Field Report No. 14 · Family trip
St. Croix U.S. Virgin Islands
Jamey's 40th-birthday snorkel trip, and the honest story of it: we booked the points resort with the best snorkeling on the island, stayed one night, and paid our way out of it.
Field Report
No. 14
Family trip
St. Croix U.S. Virgin Islands
Worth the detour.
- Coordinates
- 17.7460° N, 64.7037° W
- Traveled
- November 2024
- Kid-readiness
- Easy once we landed at the right hotel. One rental car, great pools, calm beaches, and lots of snorkeling with the kids. The Buck Island sail was the only real ask of an 8- and 6-year-old, and they were fine.
- Where we stayed
- One night at Carambola Beach Resort (the points booking), then the rest of the week at The Buccaneer in Christiansted, in the big suite, paid in cash. The full story is below; it's the honest heart of this report.
- The non-negotiable
- The Buck Island sail-and-snorkel morning. It's a protected reef you can only reach by boat, the water is unreal, and the snorkeling was great.
- What we'd skip
- Carambola as a place to stay. And flying Spirit to save money; it bit us both directions. The island itself we'd keep all of.
- Best season
- Late November. We went Thanksgiving week and got dry, warm shoulder-season weather. Know that a holiday week also means everything else is booked and expensive if your plans change. Ours did.
- Points & hacking
- The trip was supposed to be a points win: 132,000 Marriott points for the week at Carambola, plus Spirit fares (DFW to STX through Fort Lauderdale) and a ~$392 Avis rental. We used one night of the points stay. The Buccaneer rebooking ran about $4,500 to $5,000 in cash. Read the recent reviews before you commit points to a remote resort over a holiday week.
17.7460° N, 64.7037° W
Here’s the trip as it was actually planned: Jamey turning 40, wanting somewhere he could snorkel and spearfish for real (coral, fish, not a big boring beach), Marriott free-night credits to burn, and flights that weren’t bonkers. St. Croix checked every box. It’s the quieter, less developed Virgin Island, U.S. dollars, no passport, and the resort we booked on points supposedly had the best snorkeling on the island.
It did. And the resort was awful. We showed up at Carambola Beach Resort to standing water flooding into the room, missing light bulbs, deferred maintenance everywhere, and cats wandering the property. Melissa was not having it, and she was right. The frustrating part is the water there really is special: Jamey snorkeled that same afternoon and it was some of the best of the trip, tons of fish off a drop-dead-gorgeous beach on the far side of the island. We stayed the one night.
Check the recent reviews before you commit points to a remote resort, especially over a holiday week, when rebooking is scarce and brutally expensive.
It was Thanksgiving week, so everything left was booked or expensive. We landed at The Buccaneer outside Christiansted, paid cash for the biggest suite they had, and watched the “free” points trip become a $4,500 hotel bill. And honestly? Worth every dollar. The Buccaneer was freaking awesome: immaculate grounds, great pools, friendly staff, calm pretty water, and enough on the property that we never had to leave unless we wanted to. The suite was basically an apartment with a huge balcony. The snorkeling out front is only okay, which is the one trade you make, but by then we’d made it gladly.
What we’d actually build the week around
The Buck Island Reef National Monument morning: a protected reef you can only reach by boat, a sail out with the kids, and beautiful water. Snorkeling with the girls at different beaches was the running theme of the week, and this was the best of it. Back on land, the two dinners we reserved ahead were Savant in Christiansted and AMA at Cane Bay, where you eat oceanfront in a grotto set into the rock; book both about a week out. The rest of the time we mostly ate at the Buccaneer’s own restaurants and didn’t regret it.
The honest part
Two mistakes made this trip, and we’d repeat neither. Booking a remote points resort sight-unseen over a holiday week was the first. Flying Spirit to save money was the second: DFW to St. Croix through Fort Lauderdale, both ways, with two kids. Cheap fare, real cost. The island itself asks almost nothing of you once you land: one rental car, one (good) resort, and the water does the rest. We’d go back. We’d just book it differently from the first click.
