US Virgin Islands 2025 Vacation - Day 1

Amanda and I are on the island of St. John, one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, for Garrett Frady’s marriage to Kayla Palmer. (Garrett is my sister’s step-son.). We left home yesterday to spend the night in Burlington, VT as we had a very early flight out of Burlington this morning.

We started our trip with dinner at Al’s French Frys, a classic diner in Burlington near our hotel and the airport. It’s a favorite spot of ours. When we got to the hotel, the airport conditioning in the room wasn’t working. Two techs spent about half an hour on it before giving up. We were transferred to a different room.

Our flights were both on time and uneventful. We traveled from Burlington to Atlanta where we had a short layover before traveling from Atlanta to the island of St. Thomas. St. John has no airport, so anyone going there must get there by boat. When we got the the airport we de-planed by stairs. They moved a stairway to the rear of the plane (where we were sitting) and we actually got off before most of the other passengers! We had a bit of a walk to the inside of the airport terminal building–we had to walk nearly around the entire building before we got to the entrance. When we walked in the first thing we experienced was a welcome counter with free shots of local rum. I knew this was going to be a special trip!

Never having been here before, we used a travel agent to book the trip. The travel agent was obviously not one that deals with VRBO and/or AirBnB and so we ended up at The Westin on St. John–a full service resort. The Westin has its own counter at the St. Thomas airport and we were shuttled from there to the St. Thomas Port Authority where we boarded a private ferry owned by the resort that took us to their private dock on St. John. As we got off the boat we were again greeted by staff who gave us rum drinks. (We had each had rum punch at the bar at the Port Authority.) A golf cart took us on a tour of the resort on our way to our room. No, not a room…a small suite. We have a bed, a full kitchen including a dishwasher and breakfast island and full-size fridge, a living area with a couch and a chair, a dining room table that seats 4, and a washer and dryer so we can do laundry if we want. We also have a balcony with a nice view of the hill across the bay, though we can’t see the bay itself. We are up on a hill above the main part of the resort.

After getting settled and unpacked, we called for a cart to take us back to the main lobby where we looked at the gift shop and the deli/convenience shop they have here. We also met with the concierge who gave us some information and advice. After that we took a taxi into town about a mile away where we ate at High Tide, a wharf-side outdoor restaurant in Cruz Bay. We picked a table for 2 at the railing right next to the beach where we had a perfect view of the looming sunset, which happened about 20 minutes after we got there. It was beautiful and amazing. We had coconut curry chicken which was delicious. High Tide serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I know we will be back before we leave!

We returned to the resort by taxi. Amanda caught a cart back up to the room. I walked the short distance to the local market to see about some snacks and toiletries. I walked back to the room. I changed and went to the small pool that is shared between our building and the one next door. I had the entire thing to myself. It had a little grotto/waterfall and a small raft. I floated there for almost half an hour and watched the moon rise over the palm trees on the hillside and did my best not to think about anything.

When I got back to the room Amanda and I watched the new episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds while she worked on her latest cartoon. Now I’m typing this. And now I’m going to bed!