Going to be in Tortola in January. Anyone know of place that regularly features steel drum entertainment? Thanks, Joe

As we move into our second week, I’ve decided to do some brief Trip Posts rather than daily reports. There’s just too much to see and do in this beautiful corner of the world to be writing right now!

The weather instability of the first few days of our vacation has evened out a bit so we’ve been treated to some glorious days filled with bright blue skies and sunshine. Mullet was the calmest I’ve ever seen with the top of the ocean as smooth as glass. We were enjoying bobbing in the buttery water when FOUR large catamarans showed up. It was time to get out, dry off and go for lunch.

Da Watering Hole was so tempting with its great band but we had to go to Rosie’s. The legendary ribs were as awesome as ever adding to a beautiful day at Mullet Bay Beach.

For those of you that have arrived to PJIA with just a carryon since the arrival congestion started at the airport, were you able to move through the initial line faster? This has been mentioned a couple of times, but I wasn't sure if some just got lucky, or if carryon-only passengers are consistently being moved through the process more quickly.

We'll be arriving with two checked bags and one carryon. My hope is that some of us can get through the line faster with the carryon and just one person (probably me) will have to wait in the line for baggage claim.

Would love all advice on where and who to dive with in St. Lucia. We will be arriving on our boat from Martinique. Our adult kids and significant others are meeting us in St. Lucia and want to do a dive as they are recently certified. A bonus would be an area that is good for diving and where the non-divers in the group can snorkel.

Just got back from our first visit to Orient beach on this trip. We noted some improvements:

1st the bathroom has gone from disgusting to usable. The floor is now level, no step, and the floor is now tiled.

2nd we got new chairs and a new umbrella. I think they have been using umbre.la as that survived he last hurricane.

I know there are a few people on island. Would love to see some trip reports and/or pictures!!

Good morning everyone! Just got back last week from 10 wonderful days on Anegada. The trip down was uneventful (CLT-SJU-EIS-NGD) until we got to Tortola. We arrived to Beef Island at 3:30 (InterCaribbean) and had Island Birds scheduled to take us to Anegada between 3:45 and 4:00. We were told that their plane was in St Thomas and would arrive anytime. Finally at 5:15 they put us on a Fly BVI plane which of course got us to Anegada too late to get provisions. We were not too happy about that and I told my wife I would call Nadia later in the week to express our displeasure. Of course once we arrived Dean was there to great us with our vehicle. We went straight to Sid's and he hooked us up with some water, sodas and beer to get through the evening and morning until Lil Bits opened up. Once at Lil Bits the next morning the first thing I noticed was the shelves were nearly empty. She told us they were expecting a shipment the next day. But they had enough stuff for us to get by for a few days. Not a problem at all. Afterall, it is Anegada and we are here!

We spent a good portion of our mornings at the villa (D&H Sunshine Villas). The first couple of the days the mosquitos were really bad. I'm serious, really bad. We had several different types of bug spray. Nothing seemed to work. Andrew had some cortisone cream in the gift shop that really helped. Once the winds picked up after the first two days it got much, much better. The downside to the the winds was not being able to snorkel at Flash of Beauty. But we did get to spend a couple of days there and seeing Monica again was awesome.

My wife and I are not 3 meals a day types. So if we ate breakfast out (usually at ARH) we would not eat out until dinner. If we didn't eat out for breakfast we would eat out for lunch and skip dinner. We did have snacks at the villa to get us by. Lunches, except once, were all at Tipsy's. We did eat once at Cow Wreck. Ann's chefs put out some unbelievably good food. Burgers, Lobster Nachos, Lobster sandwich and more. Really good food. Dinners were at ANH, Sid's, Potters and ABC. All really good. The majority of our dinners were at Sid's. Not only convenient to the villa, but outstanding food.

Besides enjoying our time with Sid, Tipsy's was absolutely amazing. Beautiful bar with lots of toys outside and always busy in the afternoons. Ann & Andrew have done an amazing job with that place. I will add, the barstools are the heaviest barstools I have ever sat on!! It was great to see Nancy and Walker there and we saw them again our last night at Sid's. A nice surprise was finally meeting Sue (Caribbeangirl13) at Tipsy's. We chatted with her and her husband for a bit. Super people. We also were able to see the captain (Stephen Cross) from our sail trip in 2019. He had guests on Anegada for a couple of days. Nice surprise to run into him. We were at Tipsy's pretty much everyday. My tab at the end of 10 days certainly reflected that. Whew!!

It was good to see Bell at Cow Wreck as well. We still love that beach. Very beautiful. We only went a few times. They were not nearly as busy as Tipsy's.

Thanksgiving Day was our travel day going home. I called Nadia the day before to make sure we were being picked up on time and the let her know the displeasure of our arrival. She assured me she would compensate us for the glitch. I am still unsure what that will be as she still has not hit my card for anything yet. Maybe she comped the entire flight? Don't really know yet. We had been seeing news reports of big delays on flights within the US prior to Thursday. I felt good we would be good flying in Thursday as most would be at their destinations celebrating Thanksgiving. We had no issues whatsoever. Island Birds picked us up on time. InterCaribbean was on time and both AA flights were on time. We even made our 40 min connection time in MIA. I was worried about that one.

All in all another great trip with lots of relaxation built in at the villa. Hopefully things will work out to do it again in '24.

Arrived Tuesday the 28th. We arrived on Tuesday trying to avoid any problems at the airport. Well that didn't work. We waited 1 1/2 hours for our luggage at the luggage carousel. When we told our story to the Caribbean Card person, she said we were lucky since some of her
other customers had waited 3 hours.

First night we ate at Topper and each of us had the chicken kabobs and the were great. That was the first time in the new place and it is very attractive.

Second night (29th), we drove over to Grand Case and visited the reopened Calmos Cafe. They did a really nice job on the rebuild and nicely decorated. Joanie had the lobster ravioli with scallops and I had a ceaser salad with shrimp. Both were excellent and then we shared a chocolate molten volcano cake with ice cream. Wow was that cake good. We highly recommend both Toppers and Calmos Cafe.

Tomorrow we have reservations at Oceans 82. We have been there before so we know what to expect, but Toppers and Calmos have set the bar high.

Here are some photos of the Dinghy’s Beach Bar, from yesterday‘s early morning walk just before 10 AM on Simpson Bay Beach.
I also took photos of the menu if anybody is interested. Just like three amigos, they have taco Tuesdays.
I also took a photo of the mannequin girls you see in the WebCam from time to time. They have not moved. 😃
There is an upstairs by White Sands Road where you can watch the planes and look across at the terminal building. I took a photo there to show the configuration of the jetways.

Cheers
Drphilsxm

We arrived yesterday on the AA flight from Miami arriving at 2:14. We were the last to get on the bus. Last on first off. We were the first in immigration. There was no one in front of us. Luggage took a little time but we were in and out in 30 minutes. Off to enjoy the island.