US Virgin Islands News

Video: St. John at Festival time

Three new videos offering a tour of Cruz Bay have been posted on YouTube by StJohnJason. 

Jason Hubert told The Inquiring Iguana he's 22-years-old, just graduated college, and is now living on St. John. "I have loved St. John for as long as I can remember and have been reading your blog for quite some time now," he told the Iguana.

In one segment, it looks like Jason just got into an SUV, on the passenger side, started at the police station and drove through town starting with Woody’s, then down the one- way street that goes past the park, where you can see some of the booths and exhibits set up for this week of the Festival.

There’s also a ‘tour’ from Mongoose to the Dolphin Market which gives you a glimpse of the Roundabout construction. (Looks like the contractor did a fine job of resurfacing the road that was torn up along Boulon Center.)

Take the tours.  Click the links.

• Tour #1 Mongoose to Dolphin Market
• Tour #2 Woody's to the Park
• Tour #3 Park to Fish Trap

Oh No, Mr. Bill! They're organizing Coral Bay

Sounds like an oxymoron to say they’re bringing some order to Coral Bay.  Isn’t that the reason so many people love living there, where the living style is just barely out of the ‘70s.

 Well, the familiar, entertaining, sometimes illegible, hodgepodge of signs at the Coral bay Triangle has been removed.  Skinny's this way, Salt Pond that way, the Coral’s Trail Rides there, K2 Video to the left ... they’re gone.  It used to look like this. Photo by CptnKirk on the Virgin Islands On-Line forum where, of course, lots of people have some thoughts about how wise it is to make things in Coral Bay uniform.

In place of the old hand-made, multicolored, multi-fonted, multi-sized placards will be one large sign holder for local merchants to populate with their messages.

The Triangle land is owned by the Moravian Church, whose property manager decided that the previous mish-mash of signs was dangerous.  Hard to read sometimes, and therefore distracting for drivers and dangerous for people waiting for buses.

Free vacation on St. John

Here's how to win round trip airfare for a family of up to four, five nights at the Westin St. John Resort & Villas, daily breakfast, a free round of tennis, and a water sport for four.

Go to this Web site, enter the sweepstakes, and answer 10 questions about St. John.  Many of the questions are not St. John-specific, asking about things like Thatch Cay and Buck Island.  But, on the other hand, knowing Skinny Legs is a restaurant gives you at least one correct answer.

The trip is being sponsored by the newly-active and invigorated USVI Board of Tourism. Indagare.com, an upscale travel site is part of the promotion. 

One of the site's features, 'Cheat Sheet,' offers the Top 10 Things about St. John.  Sleeping, eating, and drinking are three of them.

A word of warning about Indagare, though.  You won't be able to see much unless you join the travel and information service which is targeted to "the world's most sophisticated travelers."  A basic membership is $250/year. 

The Inquiring Iguana managed to root around the site and see what they were saying about St. John, but then the Cookie Monster recognized he was doing that and put up a "join or else" wall. 

Chances are you can also look around free, for a while ... start here, the St. John section: http://www.indagare.com/destinations/154/departments/195.

The page to enter the island contest is http://www.indagare.com/sweepstakes/family_iq.

Like Letterman said, ‘It’s a Festival’

The Children’s Carnival Village opens today as part of the more-than-a-week-long St. John Festival. Rides and games for kids of all ages will be set up at the Creek, across from Nature’s Nook and where the car barges used to dock. 

Then tomorrow night, a pageant at the Sprauve School will crown Miss St. John.  Boat race in Cruz Bay harbor will be a highlight of Sunday’s activities.

Caneel hopes you’ll Flip

Caneel Bay is one of several Rosewood Hotels and Resorts properties where guests can have free use of the new high-definition version of the Flip camera, FlipUltra HD. 

“Whether filming their children diving into the ocean, a romantic moment over dinner, or a stunning sunset, guests are able to share these special vacation memories with their family and friends,” said Caneel Managing Director Nikolay Hotze. At the end of their stay, Caneel’s concierge will download guests’ videos to YouTube or burn the footage to a DVD as a souvenir to share with friends and family.

