Understanding these few timetables for arrival and departure day will help you select flight times to make your time on island truly… island time.
Once you are on the ground and have collected your luggage, it takes 45–50 minutes to get to the ferry terminal at Red Hook. The ferries depart (STT) Red Hook for (STJ) Cruz Bay every hour on the hour all day. For example, if you land at 1:20pm, by the time you disembark the plane and collect your luggage you will probably not have time to make the 2:00pm boat, but you will have plenty of time to make the 3:00pm boat. The passenger ferry takes about 15 minutes. In this scenario, taking the 3pm ferry will have you on St. John, with luggage, around 3:20–3:30pm. Plan on 20–30 minutes to complete rental car transactions after that. This is ideal for meeting your greeter between 4pm and 5pm depending on your villa location. Check-in is after 4:00pm.
Arrival Time Tip: Aim to land as early as possible — anytime before 2:45pm is ideal so that you may catch the 4pm boat.
Heading back to the airport on the day of your departure, it will take about an hour from the time your ferry leaves Cruz Bay until the taxi on St. Thomas drops you at the airport. So if your flight departs at 3:00pm and American Airlines requires passengers to be at the airport three hours before departure (12:00pm), you will want to be on the 11:00am ferry. That works perfectly with dropping your car off by 10:00am. This is an example of a civilized departure day.
If you need to select an earlier flight, consider this scenario: drop car at 6:00am, take the 7am passenger ferry from Cruz Bay, arrive at airport via taxi at 8am, allowing for a 3-hour flight check-in for an 11am departure.
Departure Time Tip: Anything after noon is civilized. 11am is good. 10am is doable. 9am is rough. 8am is borderline and may not happen. 7am you will need a private water taxi or stay on St. Thomas for your last night.
Questions about planning your trip?
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