Reasons to Avoid Vacationing in the British Virgin Islands - Part II

The water and sunsets in the British Virgin Islands are truly beautiful but it's about all the islands have to offer. There have very few conveniences, mediocre food, and not so pleasant local residents.

This is a great place if you are a sailor because you enjoy the waters and pull up to a place made just for sailors. There you'll get great food, all the conveniences you want and meet people from around the world mostly interested in talking to you. Going this route, you really don't experience the island the way we did, having flew in and with the desire to experience the British Virgin Islands.

When we went, we weren''t quite sure what to see so we did our usual research things to death. We didn't come up with a whole lot so we went to the tourism booth in the middle of town. We found a large man picking his nose talking on the phone carrying on a clearly personal conversation. After several minutes of feeling the weight of our stare, he asked if he could help us. When my husband inquired about where he could go scuba diving, the man tossed the phone book at him, turned to the "scuba diving" page, turned the old-fashion phone his way, you know the one he just touched with the finger he used to pick his nose with, and told him to call to get info. He wasn't much help for anything else and that's when we realized this trip wasn't going to be quite to our liking. We were use to going to other beautiful islands which also have beautiful water and sunsets, but offer friendly locals, great shopping, tasty food and actual activities to enjoy while you are there.

In the British Virgin Islands, there were two things I can think of all week that we did and that I actually enjoyed. Aside from these two things, I spent my time in the British Virgin Islands fighting for a refund for the first resort we booked which turned out to be a disaster (see part I for details on this!) and doing my homework for graduate school. Quite a sad thing when you think about it.

The first fun thing we did on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands was to swim with the dolphins. They had a place much like an amusement park with one dolphin we were allowed to swim with, ride his back and interact with him. It really was quite adorable - he was such a cute fellow. I am glad I had that opportunity.

The second thing was The Baths on the Island of Virgin Gorda just a short ferry ride from the big island of Tortola.The Baths are unusual geologic formations that you can walk through. They are cave like and lead to the beach. Throughout are pools of water. It really is a sight. Our experience there was quite unusual though.

We took the ferry over which included transportation from the ferry dock to the Baths which were all the way at the end of the island in a somewhat secluded area. We were dropped off and told would be picked up at 5:00. When asked if we could call when we were done, the guy said no. He promise he'd be back at 5:00. That made me a little uncomfortable to think that we were reliant on this guy to pick us up. There were no hotels in sight if he didn't live up to his promise. And public transportation was a rarity on the island. More than likely we wouldn't catch the one bus that goes by on occasion.

We went to the national park that was there and decided to make the most of the next two hours. We did a little swimming and climbing through The Baths but it was hard to relax. We didn't have a watch and we didn't want chance missing our only mode of transportation so we went back up to where we were dropped off and decided to wait. There was a small cafe there and the workers were cleaning up to go home. They didn't want to hear out concern of being stranded. That was our problem. We tried the pay phone and it didn't work. So I approached a couple sitting in the cafe and asked them if they knew of any hotels or resorts around just in case we run into a problem. That was the best thing I ever did because we got to spend quite a bit of time talking to a really nice couple, getting to know them quite well. Unbelievably, our ride did come back to get us and on our way we went. I'd never do that again though. The thought of being stranded was frightening!

Fortunately, the week did come to an end and we were headed home not a minute too soon. I can honestly say that I've never been anxious to get home from any vacation, this trip to the British Virgin Islands was quite different.

When we got to the airport, we were horrified to realize that we had to pay a departure tax! It was $40 for my husband and I just to get off the British Virgin Islands. After our horrific experience at our resort, bad food, odd transportation arrangements, no so helpful people and so much more, they should have paid us to leave! Thankfully we had the cash because that's all they accept. Imagine being on vacation on all week and being low on cash but having to make sure you have enough to leave! You couldn't have paid me to stay on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands a minute longer and you could never pay me to go back.

Save your money and go else where! The US Virgin Islands and The Cayman Islands are quite nice.

See my article, "Reasons Not to Vacation in the British Virgin Islands - Part I for details on our arrival to the island and the horrible experience that we had at our resort. It was quite commical!