moving to STX

Tammy, if you're talking about a pod or something like that for shipping - uh, not gonna happen...if it's a regular container (which I can't imagine, but whatever!) then I would imagine any freight expeditor could arrange shipment.

The Rottweilers - Continental WILL fly them, but it will cost you dearly. I don't know if they will go into St. Thomas - I don't think so - I believe only as far as San Juan...after that you charter a private plane. Just went through this with 5 Rotties on the reverse trip. If you can get them to San Juan, I can give you the name of a great guy to board them with if you need to break your trip up, and I can also give you the name of someone who can fix you up with a private charter. It's not as bad as you think! No one lands the big planes on STX that will hold the Series 500 and 700 kennels...that's the rub.

Becky, thanks for your reply. Yes, we have a regular 40 ft container. We are bringing lots of tools to the island and have no garage so we will use the container for storage. We are exploring other options for our dogs. I contacted a company that moves animals all over the world and I am waiting for a quote. I imagine the cost will be quite high. Since you have already been through this with your own dogs your advice is probaby the best course for us. I will check airlines and try to find the best way to get them to San Juan.
Thanks
Tammy

This message is for Tammy Nicoll--I was so happy to see you have a similar situation to ours. I am in my 40's and we have two younger children, 13 and 10 yrs. that will be moving to St. Thomas with us. We just started our 'timeline to move' and have given ourselves another year and a half to pull it all together and make two more PMVs. We hope to start a business and are putting our business plan together and trying to decide what to liquidate to finance it and our living arrangements.

We'd be so grateful for any input or advice you can give us about your experience and decision-making process (if you have time, of course). There are days we feel that we're making the smartest decision ever made, and days we feel like children fixing to play hooky from real-life. We vascillate from one minute to the next, depending on whether someone who put into port here where we live says "Go for it!" or someone with a brother who had a friend who had an uncle lived there and left because of the crime rate

All the best,
Missy in North Carolina

Personally, I would advise that you research the move very thoroughly - especially from the point of view of having two school-age children. The consensus of opinion is that private school or home schooling is the only way to go for "transplant" children. Public schools are NOT an option. Can you do this?
Write a list of things that you think that you will miss - then write a list of things that you will gain. Compare the two.
The only word of caution is - remember that the drinking age is 18 down here and trust me there is a very healthy drinking culture. Recreation for the older kids will definitely be "bar"centric. Some of my daughter's peers (Country Day on StX - very spendy Private Prep School) left for college already well aquainted with Mr Bud and Mr Bud - if you get the drift.

Hi Missy, What to say about our move to STX. It has been an quite an amazing experience. I think our motivation was a mid life crisis. We have 5 adult children, a 3 year old and a disabled mother that we are taking care of. Doug and I have been parents since we were 19 and have never had any alone time. For some strange reason we thought STX would magically fix everything for us. Ha Ha. Thank God that we are crazy and have a strong sense of adventure. We had a crazy time trying to obtain financing for our house. BEWARE! Listen to the advise on this message board to find an honest lender. I would advise renting for a time. We thought we had the perfect house and even paid for a home inspection. His report was everything was perfect. We had 5 leaks in the roof. Toilets that didn't work. 90% of our windows would not open or close. Sorry, I could go on and on but I don't want to write a book. Lesson learned, inspect the house yourself. Our last PMV was supposed to be for 3 weeks to get the house ready for family. It ended up being 5 weeks with me crying and thinking I had made the worst mistake of our lives. It was all work and no play. Real life. Would I do it again? Yes! Why? The air is so clean, the weather perfect, wonderful friendly people, slower pace of life, great food, gardening all year round, diving is incredible, again I could write a book. I love it there and am counting the days until we get back. Just remember it is real life and not a vacation. I hope that no one thinks I'm being negative by saying that. I think the islands are truly paradise(except for the frogs. Yuck) as long you understand that it is not anything like the states. By the way, we are in Norfolk, Virginia. Are you close by? We go to the outer banks alot. Love North Carolina.
Have a good day.
Tammy

Check with american airlines, we shipped our largest retriever in crate via AA plane, which was a 737, which does daily service between Miami and STX. Our retriever weighs 120 pounds and is large for his size, used a large standard airline kennel and all was fine, it cost, but then again what is the cost you put on your dog.
The aa reservations agents can help.

captpete, Thank you, thank you. I'm so worried about the dogs. Don't know if I can get all 3 on the same flight but I will try. My female rotti is so fat I hope I can fit her in a crate.
Again thanks,
Tammy

Airlines work on pets just about the same as people...those who make the first reservations get the space on the plane, or better said; first come first serve.
AA flies direct to STX, they do have limits to the number of pets on board, they also have limits to number of pets in the cargo hold of the aircraft.
I do know that we always make reservations at least a month in advance via the 800-433-3700 line, it can never be too early! You can make reservations up to 364 days in advance!
If you do not have the kennels, the airline sells them, and can also be ordered by the reservation line.
The only requirement for the kennel size is that the pet must be able to stand and turn around, that means the kennel is large enough to work! With your size dog, I'm sure that the large pet is suitable to fit, extra large is for great danes and unruly children!
Do not fee you dog on the day of the flight. We have always frozen the water tray with a block of ice, that gives them something to do for travel. Also, mark on the kennel the pets name, most of the ramp personnel will talk to the animals and will speak to them by name if they see it on the kennel! It is also good to mark on the kennel not to feed.

