On 2/26/2023 at 8:27 AM, Anna N said:Have you noticed any sort of outrageous price increase in the restaurant meals?
No, I cannot say that I have really. Almost everyone is adding a "credit card convenience fee" of around 4% if you use a card, but it's stated directly on the menu or at the door. Some places are also now including the gratuity directly. For example, when we ate at the Longboard, a 20% fee was included, and there was a line with options to circle if you wanted to add more, plus another line to add a custom add on gratuity. That was new. But, adding the gratuity is common in lots of tourist areas. Maybe some people are still wary of eating in restaurants post Covid. The tourist demographic does skew older in the winter. There are a lot of retired people here for sure. When we come back in the summer, it will be a lot of young families, and we will be the ones to feel old!
We spent yesterday at our favorite beach, Francis. It was crowded (by St. John standards), so we set up on the rocky part by ourselves.
We did not snorkel because of my toe injury, but we did swim, and I had a friendly baby fish take shelter with me. My husband got a picture. It stayed with me the entire time I was in the water.
We drove into Coral Bay for lunch. The place we wanted to go was crowded, so we ended up back at Aqua Bistro. They got all new cooking staff, so I was hoping for a better meal than we had last summer. Restaurant view.
Conch fritters. These were spicy, hot, and very good!
I had a mani sandwich. The fish was nice and fresh.
Husband opted for shrimp tacos.
After lunch we stopped by one of the hidden beaches in Coral Bay so I could look for sea glass. I am obsessed with sea glass. My house is filed with jars of it from all the places I go. The beach:
15 minutes of searching led to a big handful.
All the parking at the beaches was still full by the time we came back into the National Park, so we just went back to the villa to talk about, of course, what we wanted for dinner. Neither of us wanted anything fancy, so we just went to see what we could find. The place we wanted to go was closed for the day, and the Beach Bar was packed, so we decided to go get tacos at a new to us place, Greengoes. Terrible name. They make their own tortillas though, and it's cheap, so we figured if it was not good, no big deal. They are famous for a big wall of tequila
They also have big tvs, so people come here for sporting events.
Husband got a cucumber cooler. He said it was very refreshing.
I chose shrimp tacos. I gave husband one to compare with his lunch shrimp taco. He liked this one better than lunch.
Husband got mahi tacos
Vacation calls for dessert, so it was off to St. John Scoops
I got mint chocolate chip and he had toasted coconut in a waffle cone
Later today we are taking a boat shuttle to a nearby cay to check out a new eco resort over there and have dinner. We almost stayed over there instead of on St. John this trip, but husband was leery of the glamping concept. Should be interesting! Lovango Resort
