St. John is an awesome place. I would recommend it to anyone who loves beautiful beaches or who is a nature lover. If you love snorkeling, you must try St. John. What is great is that you can go to a different beautiful beach every day (or two a day as we often did) and go snorkeling, and if your significant other isn't into snorkeling as much, he/she can stay on the beach and enjoy that while you're out on the reef. We went during the slow season, but I'm not sure that there is much of a nightlife even during the high season. I've heard that there is live music and perhaps some dancing at times, but we never ran into any of that. Some of the shops and restaurants were closed during our time there. Signs on their doors say they're closed until October...it must be less-than-profitible for some of them to remain open during the slow season. St. John is known for its great hiking. We only did a little bit of that and though I would have done more if we had time, I'll admit the prospect of doing a 90 minute hike up a substantial hill in 90 degree heat with 100% humidity under the intense St. John sun is a little daunting. The hike to Waterlemon was enough for Lara to nix my plans for further hikes, and that wasn' t much of a hike. I had planned on doing the Reef Bay Trail hike. I would have loved to see the petroglyphs and Reef Bay itself. I had also planned on doing the trail to Salt Pond Bay and then on to Rams Head. I had heard good things about the snorkeling at Salt Pond Bay and I would have liked to have seen the view from Rams Head.

You really need about a week-and-a-half or two weeks if you want to do some hiking and see most of the beaches. Missing out on some of the hikes to some of the more remote beaches is my main regret. I knew though, that I wouldn't be able to see everything. If you lived on the island for a year you probably wouldn't see everything.

Thoughts:

• The sun in the Caribbean is much more intense than in Virginia...it's higher up in the sky, and you'll get burned much quicker than further north.
• If you plan on doing snorkeling for extended periods of time, wear a t-shirt...I got burned the second day snorkeling...I found that wearing a t-shirt didn't hinder me in any way nor make me feel any colder while in the water
• Snorkeling is effortless...you don't have to do any kind of movement...the salty Caribbean water keeps you floating and you don't have to do a thing. Practice by going just off the beach in a sandy spot with maybe 2 or 3 feet of water and just get used to things...for some people breathing through their mouths is the hardest thing.
• Caneel Bay is a beautiful resort, but the lack of TV may bother people. The lack of a telephone and especially lack of an alarm clock bothered me, and not because I was staying in my room at all...I just wanted to get up on time to get to our British Virgin Islands trip, or snorkel at 6am on the last day. If I had an emergency, there was no phone to use and our cell phones barely worked on our balcony. They do offer a wake-up knock on your door, but of course you can't call the front desk to ask for one, you have to go there. I didn't mind the lack of a TV—there is so much to do on the island—but when the hurricane came through if I didn't have my laptop (DVD player) Lara would have gone insane. Some of the rooms are rather far from the main eating places...Lara and I had room 48, an oceanfront room and it was very close to the main eating areas and the parking lot for our Jeep. Rooms on the eastern edge or southern edge of the resort meant that visitors would have a 15-30 minute walk to eat. That being said, Lara and I were impressed with the frequency of the shuttle service that looped everywhere around the resort's grounds. They said the shuttles would come by every 20 minutes, but it seemed more frequent than that.