Hello there. I wish you the best as I absolutely love STX, the quieter of the two big islands. Anyway, PLEASE ask Becky R about the dogs. She can help you, and I believe even knows the weights. I don't think anyone actually weighs them, so you can skimp a little on the weight. If you skimp a lot, you might get questioned.

Still, Becky just did it, and got 3 and 3 of her dogs, some VERY BIG dogs on two separate flights, and made it home. I think she is a gem of a resource about this. She is quite busy right now, however I am sure that within a reasonable time, she will provide the information.

Best wishes again,

Dan

Thanks Tammy and Jane. We live on the Cape Fear coast. We're used to island life (hurricanes, mosquitos, drugs, drinking, etc.) energy costs are high here, gas is higher--you name it. I started making the 'ten things' list and the first three things were: barbeque, barbeque and barbeque. I will absolutely miss NC barbeque so bad I'll have to hock the car to charter a plane to bring it down (or buy a pig cooker). Seriously, we try to harbor no illusions about STT. We'd put the kids in private school (so long, savings)--that's one of the PMVs right there--checking out private schools. The only problem is, we literally 'lose' half a year of our lives to cold weather up here. It's funny because so many people move from up North to the Carolinas to be warmer--we think we're going to freeze if it gets below 70 degrees. That half a year is time we could be on a boat and be outside (Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as Mid-Life Crisis!) There's nothing wrong at all with a mid-life crisis. Thank you for the lending advice. At first, I was gung-ho to buy a house right off the bat. But now I think we'd be better off to rent and wait for something to come along that we really want. We have a lot of real estate and building experience, so that will come in handy. I'm so excited for you, Tammy, and hope you can find time to keep us posted. Good luck and best wishes!

Tammy, I saw Daniel's message on this and thought I'd throw in what I found - AA will NOT take a pet if the weight of the pet and the kennel exceed 100 lbs. (allegedly)...at that point you have to ship them cargo, and I simply wasn't comfortable with that (but I'm a worrier). I wanted the dogs on the same flight I was on in case anything went wrong, and also so that I could check at every leg and make sure the dogs had made it on the flight. Flying cargo, they may or may not be on your flight. AA does not accept series 700 kennels at all.

We flew 6 dogs to STX last year from Little Rock and everything was pretty good - no one seemed to care much about weight as long as we paid the overage. This year was a totally different story coming back to Arkansas....the employees I spoke with were much more insistent about compliance. The one area they absolutely will not "give" in is temperature...once you get them to San Juan everyone seems to understand that a temperature below 85 degrees just may not happen for months, but the reservations people will straight up tell you they take the projected forecast on weather.com and if it's above 85 FOR THE ENTIRE DAY, it's not gonna happen. MUCH depends on the goodwill of the people at the ticket counter. All of that being said, and it may be Homeland Security, it seemed much tighter to us this year when we attempted to return the dogs to the mainland.

Continental can take Series 700 and can take up to 5 dogs per flight....and they cost out the wazoo and planes that carry the larger dogs only go to Puerto Rico. AA can take 3 at a time, but I believe they can only take one Series 500.

If you would like to PM me, I may have a couple of tips that may or may not help. Again, everything has changed drastically in the past year..with the increase in checked luggage, the airlines are being much tighter on weight and size restrictions than they were previously.

Becky, Thanks for your reply. I tried to PM you but I'm not sure if I did it right. I've never PM anyone before. If not I will try again.
Tammy

Hi Missy, We have found that the mosquitos on stx don't give as severe reaction as those in Tidewater area of Virginia and North Carolina. I guess depending where you live, the storm surge from hurricanes are not as bad. We had 2 feet of water in the house during Isabel, which was just a cat 1 when it hit us. The usvi seems to be very prepared when it comes to hurricanes unlike here where we have loss of life in minor storms. Doug and I also have a lot of building experience. We bought foreclosures and rehabed for 12 years. I can't believe we were such dummys when it came to buying our house on the island. Houses on the island are very different than here on the east coast. Educate yourselves on the roofing systems, cisterns, concrete construction, ect. We are bringing all of our tools in case we find a bargin. Tools are very expensive on stx. I don't know about stt. As far as private schools go, I believe there are less expensive ones than the prep school type of private school. I guess it just depends on what you want for your children. I have 5 adult children. The ones that went to college can't find jobs in their fields. The 2 that have no college make the most money. I think you will probably do fine here. It's just all in the attitude. Going with the flow and the culture there. I love it and can't wait to get back. Oh, I forgot the best part. My bones don't ache there. After about a week all the aches and pains seem to go away. Good luck.
Tammy

You got it, and I got it - I've PM'd you back!

I also shipped a large dog from the states, several years ago. He was a "geriatric" (19 yrs. old) dog and was deaf. We wrote all our pertinent information on his kennel and also a little sentence from him saying "My name is "____" and I'm 19 yrs. old. I don't hear very well so please be nice to me". Also, my husband flew with him and checked on every leg of the flight with the flight attendant that his kennel "was indeed" on the plane. In San Juan, his kennel was not on the plane and my husband had the pilot hold the flight to St. Croix until the kennel was loaded. So, shipping your pets can be done. Best of luck.