St John

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nrichard

Guest
Can anyone who has recently traveled from St Thomas to St Martin on their own please tell me what the total costs are for taxi, ferry, entry to park? I want to see what the exact costs would be for 2 people/roundtrip. I am trying to measure it against the $48.00 per person cruise excursion.

Many people on this board have quoted prices, but it seems that everyone has a different total cost. Any help from recent cruisers would be very helpful to me. I would be taking the ferry from Red Hook and not Charlotte Amalie.

Thanks For Your Help
 
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seamom

Guest
I saw a thread debating this somewhere on C@........the final crunch came to be the time allowed on the excursion at Trunk Bay that made the biggest difference. I believe there was only 1.5 hours actually spent there whereas travelling by yourself not herded by large numbers, left much more.
 
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Polodad

Guest
Hi:
For what it's worth I was going thru the same thought process as we are on the Century 4/17. I could be wrong, but what I thought I saw was cab CA to Red Hook $6/p, Ferry Red Hook to St. John $7 pp, cab St. John landing to Trunk bay $3. That should total $16 x 2 round trip = $32 plus Park entrance $3 plus rental of snorkel equipt if you need it?
So, $35 plus snorkel rental vs $48 tour.

Additional factors. I think a tour is included on the shore excursion. I think you sail from Charlotte amalie instead of Red Hook. If you are on the excursion & it runs LATE THE SHIP WAITS FOR YOU.
For what it's worth my vote was on our own but my dear SIG felt strongly that for convenience & making it back to the ship she would prefer the tour. I didn't feel as strongly about it so I caved.
If you do it on your own you can better govern your own time. How's that? There is an extensive disussion of this exact topic at Cruise Critic.com
 
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JohnG

Guest
From my visit there 2/27/04:

We were on the pier at 8:20 and on the way in a taxi, $16 for two, to Red Hook. We caught the 9am ferry, $3 per person each way, to Cruz Bay on St John’s. The ride takes only 13 minutes. We took a taxi, $4 per person, from the pier to Trunk Bay, National Park ($4 per person admittance), arriving about 9:35. No crowds yet. There is in underwater snorkeling trail marked leading to an island where there was plenty of coral and plenty of fish. I really enjoyed it. The park also has lockers, showers, restrooms, and concessions, including equipment rental. We caught a taxi at 11:30 back to Cruz Bay and took the noon ferry back to St Thomas. We arrived back at the Havensight mall a little after 12:30 and had plenty of time to shop before returning to the ship by 2pm. People on the ship's tour had only 1 1/2 hours on the beach at Trunk Bay, and didn't get back to the ship until 2:30pm. We were sailing at 3pm. The only thing extra the tour gets, for a lot of additional cost, is a tour up to the top of the mountain to overlook Charlotte Amalie.

If our ship were not leaving so early, we would have spent a little longer on the beach, although it gets very crowded by 11am. We would then have spent a little time in Cruz Bay before taking a ferry back. The leave on the hour, every hour.



Post Edited (03-15-04 13:15)
 
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wdblake

Guest
We just got back from the summit and JohnG is right on the money as far as times and fares go. We stayed a little longer in trunk bay ourselves because our sail time was 5pm. We left at 2:30pm to avoid traffic getting back to the boat. St thomas does have heavy traffic at the usual peak times. Trunk Bay is gorgeous and probably the most beautiful beach I have ever seen!
 
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