Author: Jenn Manes

I hate writing the parking story. But after what I’ve seen on the North Shore this past week, I feel that maybe a little parking refresher is in order. I saw countless parking tickets on the North Shore over the past several days, in addition to watching several vehicles get towed. No parking truly means no parking, especially when visiting the beaches.

Nothing ruins a vacation more than leaving the beach and finding a yellow parking ticket to the tune of $125 on your windshield. And you know what is even worse? Leaving the beach and finding that your vehicle has been towed. Well, that has happened to countless visitors over the past week, so here are the parking rules straight from the Virgin Islands National Park.

According to the VI National Park, when parking along the roadway, all tires and mirrors need to be completely off the road and behind the white line (when there is a white line). Also, never park in front of a gate or an entrance, and never push a stone with your vehicle that is being used to make a boundary. When parking along the road, do not push back any trees or break any branches when trying to find a parking spot.

There are numerous “no parking” signs near the beaches. Please be mindful to the arrows on those signs as well. Some are no parking to the right, some to the left, and so forth.

Tickets

Parking tickets start at $125. They can be higher depending on the violation, a ranger told me last year. The ranger also stated that some car rental companies often charge the renter double the fine, especially when a vehicle is towed.

Tips for Specific Beaches 

Soloman/Honeymoon 

There is no parking at either of the beaches. You can either walk in via the Lind Point Trail, or take the $6 shuttle provided by the Caneel Bay Beach Club. This shuttle is accessed from Caneel Bay. If you park behind the National Park Visitor Center, you need to get a handwritten pass from the Visitor Center (if they are open). They will ask that you back into the designated spot for permit holders and display your parking permit on your dashboard. You can also park at the top of the hill near the Virgin Islands National Park sign and walk down the Lind Point Trail. You do not need a permit to park there.

Caneel Beach 

This is an easy one. You can park in Lot C at Caneel Bay. Just tell the attendant at the gate where you are going, and they will direct you to the appropriate parking lot.

Hawksnest

There is a decent amount of parking at Hawksnest. You can park before and after the parking area on the beach side, as long as your tires and mirrors are completely off the road. It is not suggested that you park anywhere across the street as you may damage the trees, a ranger told me earlier this year.

Oppenheimer/Gibney

There are only three parking spots, so this is a beach to get to early. You can park on the left side when facing the gate. The Oppenheimer house is available for rent. What that occurs, the gate will be open. This does not mean it is open for the public to drive down to the beach. Only guests to the Oppenheimer house that day are allowed to park down the driveway. Whoever rents the house typically puts a sign on the gate to let people know it is rented. This does not mean the beach is closed, but it’s nice to allow whoever spent the money to rent the house to have the majority of the beach for their event.

Denis Bay

You can park in the small lot for Peace Hill to access Denis Bay.

Jumbie

There is a small parking area across the street from the trailhead. It is not recommended that you park on the beach side, as there is a driveway there and you can also damage trees, a ranger previously told me.

Trunk Bay

This is definitely one of the busier beaches, so you want to get to Trunk Bay early. When parking in the main lot, be sure not to take a spot designated for the taxis. They park along the back of the lot, beside the entry booth, facing the street. There is a small patch of grass to the right of where the taxis park (if your back is to the road.) Do not park on this grassy patch unless you’d like to leave with a ticket or possibly get towed, the ranger said.

You are allowed to park across the street near the plantation building as long as your tires and mirrors are off the road. You will see there are no parking and no parking beyond this point signs in that area. I have seen numerous vehicles ticketed here for ignoring those signs, so keep an eye out and look for arrows. This is where I saw a vehicle being towed yesterday.

Also, there isn’t any parking along the roadway on the beach side before of after the Trunk Bay parking lot. I see people create spots, and those vehicles routinely get ticketed too. There are a few no parking signs up the switchbacks too. Trunk is pretty well marked when it comes to where you can and where you cannot park. If you do not want to deal with Trunk’s notorious parking issues, you can always take a taxi.

