Regional carriers in the Carribean

[DannyTS]

Has anyone done island hopping in the Caribbeans? By ferry or by plane, what are the options? We are thinking at US Virgin Islands, Aruba,Bahamas, Barbados.

We are planning our 2020 vacations and i am thinking it may be more fun to spend 2-3 weeks on 2-3 different islands. I am also thinking it may be more cost effective if we do not have to pay for 4 plane return tickets several times.

 

[pedro47]

Suggestion only..Please include the following ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire & Curaçao) in your vacation planning process. They are the Southern most Caribbean Islands. Hurricanes & tropical storm rarely hit these islands. I would skip Nassau, Bahamas IMHO as a total waste of money.

 

[DannyTS]

Suggestion only..Please include the following ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire & Curaçao) in your vacation planning process. They are the Southern most Caribbean Islands. Hurricanes & tropical storm rarely hit these islands. I would skip Nassau, Bahamas IMHO as a total waste of money.

thank you. i forgot to mention Aruba so i edited my post. We are Vistana owners and Harbourside is pretty easy to book, that is why Bahamas is on the list

 

[TravelTime]

I have been researching island hopping in the Caribbean too. It is very hard to find inter island flights. Most of the time you need to go back to Miami or though Puerto Rico. There are a couple airlines that fly between some islands like Air Sunshine. Air Sunshine has a nonstop from St Thomas to St Kitts. I have not found any nonstops between Cancun and the Caribbean Islands. Inter island flights can get expensive and be delayed. Another airline to look into is LIAT (alias for Lucky If It Arrives Today and Luggage In Another Terminal). There are a few other airlines but these are two of the bigger ones.

For the Bahamas, I believe you would go through Miami or Orlando from the Caribbean. I had been thinking of trying to combine USVI with Harborside but that is very time consuming and expensive. I would disagree that the Bahamas are a waste of time. I have traveled extensively in the Caribbean as a scuba diver. The clarity of the ocean in the outer islands of the Bahamas beats most of the Caribbean and most of the world hands down. Water visibility is as clear as the Cayman Islands. The level of luxury in the Bahamas is quite high too, with many private islands. Nassau probably gives many people a bad impression. Once you get to the hundreds of outer islands or go on a small overnight sailing or boating trip, the Bahamas are one of the best places in the world. On a dive many years ago in the Southern Bahamas, which is the furthest point out with no tourists, we saw a humongous tiger shark. It is the only tiger shark I have ever seen on a dive.

 

[pedro47]

The next time you go snorkeling used some frozen peas and watch the fish surround you guys. Learned this tip from a Canadian tug boat captain many, many years ago while snorkeling in the Grand Cayman.

 

[Chrisky]

Has anyone done island hopping in the Caribbeans? By ferry or by plane, what are the options? We are thinking at US Virgin Islands, Aruba,Bahamas, Barbados.

We are planning our 2020 vacations and i am thinking it may be more fun to spend 2-3 weeks on 2-3 different islands. I am also thinking it may be more cost effective if we do not have to pay for 4 plane return tickets several times.

Liat flies to many caribbean islands. https://www.liat.com

 

[DannyTS]

the Liat flights are not bad in price if they are direct. For example i see some at $123 one way between St Lucia and Barbados. This is the map with their destinations

 

[Sandy VDH]

It depends on where you are starting from

This article covers all of the current airlines as of May 2018.
https://www.tripsavvy.com/caribbean-island-hopping-1487672

LIAT, is already mentioned. This is headquartered in Antigua.

But there is also:

WinAir which works for flights to/from St Martin https://www.fly-winair.sx/
Caribbean Airways which is Trinidad based https://www.caribbean-airlines.com/#/main
Silver Airways which is FLL based, but services Bahamas https://www.silverairways.com/
SVG Air which is based in St Vincent and the Grenadines. http://www.svgair.com/index.html
Cape Air which is a US based flying less common route in US, plus USVI, BVI and PR https://www.capeair.com/#/availability

I have personally been on all of the airlines I have listed above. I have done a lot of Caribbean based sailing trips which leave from much smaller locations. I have been to every Caribbean nation (but not island) except for Montserrat and Martinique. I have sailed past both of these, but just have not stepped on land there.

 

[RNCollins]

Here is a link to a list of ferries Puerto Rico has scheduled to the outer islands:
https://islandsofpuertorico.com/travel-guide/ferries/

If you are interested in taking a mail/cargo boat around the Bahamas Out Islands, the below link offers some information and departure schedules:
http://www.bahamasguru.com/travel/mailboat.php

 

[TravelTime]

It depends on where you are starting from

This article covers all of the current airlines as of May 2018.
https://www.tripsavvy.com/caribbean-island-hopping-1487672

LIAT, is already mentioned. This is headquartered in Antigua.

But there is also:

WinAir which works for flights to/from St Martin https://www.fly-winair.sx/
Caribbean Airways which is Trinidad based https://www.caribbean-airlines.com/#/main
Silver Airways which is FLL based, but services Bahamas https://www.silverairways.com/
SVG Air which is based in St Vincent and the Grenadines. http://www.svgair.com/index.html
Cape Air which is a US based flying less common route in US, plus USVI, BVI and PR https://www.capeair.com/#/availability

I have personally been on all of the airlines I have listed above. I have done a lot of Caribbean based sailing trips which leave from much smaller locations. I have been to every Caribbean nation (but not island) except for Montserrat and Martinique. I have sailed past both of these, but just have not stepped on land there.

The question is about island hopping. I have not found this to be very convenient or affordable to places I want to go. In May, we flew on SVG Air to meet a sailboat in Bequia. It cost us about $1100 for 2 people from Barbados to Bequia not including departure fees. We had separate round trip tickets on American that got us from SFO-MIA-Barbados. It was quite expensive and total travel time was long. So usually when I go to the Caribbean, I keep my travel focused on a small area and I expect to have to make 2 stops minimum. I also expect delays.

I won’t go into the details what happened on our last trip to St John but here’s a summary. It was a wonderful trip while we were there but the travel to/from SFO was the trip from hell. That was probably my fault because I booked through Puerto Rico to save a little money. I do not recommend that at all because then you need to take a little local plane and that proved to be unreliable for us going both ways.

Ferries are the way to go, I think, when possible. For example, there is a ferry from St Vincent to Bequia and now American has flights from Miami to St Vincent that they did not have before.

Next summer, we are going to St John and Tortola. We will use the ferry system to get around.