Favorite Vacation

Thought of the Day… “A vacation is like love – anticipated with pleasure, experienced with discomfort, and remembered with nostalgia.” -Author Unknown

Was recently asked, “What has been one of your favorite vacations ever?”. Without even thinking my response was “St. John, US Virgin Islands”… Although this was only one stop on a fabulous cruise.

In December 2000, The Offspring, Hubby and I went on an Eastern Caribbean cruise. We went to San Juan, Puerto Rico; St. Croix, USVI and St. Thomas, USVI…

“Wait!” you exclaimed. “You said, ‘St. John, USVI’ but that’s not where your cruise went.”

You are correct… the cruise didn’t go to St. John, but WE did. Hubby and I had been on a cruise to the Eastern Caribbean in December 1993 had been to St. Thomas. Although St. Thomas is beautiful, we’d been there. We’d swam with sea turtles in Turtle Bay. It was great, but we’d heard that St. John had a GREAT beach place to go, so we took a taxi and boat to get from St. Thomas to St. John. It was SOOOO worth it! (Although we had to time our trip so we could get back to our ship before it left port.)

The cruise was actually one of the best vacations I have been on. So before I go into details about St. John, let me share some of our experiences on the cruise. The Offspring had never experienced a cruise before. She was excited. We flew from the Pacific Northwest to Miami, Florida.

As we were heading to San Juan, she wanted to take photos on deck…

…and she took this one of me (WOW – that was a LONG time ago). (Note: she posed me)

The Offspring L-O-V-E-D the water slide! I don’t even remember how many times she trekked up to the top, waited in line and then took the plunge.

After a long day of sliding… it’s time to relax in the Hot Tub…

And then there was St. John… If you have never been… add it to your list of “Must See Places”!!!

The really awesome thing is that in 1956 Lawrence Rockefeller donated 5000 acres of land on St. John to the National Park Service. MOST of the island is a US National Park!!

Everything inside the green line is The Virgin Islands National Park. Everything inside the blue line is Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument. We didn’t get to see the Reef. It was made a National Monument in 2001 and was on the other side of the island.

Around this island, out in the deep turquoise water on the floor of the ocean the National Park Service has put signs that was an underwater trail to lead you on an adventure and explanations of the sea life. It was SO COOL!

Ahhhhhh…. the memories…. (Thanks for bearing with me while I reminisced…)