If you have always done RH then try CA unless you get motion sickness since the CA ride is longer and can be a little rougher at times. I prefer the views from the CA ferry myself.
If you are in a hurry to get across, check with the taxi driver about schedules since the CA ferry is not as frequent.

I would go to RH as the ferry goes every hour. Last time I looked the CA schedule was not as good.

Billd

Are all 3 car barges running between Redhook and Cruz Bay now, or is it still only 2?

There is a 3PM and a 4PM CA to STJ ferry - the schedules are right at the top right of this page. Cheers!

Our take on this is:

Do you want to sit in a cab/van w/ other travelers for 45 minutes +/- going up and over the roads while they get dropped off at their locations on STT (stop, unload, start, stop, unload, start....)while you anxiously await your arrival on STJ and then sit on the ferry for 20 minutes.

OR

jump in a cab at the STT airport spend 5 minutes +/- w/ a direct ride to CA ferry, load ferry and spend 40 minutes +/- on the top deck of the ferry enjoying the glorious scenery and 80+ degree weather while the Caribbean sun beats down on you and welcomes you to "Island Time" and if luck has it you'll have an extra 5-10 minutes in CA to grab a couple canned beers for your ride over to STJ

matter of opinion and choice but I'd rather be on the open water basking in the sun getting into "Island" mode vs. sitting in an a/c van stopping at every resort.

ENJOY whatever route you take

When we arrived in STT we just asked the cab driver which ferry we should take and he said Red Hook. Now I'm thinking hmmm... did he just bring us there since it's a longer, more expensive ride? And yes, we did have to drop off other people en route.

Also, the ferry we took left at a weird time, like 3:40, not at a scheduled time at the top of the hour. So I'm wondering if you can rely on the schedules to pick the next ferry?

island_mom wrote:
Also, the ferry we took left at a weird time, like 3:40, not at a scheduled time at the top of the hour. So I'm wondering if you can rely on the schedules to pick the next ferry?

Island time starts at the airport 🙂
It has helped us catch the Charlotte ferry at times.

"It has helped us catch the Charlotte ferry "

You went to North Carolina???:-)

The town ferry leaves from Charlotte Amalie.

EE: That's funny! A couple of years ago there were several young seasonal workers here who kept calling town "Charlotte." Guess someone started it and it got passed around because all the newbies thought that that was the "inside/local" term for Charlotte Amalie. On the contrary it made them stick out like neon channel markers. Cheers!

When I want to feel like an "insider/local" I will refer to it as Charlotte Amalie. Until then it is Charlotte to me. 🙂

toes: If you want to sound local, call it "Town.";)

But it is kinda like people asking if you are going to Antigua when you write "St John's."

Linward - 2 car barge companies are running. The 3rd, Love City Barge, is in dry dock until late April.

island_mom - The ferries are pretty reliable. Sometimes they do run late though, so maybe your 3:40pm departure was a very late 3pm ferry. Although, it could have also been an early 4pm ferry as the ferries will leave early if they are full.

toes in the sand - like East Ender mentioned call it 'Town'. If you add East, West or Northside and 'Country' in there you will really be golden. So something like this "I am staying at a place out East but needed to go in town to pick up some things. On the way back I stopped in the country to grab some groceries.' 😀

--Islander