Getting from St. Thomas to St. Croix

From STT to STX, there are several options available.

Cape Air flies directly several times a day.

Seabourne (seaplanes) also fly back and forth between the two islands frequently each day.

The passenger ferry is another option, but will take 2-3 hours each way and you never know how rough the crossing might be.

Private aircraft can also be chartered for the flight.

Depending on where you are flying from, most people fly through SJU on their way to STX. If you are using the main airfare websites such as travelocity or orbitz, also check to see if you can get from your home airport to SJU on some airlines' direct websites. Some airlines to try would include:
Jet Blue
Spirit Air
Delta
USAir
American
Continental

From SJU, you can book a hop across to STX on Cape Air or American Eagle pretty easily.

Wow! Thanks for the quick response.

The savings per airline ticket seemed to be $300-$400 pp. How time consuming and expensive are these other methods of getting from STT to STX? How would I go about researching them?

We live in Michigan and unfortunately getting to SJU from here is pretty time consuming and expensive. From past experience, I don't think it would be a savings to fly there first.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
Dee

You typically would have a layover of a couple hours so you would have time to collect and re-check your bags if flying from the airport, or to get to the seaplane dock or the ferry dock.

Some airlines do have baggage transfer agreements with Cape Air if you wanted to fly into STT and then take the hop to STX on Cape Air. That would save you having to deal with your luggage in STT. If you have to transfer your luggage yourself, you need extra time to allow for the possibility of your flight into STT arriving late and then time time it takes to collect and re-check the bags and then go through security again. It's a small airport, so the time needed isn't as bad as at a large airport... which is the upside.

You can see Cape Air ticket prices and book online on their website at www.capeair.com

The passenger ferry schedule is on www.vinow.com under ferry schedules

Seaborne's schedules and pricing can be found on their website at www.seaborneairlines.com
Sometimes you have to call for prices and availability on certain flights.

Both Seaborne and Cape Air have user-friendly policies on rescheduling your flight times with them if you find that you need to go earlier or later. They don't usually charge a fee and will simply change your reservation if they have space.

The flights from STT to STX are under 20 minutes each way. The ferry takes at least a couple hours. Add layover time and dealing with baggage and possibly taxis to figure out how much time you lose from your precious vacation.

Hi Dee!

This is also my first post, but I've been reading this board since May. My husband was offered a job in St. Croix at the refinery, so I (we) did a lot of research about the island in advance of our relocation and found a lot of valuable information here.

We're from Michigan too and know a few other folks that have left the Great Lakes State for life in St. Croix. We can't say exactly how long we'll be here - it's pretty much as long as my husband wants to work "post-retirement". His job will last at least until Dec. 2007, if he wants to work that long. We're enjoying every minute on this beautiful island.

In response to your post, I would recommend that you try to get a flight that goes directly from the mainland to STX. Our flights down routed us from MBS to Chicago to San Juan then to St. Croix. We had a long layover in Chicago, which made for a VERY long day. The prop plane that we were on between San Juan and STX had weight limitations and since it was a full flight, they had to leave some of the checked luggage behind - including both of my bags. We were able to get my bags later that night, but it was a hassle.

My DH and I just made airline reservations to for a couple return trips to Michigan through Travelocity. We were able to get one-stop flights from STX to Miami then to Detroit. This cut the trip down to only 7 hours AND we can be relatively sure that our luggage will make it with us on the plane. There was very little difference in cost between the 2+ stop trips and the one-stop trips, so we grabbed up the tickets without hesitation.

Good luck with your trip plans & welcome to St. Croix!

Deb

American has one non-stop to STX from MIA each day. There are also non-stop flights from Atlanta and Charlotte a couple times each week. Delta flies from Atlanta Wednesday, Friday & Saturday for a few more weeks, then cuts back to Saturday service only. USAir flies from Charlotte, NC, although that may also be discontinued in September. If your dates are flexible, you have more of a chance of making one of those direct flights work.

Thanks everyone!

Unfortunately we will not be able to visit for a while. Our daughter is getting married on 9/2/06 and between vacations earlier in the year and time off for the wedding we just don't have enough left to make it worth the trip any earlier than the first of the year.

Deb--I would love to hear more about your life in Michigan. I can't help wondering if our paths have ever crossed! The flight info I got was from DTW to STT on Spirit. The price was under $500 and got us to St Thomas through FLL. I think I came up with only 1 direct flght and it was over $800 but I have plenty of time to do my homework now (as much as I would love to jump on the next plane)

Thanks again!

We purchased our tickets through Travelocity. We found that the price and availability of tickets changes daily, if not hourly. My DH is flying back to Michigan (DTW) from STX in a couple weeks for a few days. His flight was $658 and will have just one stop in Miami. We'd found the ticket for much less a few weeks ago, but we weren't ready to commit to the trip then and missed out on the pricing.

Tickets to head home to DTW from STX for Christmas for a few weeks in December were $737. These are also one-stop tickets, with the plane change in Charlotte, North Carolina.

We also purchased tickets for family to visit us at the beginning of January. Their tickets are from DTW to STX with one-stop in Miami and were $781 each.

From what I can tell, the prices get progressively higher as it gets colder in Michigan! 🙂

wingsfan - I'll PM you with more info soon!