Thanks kneafseym. I checked all sorts of major US cities (at least ones that we'd want to spend a couple days at) for flights. Either they aren't direct and the travel time is too long, or they are too expensive. Part of the equation is that I can find tickets to San Juan pretty inexpensively (often as cheap or cheaper than flying to most major US cities). When you factor in the PDX-SJU ticket price with the $160-170 flight to Antigua, it is tough to compete price-wise. Especially considering I have five tickets to pay for. Price isn't everything, but we find that San Juan usually works well for us for a 2-3 day layover. It gives us some time to acclimate to the heat as well as a nice transition from the busy home life to a more relaxed pace. Somewhere different and new would be fun, but there just don't seem to be many options.

We have chartered through Horizon before in the BVIs and have always been happy with them so I did take a look at their Antigua fleet. However, Dream Yacht Charters had the perfect boat for us and it is brand new, so we went with them for this trip. We just chartered with DYC out of the BVI for the first time this past June. Overall seemed like a good company and responsive to our needs.

Matt