St. Thomas- RC tour vs. Sunny Liston Tour?

[cransplash]

BF and I will be in St. Thomas on the Oasis in early December. We initially booked/put a deposit down for Sunny Liston's tour of St. Thomas, but so many people have recommended us to visit St. John.

 

We have never been to St. Thomas or St. John, so not sure what we should do. The deposit we put down for Sunny Liston was just $10pp ($40pp total), so not a big deal to lose it. The Sunny Liston tour gets great reviews on tripadvisor too, but now I think I just really want to see what St. John is all about! If we do St John, we will most likely do what has been recommended on this board- RC's Guided Shopping Tour (6 hours). That way, we have a guaranteed ferry to/back from St. John and not have to worry about HOW to do it. I also like that we can mingle on our own as well.

 

L&G- What do you think we should do? Stick with Sunny Liston (St. Thomas), or do the RC excursion (St. John)?

[Ms411]

If you're interested in time at a beautiful beach, you should go to St John.

 

If you want to see the island, AND have time at a beautiful beach, take the tour.

 

IMO, the long ferry ride to St John gets boring after a while, and then you have to do it again to get back to STT. But I have ADD.:D

[blue_water]

St John (STJ) is a beautiful island and does have much nicer beaches than St Thomas. I would not take the tour on STJ, but rather taxi on your own to the Red Hook ferry terminal and ferry from there to Cruz Bay. Then just grab a taxi to one of the beaches. Much better than being in a larger tour group, and the Red Hook ferry is a nicer ride, just 15 - 20 minutes across. The total cost is about $40 (RT taxi on STT = $18, RT ferry = $6, and RT taxi on STJ = $10 or thereabouts. You can also take a mini-tour of STJ before being dropped at the beach, the drivers there offer that option before they drop folks at the beach at the beginning of the tour.

 

There is excellent shopping right in Cruz Bay, the Mongoose shops to the left (north) of the dock and some nice shops right near the dock as well as the Beach Bar. Several jewelry stores in Criz Bay, if you're interested in a Hook or other island bracelet St John Bracelet Co. has excellent craftmanship and can custom make one for you while you shop or beach. Just a thought in case you want to shop before beaching.

[Paintbum]

Maybe it was just the driver we got, but we had a bad experience with this tour and so did some friends of ours. For our friends, they were dropped off downtown and told they would be back at a certain time to pick them up and they never returned. Luckily another tour company picked them up. I heard he returned their money.

In our case, they were late picking us up to complete the tour after dropping us off downtown. Going up to the mountain top was fine, singing etc. On the way back no singing and the driver took 2 hrs. and 15 mins. getting us back to the ship because he took the long way thru traffic and took the time to go by and pick his son up from school while we sat and waited. We barely made it back to our ship in time. Not a good experience.

From others since, I have heard you may not get picked up at all by him and you are left waiting or he will give your names to another company if you have booked with him in advance!