Cinnamon Bay

There are two large parking lots, so this is an easier place to find a spot. You can also park along the roadway a bit, but again, all tires and mirrors off the road, and please do not park in a way that you can damage a tree. There are a handful of spots where you can park along the road inside of Cinnamon Bay (near the parking areas) too.

Maho Bay

Maho is also extremely busy, and parking is tricky. On the Maho Crossroads side of the beach (closer to Cruz Bay), there are several designated parking spots along the beach. Once you pass the final shade structure, you can no longer park on the beach side. This is a sea turtle nesting beach, and there are also small plantings along the beach that cannot be harmed.

There are also some parking spots across the street in between large boulders along the roadway. Then there is a decent-sized lot at the turtle side of the beach (the opposite side from where the tiki bar is). You can also park along the roadway near the parking lot as long as your tires and mirrors are off the road. This is tricky because there isn’t a ton of space, so there is only room for a handful of cars to do this. There is also a sign that indicates you can no longer park on the side of the road, so please be mindful to that.

I understand that it’s frustrating that there are more people visiting than spaces at the beach. Luckily we have an abundance of taxis who drive between Cruz Bay and Maho and everywhere in between all day, every day. There is also the new park and ride option at Caneel Bay. Click here to read about that. Take a taxi if you can. It’s a lot less stressful in my opinion.

That’s it for today, folks. Have a wonderful day!

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Can you believe that today is the last day of the year? I certainly cannot! The year 2024 was another great one here in St. John! We were not as busy as we have been in previously years, which was a nice reprieve if you ask me. Here is a little recap of a few of the great things that happened in 2024!

• The federal court case regarding land ownership rights at Caneel Bay was settled. Caneel Bay is now part of the Virgin Islands National Park. You can access Caneel Beach from the main resort (despite it being closed still). You can access Salomon and Honeymoon beaches via the Lind Point Trail. You can access Honeymoon via taxi. All other beaches within the property are accessible by water only. You can also park at Caneel Bay (Lot A) as a park and ride option, which just began an a new effort to relieve parking issues at the popular North Shore beaches.
• The restaurant at Concordia reopened in late January providing a new, beautiful view for diners.
• The 8 Tuff Miles road race was wildly successful, once again. It is one of my favorite days of the year!
• The St. Patrick’s Day parade relocated to the waterfront in Cruz Bay this year following the closure of Quiet Mon Pub at the end of 2023. That, too, was a lot of fun!
• And Carnival, well that’s just a given that it was a good time! Parade, fireworks, music, and more – what a celebration it was!
• A new ferry is currently being built to transport people between St. John and St. Thomas. Hopefully it comes online in 2025.
• Oppenheimer, the movie, won an Oscar earlier this year, which shined a light on St. John, once again. Tens of thousands of people visited ExploreSTJ.com right afterward to read about Robert Oppenheimer’s life on St. John. Click here to read the story in case you missed it. 
• VRBO named Villa Cin Cin the best vacation rental IN THE WORLD in 2024. How amazing is that?!
• Speaking of accolades, Trunk Bay was named the best beach in the world, too, in 2024! No surprise there!
• Sharky’s opened in Coral Bay this year, as did Karma in St. John. I’ll have more on that next week.
• Sadly, we lost one of St. John’s most important businesses in 2024 – Connections in Cruz Bay. We were sad to see it got but we were thrilled when The Pelican Post opened in its place!
• We had soooooo many power outages in May and June. It was truly a miserable time to be living in or visiting the island. It prompted me to get solar, which was completely life changing! Email me at jenn@explorestj.com if you’d like details!
• Speaking of miserable, it rained for nearly an entire month between October and November. The good news if that the island is so green because of it!
• STJ Hideaway, now dubbed STJ Speakeasy, opened mid-year, and has been receiving rave reviews ever since!
• St. John has a brand new ferry dock now complete with bathrooms!
• We have a new barge now, thanks to Big Red Barge. The Virgin Pride has been added to its fleet.
• Tropical Storm Ernesto blew through in July, causing quite a bit of tree damage.
• The flamingos continued to hang out around the island this year. Such a great sight!
• The old Danish building on the beach at Cinnamon Bay is being restored. It is currently fenced off, but hopefully work will be completed soon.
• The National Park finally out put a request for qualifications to rebuild Caneel Bay. No other information has been released as of yet.
• Paulie’s Luncheonette opened at the Lumberyard in Cruz Bay. It serves delicious sandwiches! Do yourself a favor and check it out.
• The old Islands Blues building in Coral Bay was finally torn down. Thank goodness for that!

