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St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands


tentimesodds

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It has been a very very long time since I was on St. John Island, but there used to be a place called Red Beard's that had great hamburgers. There was also another restaurant in Cruz Bay, forget the name, but it had a little stream running through the inside of the restaurant - food was also excellent at the time. You might try to get a hold of a cruising guide for Virgin Islands. They usually find a lot of the off the beaten track places. Have a good trip!

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Going to St. John in April for my honeymoon. Have incredibly generous parents, so am staying at Caneel Bay, but have little cash left over for food/drinks. Any hidden gems or beach bars worth checking out? Thanks

Grab a burger at Skinny Legs near Coral Bay. Woody's is a bit of a pit, but you gotta check it out -- $1 beers. Also, it has been a couple of years, but I liked Morgan's Mango. Woody's and Morgan's Mango are both in the Cruz Bay area.

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Going to St. John in April for my honeymoon. Have incredibly generous parents, so am staying at Caneel Bay, but have little cash left over for food/drinks. Any hidden gems or beach bars worth checking out? Thanks

Check out La Plancha Del Mar. I was just there this past July for my own wedding (our rehearsal dinner was there), and 3 great guys run the place - Mike, Jonathan and Jason. Really good food, not expensive, and just really friendly folks. Its in the Marketplace so you can also get any groceries and booze downstairs as well.

Grotto's deli was a good stop on the way to the beach from Cruz bay. Just sandwiches and breakfast food, and not expensive.

Sogo's was excellent for island food - lots of conch and whatnot, and an excellent goat stew. Also in Cruz Bay.

Head down to the Beach Bar in Cruz Bay for excellent drinks. We spent many a drunken night down there, sitting on the beach and sipping on dark and stormys.

Definitely head out to Skinny Legs on the other side of the island. Its a total DIVE, but has that whole beach bar theme down real good. I think Tourist Trap is out there too, which is just good diner style food.

La Tapas is good for a special occasion. The location isn't GREAT (right next to Woody's) but excellent tapas, and a little pricey.

I used this website as my bible when I was there:

http://www.virgin-islands-on-line.com/sj/

Excellent information on what to do in St. John, especially within their forums. Have fun out there - we loved it and make sure you get out from Caneel Bay! St. John is the perfect island to explore!

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Just returned from the Virgin Islands, and on St. John, Ms. Lucy's is an island institution. Its on the eastern side of the island, so you will need a car to get there, and they don't open for dinner until 6 pm. We mostly enjoyed sitting on the patio there, but unfortunately the mosquitoes were out in full force, and by the time we left, I had about 50 bites on each arm (seriously, it looked like I had the chicken pox or something). The conch fritters were good, and the fried fish platter included several island specialties including an okra corn bread called fungi ("foon-gee"). My husband said the paella was nothing special.

On St. Thomas, we found two very nice restaurants. One was Craig and Sally's. We started with the salmon mousse, and then I had the pork tenderloin scallopini and my husband had the duck breast. I'm not a big fan of duck, but this one was very tender and moist. It may have been brined. The wine list is also really good, but don't expect too much help choosing a wine (from the owner, "They're all good wines." Hmm.). The other restaurant that I would recommend is called Paulette's Patio, which is the sister restaurant to Herve, supposedly the best restaurant on the island. On the day we went, Paulette's was closed, but the owner let us dine in Herve and order off the Paulette's menu.

Although the restaurants were DC-caliber in price, one thing that helps is that there is no sales tax. So, for a nice meal, you really are saving quite a bit of money. Also, I think the reason why the Herve owner was so accommodating was that this winter has been terribly slow for tourism there in islands. We heard over and over again at various establishments how terrible business has been because of the economy. The Virgin Islands are pretty pricey in terms of vacation destinations, even for modest restaurants and accommodations.

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Just returned from the Virgin Islands, and on St. John, Ms. Lucy's is an island institution. Its on the eastern side of the island, so you will need a car to get there, and they don't open for dinner until 6 pm. We mostly enjoyed sitting on the patio there, but unfortunately the mosquitoes were out in full force, and by the time we left, I had about 50 bites on each arm (seriously, it looked like I had the chicken pox or something). The conch fritters were good, and the fried fish platter included several island specialties including an okra corn bread called fungi ("foon-gee"). My husband said the paella was nothing special.

Was there anything good in Cruz Bay? We aren't going to have a car but are staying at Caneel Bay and figure we'll be in Cruz Bay a lot.

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Was there anything good in Cruz Bay? We aren't going to have a car but are staying at Caneel Bay and figure we'll be in Cruz Bay a lot.

We didn't spend much time in Cruz Bay, and the only meal we had there consisted of hamburgers from a stand (which we promptly took to the beach for a picnic...way cheaper than concession food). My guess is that Caneel Bay certainly has its share of restaurants in the resort.

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Was there anything good in Cruz Bay? We aren't going to have a car but are staying at Caneel Bay and figure we'll be in Cruz Bay a lot.

