Hello TTOL-ers!! First and foremost, all of you rock! You gave my wife and I great guidance on planning our first BVI trip 4 trips ago. We've primarily done land based trips but also chartered a cat for a handful of days during one of those trips. My wife and I were last down in August of 2017 for our 15-year anniversary, just before the storms. We left the kids behind and enjoyed every minute of our land based, island hopping adventures. We stayed at Scrub and adventured out from there.

Next summer we had planned to head out west and do some rafting with two other families. However, as I pay close attention to the BVI recovery efforts, I'm enamored and humbled. I talked to my wife and she is open minded about redirecting our vacation money and plans to the BVIs! I have also convinced the other two families that the BVIs would be amazing and I would help guide the trip as they are all BVI virgins.

So, now, I could use some expert advice...

Travel dates: First things first...we usually come late July, early August. (obviously most affordable then and we're from Florida so we don't mind the heat!) We have been there once during the Puerto Rico Christmas in July celebration and while I love the energy of all the people, we'll need to follow that act and come once they have departed. Does anyone have any ideas when that will occur in 2019? I've done some research online and can't seem to find a definitive answer.

The group: The group will consist of 3 families:
* Family 1: 2 adults, boy age 15, girl age 13
* Family 2: 2 adults, girl 18, boy 15, boy 11
* Family 3: 2 adults, boy 15

What to do: Assuming we'll stay for a week, I'm thinking: 1) day trip island hopping (Baths, Norman Island caves, other snorkel spot in the morning, JVD in the afternoon 2) full day trip to Anegada (we've done it twice before) 3) full day trip to JVD (we've done this a few times)

Lodging: Once we determine our dates, we'll need to find a place to stay. We've stayed at Scrub a number of times and it is fairly quiet in late July, early August. And it has always been wonderful! The people, the accommodations....everything. While that seems like an easy option for me simply based on familiarity, I'm open minded.

Air Travel: Via JetBlue or Southwest, we can all easily (and pretty economically) get to San Juan from South Florida. So do I try to convince everyone to figure out the entire journey to EIS on their own, or would it make sense to find a charter company that can do the SJU to EIS round trip legs? It looks like finding a 12 person charter might be tough.

THANK YOU in advance for any thoughts you might have as I hope to redirect our vacation budgets to the BVIs next summer! Cheers!!