On a personal note, 2024 was a fantastic year for my family. Dalton is now a first grader at Gifft Hill, and he is loving every moment of it. Mike and I are continuing to do work on our new house that we bought last year (even though he prefers that we stop all the house projects – lol). It’s a labor of love, and I am so happy with the progress we have made. I became a realtor earlier this year, and I love it more than I ever dreamed I would. Thank you 340 Real Estate Co. for having me on your team! We adopted another rescue from the Animal Care Center a few months ago. Sweet little Linda joined our family in late September.

You guys know me, I always like to do something new. Well, we may have something new and exciting brewing, so stay tuned for an exciting announcements soon if all goes as planned!

That’s it for today, folks. Happy New Year! Stay safe tonight! Dalton and I will be enjoying it from the comforts of our couch in Fish Bay, but if you find yourself in Cruz Bay, swing by The Beach Bar and say hello to Mike! You can also check out the action on our webcams at www.explorestj.com/webcams.

 

 

Hello everyone, and happy Thursday! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas! We definitely did over here in the Manes/Hedy household! We are up in Connecticut for a few days, and Dalton was able to see snow on Christmas Eve! He was beyond excited, which made me so happy! You would have thought this child won the lottery! 🙂 Santa was great to him, and it was time very well-spent with family. That’s the most important thing in life, right?

Well now that the holiday has passed, Mike is sadly en route back to the island due to work, Dalton is in YMCA camp up here on Connecticut today, and yours truly is also back to work! That being said, want to hear about a new beach shuttle?

Parking at the beaches has gotten crazy over the past few years. There are more people than parking spots at the beach, which leads to some crazy parking efforts on that roadways that clog up the streets. Well the folks at the Virgin Islands National Park have taken notice, and are trying to alleviate some of the parking issues that we see during the busier winter months.

People visiting the popular North Shore beaches – Hawksnest, Trunk, Cinnamon and Maho – can now park at Caneel Bay for free and take a regular taxi to the beach from there. This is a new “park and ride” option, according to Tonia Lovejoy, Executive Director of Friends of Virgin Islands National Park.

Here’s how I see this working…

Say you have a family of four with bags, coolers, noodles and chairs. You don’t feel like dragging the kids out of the house at 8:30 a.m., which is pretty much the time you need to leave in the winter to ensure parking at your favorite beach. With this new park and ride option, you can leave whenever you’d like, drop your family and beach gear at your beach of choice, then one family member parks the car at Caneel and meets the family back at the beach. Is this the ideal way to visit the beach? No. But it’s not a terrible option. It also allows you to visit whatever beach you’d like, whenever you’d like.

Taxis go up and down the North Shore every day, all day. They are consistently driving this route between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. – prime beach time. Certain taxis will stop at Caneel daily at 9 a.m., 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. to pick up passengers using the park and ride option. If you choose to park in the lot at different times, you can always walk out to the road and catch a passing taxi. Taxi prices range from $6 to $12 from Caneel to the North Shore beaches. Please remember that the taxis are cash only.

This new park and ride option will continue through May 30th. The hope is that it not only helps with parking issue, but that it also helps the environment. When people look for alternative parking at the beaches, they often park on tree roots, eroding surfaces, and on smaller plants. If this park and ride option works, we may see additional options in the future. I’ll keep you all posted.

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