Allure to St. John Review

We were on the Allure July 20 - 27. I will probably do a couple of reviews based upon specific excursions and ship venues.

This one is about docking at Crown Bay and taking the RCI excursion to St. John.

I am doing this one first because I did a lot of research before this excursion, and I found very little about this on CC, and wanted to provide my experience with this excursion.

So, let's get started. First, the ship docks at Crown bay, not Havensight. To me, this was a big plus. We were the only ship docked there, whereas Havensight had three in port that day.

Here we are coming into Crown Bay. We will dock around the corner towards the left:

Here we are docking, backing in, docking to the pier port side:

We are docked, and in search of our ferry:

Straight ahead is where all the excursion boats pick up their passengers:

We are now waiting for our ferry to arrive:

No, this is not our ferry:

Great that you are willing to do this...it is an area that a lot of people ask about and it's hard to find info about it!

This is our ferry:

We are now on the ferry. Suggestion, sit forward, as there is a speaker there, and there is a great narration about the USVI during the trip over. More about that later.

Here is another RCI excursion barge, the Kon Tiki:

Off we go:

A bit about the ferry ride. The weather we had every day was perfect, however, it was a bit windy. Therefore, somewhat of a rough ride, to be expected. Really not a big deal.

Winds kind of always blow from St. John towards St. Thomas, so, heading over I can tell you those sitting on the outside lower deck port side got sprayed quite a bit. Matter of fact, sitting up top, on occasion, spray would hit there a couple of times.

And here is Havensight:

thank you for the review and the pictures. :):)

Notice the speaker bottom right.

Interesting story about this place. Supposedly John Ehrlichman of WaterGate infamy (remember that Nixzon guy) developed this complex.

Other boats on the way to St. John:

Interesting note about this place. It is owned by the ex Shah of Iran's wife, who still lives there:

Lots of islands out there:

Land ho. We are coming into the dock. NOTE - We did not dock at the same place that the Red Hook ferry docks. This dock was called "The Creek". More about that later.

We dock straight ahead. See the big blue building to the right, keep that in mind, more about that later.

This one is looking out from where we are docked, the way out going back to St. Thomas:

All in all, everyone enjoyed the ferry ride. Quite a lot to see, and good narration going over. One of the more interesting stories was about Timothy Leary's place on St. Thomas. He was experimenting with LDS and dolphins, authorities found out about it, booted him off the island, and supposedly were going to charge him. However, it came to light that he was in cahoots with the CIA in this program.

Next up, we get to Trunk Bay.

This is an interesting thread. We have always gone over to St. John on our own. How much did the excursion cost and how long did the trip take to go over? I have to say this is one of the few times I've heard someone say they were glad to be docked at Crown Bay instead of Havensight!

This is an interesting thread. We have always gone over to St. John on our own. How much did the excursion cost and how long did the trip take to go over? I have to say this is one of the few times I've heard someone say they were glad to be docked at Crown Bay instead of Havensight!

The excursion cost $40 which included the ferry ride only.

We have done the Havensight to Red Hook taxi ride, and NEVER again. Hated that ride, and personally, I hate the cattle car open air taxis where they cram 20 people into.

At Crown Bay, we walked off the ship, and right to the ferry, no wait for a taxi to fill up and drive to the ferry.

I would say the ferry ride was somewhere 30 to 40 minutes.

As for Havensight, been there a number of times. One thing I will NEVER do on a tropical island is shop, so, Havensight is not my cup of tea.

I look to sail, snorkel, beach, and beers.

Finally, we get to the beach.

We put up the umbrella. In one minute, the umbrella looks like it went through the Axe Men's tree shredding machine.

Notice all the nice beach chairs and umbrellas on the beach.

Some more pix of Trunk Bay:

Finally, we get to the beach. We put up the umbrella. In one minute, the umbrella looks like it went through the Axe Men's tree shredding machine.

Great review. Can't wait to find out about the umbrella deposit!

OK, we got to Trunk Bay, did some swimming, very nice.

Time to head back, find a bar or restaurant, have some drinks and food.

Great review. Can't wait to find out about the umbrella deposit!

No problem returning the items. I think they were happy to see us leave.

This is a great review and we are going to St John in November. Thanks for all the information :)