Hello everyone and happy Tuesday! I hope you all had an enjoyable holiday weekend! Now that you’re back to work, let’s start planning your next vacation… Shall we??
We’ve been checking out airfares a lot lately, and the prices are finally starting to look pretty good! And as we’ve been telling you for months, St. John is open and waiting for you to visit. The entire National Park, including all of the beaches and trails, is open and has been for months. The restaurants are open. The bars are open. And we have a ton of accommodations that are waiting to host you ranging from condominiums with all the amenities, to villas that cater to all budgets, to quaint bed and breakfasts. The taxis are also up and running, so if you prefer to stay in Cruz Bay and not rent a Jeep, you can do that too! The time to book your trip is now!
Ok, so let’s get back to airfare. For starters, there are a limited amount of flights coming into and out of St. Thomas these days. (For you newcomers, you have to fly into St. Thomas (STT) and then taxi to Red Hook. There you will hop on a ferry to Cruz Bay, St. John.) Currently, these are the only flights flying into St. Thomas:
– American Airlines (Miami, Florida) Flight 943 & 1391
– Delta (Atlanta, GA) Flight 523 (formerly 571)
– Delta Airlines (New York City JFK) Flight 403
– Spirit .(Fort Lauderdale) Flight 201
– JetBlue (FLL- SJU-STT) Flight 1053, 1653 then flight 1236
– JetBlue (BOS-STT via SJU) Flight 1607 (short stop at SJU)
– United (Houston) Flight 1123
– United (Newark, NJ – SJU) Flight 1523
– CapeAir (from SJU) Flight 8031, 8091
– CapeAir (St. Croix) Flight 8661, 8681
– Seaborne (STX) Flight 3512, 3493
Currently, these are the only flights flying out of St. Thomas:
– American Airlines (Miami, Florida) Flight 943 & 1391
– Delta (Atlanta, GA) Flight 873 (former 307)
– Delta (New York City JFK) Flight 321
– Spirit (Fort Lauderdale) Flight 212
– Jetblue (STT-SJU-FLL) Flight 1035 then 1654
– JetBlue (Boston, MA) Flight 1608 (short stop in SJU)
– United (Houston, TX) Flight 1124
– United (SJU-Newark, NJ) Flight 1173
– CapeAir (to SJU) Flight 8021
(Flight information provided by USVI Hurricane Information and Assistance)
Now to give you an idea on how affordable flights are, as long as you are flexible in your dates, we did a little searching for you. And here is what we found:
New York to St. Thomas roundtrip during the month of June is $329, for July is $302, for August is $275, and for September and October is $270. These prices are all for direct flights on Delta. Amazing!
For our friends in the Boston area, you can fly for as little as $391 roundtrip in June, $401 in July, $252 in August and September, and $311 in October. These prices are also for Delta with a quick stop at JFK.
Now on to our Texas friends… You can fly for as little as $412 in June, $427 in July, $301 in August, $309 in September and $504 in October. These prices are for Spirit Airlines, which admittedly is not my favorite airline, but it will get you here for a reasonable amount of money.
As always, I use Google’s flight matrix to find the best airfare. Check it out here: https://matrix.itasoftware.com
Now a question I’m sure many of you have is, what’s going to be open for food? Honestly, I do not know. The restaurants have yet to announce when they will close for the annual seasonal closing. (Again for my newcomer friends, several of our restaurants close for a time period during the months of August to October. They may be closed for a week or a month. Each establishment varies.) The moment the restaurants make their decisions, we will let you all know. As it is every year, the list of seasonal closings will be published at www.newsofstjohn.com/seasonalclosings
So if you have a few extra moments today, go ahead and peruse those airfares. And please let us know if you find a good deal. In the meantime, have a great Tuesday everyone! Happy vacation planning!
More great flight news. United has reinstated it’s service from Washington Dulles non stop to St Thomas.
The direct flights out of dulles are $700. Awful
I believe you posted the closings of restaurants for 2017 (last year). Looking forward to an update for 2018. Thanks ever so much. Keep up the great work with providing us with all the valuable info from the island
Yes, I post them every year. Usually in early August. I will again as soon as we have the information. 🙂
These prices are amaze balls! Too bad Caneel and the Westin are closed. Those are our go to places on St. John and the Frenchman’s reef Marriott on stt is our go to hotel there. They’re all closed! So I guess we go to Daytona Beach instead!
