Thanks for all the thoughts everyone. We just returned late last night. Still had a great vacation, of course, didn't stress too much about what JetBue cost us. Now that I am back I will start looking at options to try to get some restitution from them. Also, some naievete on my part in the panic to try to salvage our vacation cost me another ~thousand, and almost more....I'll explain below.
After the JetBlue cancellation on the 14th, we scrambled and got 6 one way tickets on Delta from BWI - STT for the next day (Good Friday)....at a cost of about $5K. It was either that or accept the JetBlue plan to re-book us to SJU 2 days later, then lose another 2 days so that InterCaribbean could get us from SJU to EIS, and eat the lost charter time. So no choice, really.
As I mentioned above I tried to purchase tickets online for the 5 pm STT-Roadtown ferry for that evening but it showed as sold out. At the suggestion of folks on here, pursued water taxi options and even Island AIr without success. One water taxi told us that Customs in BVI would be closed after 3 pm so we would not be able to get there. So (this is where I went wrong again) booked 6 Saturday morning Fast Ferry tickets and booked a (cheap) Air BnB in STT for overnight Friday.
We landed at STT on time at about 4 pm and after talking to some others and some taxi drivers decided to head straight to the CA ferry dock anyway. Showed up and they were letting people on the ferry anyway. Since we had a boat waiting for us at the Conch Charters dock, decided to eat the AirBnB cost and Saturday morning ferry cost too just to get there that night. Tough to eat that additional $900 or so but after this ordeal we just wanted to get there. the AirBnB was nice enough to refund at least some of the fees.
Lesson learned is that for the Ferries "Sold out" on the website doesn't really mean that (first time I have ever done the STT to Road Town ferry method, maybe most of you know this already).
After that the trip was great. Conch Charters people were fantastic - Ian even offered us to extend our charter one day at no additional cost. We couldn't accept because of what it would cost in airline change fees in addition to school and work obligations. But that's a great gesture.
Highlights were the Baths, Saba, the boat's awesome condition amenities, the Conch people, full moon party, Flash of Beauty, Sid's Pomato Point, the Indians, Marina Cay, bushwhackers, the amazing BVI locals
Lowlights - Aside from JetBlew......the Astrea 42 has great amenities, super comfortable, but doesn't handle well at all. Bad rudder design. Also the Chartplotter went black repeatedly. including right exactly as I entered Anegada channel LOL! But we worked around it pretty well. Not real impressed with EZ Eddie taxi on JVD. But those were minor things.
If I can I will post some more details of the trip later. Again, thanks for the concerns and the help!
Last edited by Skindeep; 04/25/2022 10:26 AM.
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