Hi Alice,

Thanks for taking such good care of us.

Everything went pretty smoothly.  The flight down and the  transfers were fine.  The Westin is exactly as advertised – very solid, all the amenities that we expected – the villa was very nice and just the right size for us.  Some problems – one of the bedrooms smelled of mildew and they couldn’t do anything about it (we didn’t want to move everybody even if they had an alternative)--  but their staff were responsive.  Biggest problem was that after getting up at 4 to make that 7:00 flight, we arrived at the Westin around noon and they wouldn’t let us into our villa until after 3, which was hard on the 2-year-olds.  They said the previous tenant didn’t check out until 10 and they needed all that time to clean “such a big place.”  We could have cleaned Buckingham Palace in 6 hours.

The island is beautiful – especially the north side, where Caneel Bay is.  The storm didn’t affect us much, except raising everyone’s anxiety.  Flights home were delayed – didn’t reach JFK until after midnight – but in general logistics were fine.  The Varlack car rental was excellent – professional, nice people, good jeeps (we upgraded to four-doors), and in the end less expensive than they had estimated.  Don’t hesitate to use them again for other St. John clients.

About half the restaurants on the island were closed – September and October are their down months, largely due to exorbitant insurance rates during Hurricane season.  Food is very expensive everywhere but good.

Thanks again for your help – We’ll talk next week.

Kelin

PS - Thank you so much for the beautiful (and very bountiful!) gift basket that we got "on your behalf," and for all your work to connect with the Westin people and make sure they were nice to us--  It was very reassuring to know you were paving the way for us!