Hello everyone. I just joined after following for a long time. After many trips from 1995 to 2005, life caught up (work and having small kids) and we only made it to the BVI once since 2005 before our trip last April with my wife, daughter (11) and son (8). With the growth of the charter business (I only remember a few cats and no power cats) things have certainly changed. The information and the advice on this forum helped make our trip great. I can only say thank you and I hope to contribute in the future to help others.

We are coming back again this year and I am hoping to get some helpful information on Easter Weekend. We fly into STT on Saturday (5:50pm arrival). We are chartering with the Moorings starting with a sleep aboard on Monday night giving us two full days before our charter. Since we will miss the last ferry, my plan is to get a room at Beachcomber (TTOL feedback) for Saturday night, take the first ferry on Sunday morning to Tortola and rent a car for two days to drive around/explore Tortola staying at Maria’s on Sunday night (TTOL feedback).

From everything I have read it sounds like a lot of places shut down for the holiday weekend (Sunday and Monday). I was able to confirm the ferries will run on Sunday and Riteway will be open on Monday. The most important question is the ability to get a car rental on Easter Sunday. My preference is to pick up a rental near the ferry dock to avoid loading kids in taxi, etc. I’m flexible to take the ferry into West End or Road Town to pick up a car, but want to be able to return the car in Road Town Monday night or early Tuesday. Any ideas on the availability of rentals on Easter Sunday morning? Suggestions on who to rent from? How do I coordinate time for pick-up on a holiday when the ferry schedule is unpredictable? I am also open to any other feedback on my plans for Saturday night through Monday.

Since I did not write a trip report, I wanted to share a few of the many example where TTOL really helped last year: relaxing with a cocktail while watching other boats race towards the last mooring ball at Cooper because I knew to get there early (a scene that repeated itself three times in one day with boats finally chasing dinghies from the dock to their boat to see if they were leaving); contacting Nick at Leverick for a slip, renting a car to explore Virgin Gorda (definitely the way to go) and enjoying the Friday night barbecue; and knowing to avoid the chaos of White Bay with an early morning dinghy ride from Great Harbour and back before 12pm (my first trip in January 1995 there was no power on that half of Jost and we were the only boat in the bay for the entire day. . . not anymore.