Grande Bay is Very nice & right in Cruz Bay.
Hi “Suzy” – Just wanted to say that I see the IP addresses of each poster. I see that you consistently use a new name and a new, invalid email address. Please start using your real name and email, or your comments will no longer be approved. Thanks!
Luv it!
I’m a daily reader but I rarely ever post comments. After spending over 35 weeks of my life in St John comments like this make me want to react, however, negativity never helped anyone and isn’t our style. Enjoy Daytona Beach “Suzy” it sounds like the perfect location for you this time of year. Everyone else, see you in St John this fall and winter, paradise is NOT lost!!!
Thank you for reading Toby!
We just were there and rented from St John Rentals. Very friendly helpful and great house. We rented Treasure Ridge. 3 bed 3 bath!
It Saddens me that you are choosing another destination. I also was reluctant to go back to St. John after Irma, but at the very last minute last March we decided to go back.And after going to St.John year after year after year I can honestly say last March trip to St. John was the best trip ever. It was more special, there was Definitely something more special in the air. Every person we talked to that was there felt the same, they were so very happy they came. I hope you reconsider your decision and returned to St. John promise you, you won’t regret it
“Suzy” leaves comments all the time under different names. They all appear to stir the pot. Take it with a grain of salt. 🙂
The flights to the islands are nicely priced but it’s getting to the departure airport that is the killer for me. There is no such thing as an inexpensive flight from upstate NY, especially Buffalo or Rochester.
Hi! I also live in Upstate NY and I fly to STT every winter (either January, February or March) for approx. $350 round trip on Delta from Buffalo. I book about 6 months in advance and go to STJ for ten days. I have never paid more than $400 and have been going to the islands for 25 years. Be sure to keep an eye out on kayak.com or one of those sites, they have great price alerts you can set up.
Roundtrip flights out of Miami are $233 in October!!! We are coming in 3 weeks but that price has me considering another trip in the Fall. I really hope this brings people back to STJ during low season.
We are flying from LA next week to our house in Coral Bay. Less than $500 R/T – cheapest airfare we have found since September (we have made several trips to our house since the hurricanes). United and we got it on jetcost.
I can not wait to jump on United 1523 next month. The aircraft is a Boeing 767dash400ER with a wingspan of 170 feet and 127000 pounds of thrust ! What a ride ! If it doesn’t say Boeing on it I am not getting on it and I would much prefer that Boeing to have United livery on it. God Bless Gina Rose !
So glad to hear of these flights. Thank you for sharing the info
Can’t wait to get back to the beautiful island of St John
i believe that Newark has non-stop to stt.
There is no way you can compare Daytona to St. John, but enjoy your replacement trip. There is no way we would not do anything we could to bring business into Love City. And we are bringing $$$ to pump back into your economy, as well as friends who have never been before. And with the air costs going down, heck, we may just book another trip for the fall! Every post, every blog, every piece of news (especially Jenn’s) has kept us going waiting for our return to paradise. So Daytona instead? Good grief, girl, you need a travel agent…..
We’ve been going to st john for 40 years and cannot wait to get back! Grand bay is fabulous! Hope asolare rebuilds!!
Thanks for this. We are looking to come in November and hoping airlines start bringing back more direct flights from the northeast before then. Right now it is an 8 hour trip with layovers and not counting the ferry…hard to swallow when you are use to 4 hours. However, my teenagers say they don’t and will push thru.
I’m not in the travel advice biznis, but I can share what works for my wife and me coming from Houston to STT on +8-hr trips with a connection in MIA or CLT. We’ve been renting houses in the Coral Bay area a couple of times per year since 2005, and late evening/after-dark arrivals to the house made for a killer day. So, for the past few years we’ve been overnighting at one of the small privately-owned hotels in Charlotte Amalie. Easy walking to nearby shopping and restaurants. Relax, have a couple of adult beverages and a decent meal in the evening, and grab a taxi to Red Hook the next morning after b’fast. Feels much better than doing a straight-through marathon to Coral Bay. Our wrangler rental folks [we’ve been doing business with Greg at Courtesy since 2005] meet us at the dock in Cruz Bay, we do our paperwork, grab some groceries [and maybe our dinner if we like what we see at Starfish’s deli], and head for the house. Makes for a much more pleasant travel experience. For us, at least.
I just booked non-stop on United from IAD (Dulles) to STT in late December, 2018, so let the good times roll!! Back where we belong.