Check out my post above - all those places are in Cruz Bay (except Skinny Legs). I've eaten at Caneel Bay once and it was standard American food - expensive, but fine. I think I had a burger. The big draw at Caneel Bay, besides the resort itself, is the snorkeling. When you head down to the beach, snorkel to the right along the beach and you'll see some great stuff. Just don't snorkel to the left or the ferry may run over you. (I almost lost my wife of 1 day that way!)

I would recommend that you rent a jeep though to see the rest of the island. There's so much to see, especially the beaches along the north and it is just so much easier with a jeep so you can go at your own pace and own schedule.

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I would recommend that you rent a jeep though to see the rest of the island. There's so much to see, especially the beaches along the north and it is just so much easier with a jeep so you can go at your own pace and own schedule.

I concur on the jeep rental. You should take it out to Coral Bay (hit Skinny Legs) and then go up Ram's Head trail and Salt Pond Bay. Another option is to pack a lunch and rent a small dinghy at Caneel Bay and take it to several beaches -- Hawksnest (you may already have access from Caneel), Trunk, Cinnamon, and Maho. If you don't like boats, you can also access all of the aforementioned beaches (except for Hawksnest) via jeep. There's a decent grocery store near Cruz Bay where you can pick up lunch supplies. Caneel Bay also would pack you lunch.

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Taking the Legendary Blues Cruise in January and hoping to get some down home decent island food on our stops. We will spend one day in Antigua and one on St. John. Any suggestions? We will be beaching and touring, so fine dining is not important - fine tasting is!

Go to the Banana Deck in Cruz Bay, if it is open (it is somewhat of a roll of the dice, but no worries because you can walk from one side of Cruz Bay to the other in 10 minutes). Order the Shrimp Curry or Shrimp & Scallop Fettucini Alfredo, and a cold one (or three). Sit back, relax, try to catch an earful from Wayne the bartender at the Blue Iguana mexican place next door, and enjoy the fact that you are in the world's most perfect place.

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Go to the Banana Deck in Cruz Bay, if it is open (it is somewhat of a roll of the dice, but no worries because you can walk from one side of Cruz Bay to the other in 10 minutes). Order the Shrimp Curry or Shrimp & Scallop Fettucini Alfredo, and a cold one (or three). Sit back, relax, try to catch an earful from Wayne the bartender at the Blue Iguana mexican place next door, and enjoy the fact that you are in the world's most perfect place.

Sounds pretty appealing!

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Sounds pretty appealing!

It is not a "nice place", but the majority of the floor is an outdoor deck and the food was great. Definitely have a drink at Woody's, but don't eat there. Same with the Beach Bar. We stayed at Caneel Bay which had decent bar food, but very expensive. Didn't try the fancy restaurants there. The Lime Inn (in Cruz Bay) was also fun.

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We spent a day in St. John, renting a jeep and snorkeling at various locations.  I have to say that Trunk Bay's snorkel trail is really worth the visit through the crowds, but we also enjoyed snorkeling at various other points and found Maho Bay to be a lovely beach that was much less crowded.  The walk out to Lienster Bay was a nice hike, although the beach there was pretty small and due to the mooring buoys, had a fair amount of people for the beach.

We had a really enjoyable lunch at Aqua Bistro at Coral Bay.  Their dinner menu looked really good with multiples types of fresh fish you could get done in different sauces.  I had their fresh catch sandwich which was Wahoo that day.  It was really good done perfectly as I requested with a homemade bun.  The fries were made better with the wonderful lime hot sauce mixed with ketchup.  West Indies brand bottled in St. John (we bought a bottle, should have bought more, but would have had to carry them in my backpack.)  MK had a jerk chicken sandwich that he thought was really good and had really nice spice to it.  It appeared to be less of the throw in the fryer type place, we really liked it.

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Going to St. John in April for my honeymoon. Have incredibly generous parents, so am staying at Caneel Bay, but have little cash left over for food/drinks. Any hidden gems or beach bars worth checking out? Thanks

So I'm responding to my message from 5 years ago as my wife and I will be returning to Caneel Bay for our 5 year anniversary in a couple of months.  Looks like very little traffic about St. John since 2010, but am curious if anyone has been there in the past couple of years and has any recommendations.  We fortunately have a little more cash left over after working/saving for 5 years, though we are still not fine dining people...

We plan to have dinner at Zozo's at Caneel Bay and a couple of places we loved from our first trip (the Banana Deck and possibly the Lime Inn) but a little Internet searching shows me that there's been a good amount of turnover in the Cruz Bay restaurants in 5 years.  Anyone been lately?

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So I'm responding to my message from 5 years ago as my wife and I will be returning to Caneel Bay for our 5 year anniversary in a couple of months.  Looks like very little traffic about St. John since 2010, but am curious if anyone has been there in the past couple of years and has any recommendations.  We fortunately have a little more cash left over after working/saving for 5 years, though we are still not fine dining people...

We plan to have dinner at Zozo's at Caneel Bay and a couple of places we loved from our first trip (the Banana Deck and possibly the Lime Inn) but a little Internet searching shows me that there's been a good amount of turnover in the Cruz Bay restaurants in 5 years.  Anyone been lately?

Sorry to bump my own post, but anyone been in the last few years?

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