to have to worry about ferry delays.

We used Ocean Dreams with Captain Christopher. It definitely wasn't cheap but for us it was SO worth it. We will definitely do it again, only next time we will do it both ways. This time we took the ferry on the way home and missed the water taxi the whole time.

By the way, he is the only one who can take you all the way to your boat in Road Town.

the ferries are not that bad, we have never not gotten to Tortola. Water taxis are not what they use to be. They can only drop you off at West End.

Ocean Dreams is the only water taxi that can check you in at West End and then continue on to take you right to your boat. I'm not sure why he is allowed to do that but it was great.

As I understand the Taxi-Association had a problem with the Water-taxis now they have to drop off their passengers in West-End from where they have to continue by taxi. So not sure why your captain was able to go all the way.

Ocean Dreams most likely has a trade license to do business in the BVI. The companies that are based in the USVI and don't hold a BVI Trade license are not allowed to drop passengers at the charter docks because they would be conducting business in the BVI if they continue to work after they've left the customs dock.

What was approx cost for STT to West End?

We took the taxi from Red Hook ($90 cab with Kevin for 5 of us) to Road Town. The water taxi was $500 plus "customs fee" of $35 a person. We gave the captain a tip on top of that. So total it was $865 for 5 people. Sounds outrageous when I add it up but like I said, for us it was such a great start to our trip. If (when) we do another trip we will just add that to our overall budget because we enjoyed the convenience so much, especially because we had so many bags (first timers!) and three kids.

We have looked at water taxis before as well and were getting similar costs as Momx3. The water taxi estimates I was getting approach the same cost as a private charter flight.

We elected to use Fly BVI instead which cost us $750 for four people one way. You leave as soon as you get your luggage as your pilot takes you right to the plane and off you go to Beef Island. $12pp taxi from Beef to Roadtown and you are there in no time flat. Have gotten from STT to the boat in just over an hour from landing before. Also don't have to worry about customs line when you are the only plane arriving.

Just another option if you are going to splurge on something other than the public ferry, which is certainly the cheapest option.