A Rosewood news release said guests will be given the cameras when they check in.  The company said it wants to differentiate itself “from other luxury hotel companies by offering unique amenities and programs that cannot be found anywhere else."

Other hotels offering the amenity include Rosewood properties in Santa Fe, Virgin Gorda, and Mexico's Rivera Maya.

Ferry fare rising 50 cents for most of us

Two months after touching off an uproar by imposing a new 50-cent fee for riding the Red Hook-St. John ferry, the Virgin Islands Port Authority has backed off, by a quarter, for some people. 

The Authority decided everyone except seniors, students and people needing treatment for a chronic medical problem will pay a half-dollar as a new ‘use fee’ for the ferry terminal at Red Hook.  Passengers qualifying for the discount will pay only 25 cents. 

The current round trip ferry fare is $10.  The Public Service Commission is considering a request from the ferry companies to boost the cost 40%,m to $14, according to the Virgin Islands Daily News.

Now, here’s the part of this story I really love! 

The use fee will be added into the cost of the tickets sold by the ferry company.  Then, the Daily News said, the ferry companies will “pass the fee on to the Port Authority for terminal maintenance costs.”  Yeah, right. 

For years, the PA and/or the PSC have been wrestling to get verified financial reports from the companies which consistently cry and complain and poor mouth about how bad their business is, but whose employees are, shall we say ‘lax,’ about money handling, receipts, and reporting.

St. John video lottery operator sued for taxes

The operator of video lottery terminals at Wharfside’s Parrot Club and Larry’s Landing has been sued by the Virgin Islands government for not paying taxes.  The government charges that Southland Gaming of the VI has not paid taxes on its gross income since 2003. “Millions of dollars” are said to be owed. Southland had no immediate response to the lawsuit filed in VI Superior Court, according to the Associated Press.

Southland also operates terminals on St. Croix, St. Thomas and several other locations on St. John including Cap’s Place and the Laundromat.

St. John Cabinets for sale

Even while planning to expand its offerings to homeowners and builders, Debbie Grammer has put her St. John Cabinets and Interiors up for sale.  The business represents Elmwood Cabinets and Top Knobs cabinet hardware and is planning to add appliances from Wolf and Sub-Zero. Asking price is $425,000. 

This is Grammer’s second business in the Marketplace.  She and her husband started the Mail Center.

Islandia Real Estate, the property's listing agency, says Grammer is “now ready to take on new challenges," but "will work closely with a new owner to facilitate a smooth and successful transition."

In other business news, Islandia reports that a competitor, Town & Country Real Estate is "downsizing and consolidating" by closing its office at Mongoose Junction to centralize at its Coral Bay location.  A similar shift is being made by Holiday Homes: closing at Mongoose and concentrating on its Marketplace location.

Kind of odd to see two tenants depart Mongoose, given that the landlord and long-time island architect and builder Glen Speer has been generous to his tenants as they face a tough economy.   Maybe real estate is even tougher.

Coral Bay HGTV show finally aired

OK.  It ran Sunday night.  Did the show make you more or less interested in owning on St. John?  Any comments about the show?  Make 'em here.

Crunch time in Cruz Bay

St. John Festival  is underway.

Besides the annual climactic event, fireworks over Cruz Bay harbor on July 4th, the arrival of Festival means one big thing to locals - FEWER parking spots.  

That’s because Festival Village is being set up in the free, public parking lot by the Customs House and across from the Post Office.  So, the lot was closed Friday, the 19th.  It will reopen July 7th.

The ‘Village’ is a bunch of plywood and paint booths which become businesses selling food and drink for the week leading up to the 4th. (Wonder if they’re licensed and pay Gross Receipts taxes.  And, if so, does anybody audit their sales figures?)

Anyway, with the closing of the lot downtown, they’ve opened the athletic field at the Sprauve School for parking.  As you can see from the picture above (red arrow), a few cars are able to use the lot, while a lot of space is taken up by Tropical Shipping trucks.  (Inez, a Deputy Inquiring Iguana, took these pictures. Click on them for to see larger versions.)

Now, remember, the Sprauve School is adjacent to the Roundabout project.  Fewer parking spaces downtown means more traffic searching for places, with many of them heading to Sprauve and getting tied up in that work.