The day I went online to book an “eco-tent cabin” at St. John’s legendary Maho Bay Campground, I had no idea my fiancé was pregnant. But after a few weeks when we went to St. John’s and he was caught in two 99% accurate pec-tests, we called each other mom and dad.
It was his first time exposing my health-oriented (read: cheap) travel philosophy. And this with my ancestors is incredible at this point, especially for the stereotypically pregnant Cancer woman. Medium Never studio-apartment”>studio-apartment We hired St. Thomas when she was fine. Food eating on our porch instead of going to the lobster tail was fine with her. And she was perfectly fine with renting a Chevy Aveo instead of a Jeep Cherokee
But even though he didn’t say anything right away, I could tell within ten seconds of opening the thin wooden eco-doors that this Maho Bay thing wasn’t flying. And I couldn’t blame her.
For the uninitiated, Maho Bay Campground is an environmentally friendly alternative to hotels. There is always a moment – even urgently – in Maho Bay very low environmental impact. Also, you can take glass blowing classes. Basically, it’s a place for hippies who accidentally end up in the Virgin Islands. It’s also a cheap place for dicks like me because the eco-tent cabins are only about $90 a night in low season, and they come with a propane stove so they don’t have to eat three times a day.
If you refer to it only on the internet, you will imagine Maho Bay like this: a lot of beautiful white couples will kick back in the pristine eco-sea and watch the sunset (while keenly aware of the environment and its balance.) If you want a more authentic view than you want, a stack of wooden buildings that ten Imagine millions of wooden stairs connected to a mountain pass. But if it happens to be a low season (mid-summer through early fall) then all the above-mentioned wood will be wet and dirty and very slippery. There are also a lot of lizards, soldier crabs, birds, and stray cats.
Back in our segment of this jungle, my first attempt at getting my fiance was in the form of a joke that I knew wasn’t fun. He made a crack about the lizards giving us salmonella. While contracting the raw chicken disease from this stall was not the first concern, I did not find the joke funny. Salmonella or not, the 3-to-2 lizard to human ratio is unacceptable to me at a $30 per night rental, much less three times that rental. As a side note, the giant spider men beat donkeys by a ratio of 2 to 1, but I digress…
The woman’s other point was less witty but even more powerful. Because of her pregnancy, she had a lot (especially at night.) And because she doesn’t have her own eco-bath 90 dollars a night, one bundle to walk and sink, slippery death. bench to lift himself to the city toilet/shower facility. (This feature is a no-flush feature, as you’d think draining urine into a small plastic filter has minimal environmental impact!)
Once I walked up the 10,000 steps to registration and we were upgraded to one of Maho Bay’s Concordia Studio units, she finally admitted that she hated it enough. Even then, she tried to stay upbeat: “I sure would like it if I wasn’t pregnant and could only drink all day!”
Then I realized immediately: Maho Bay is a place for drunk hippies. If we were drunk hippies, the Maho Bay eco-village would be the end of all living arrangements. But we weren’t drunk hippies.
Harmony Studios (conveniently located about 1000 miles up the labyrinth of mountain stairs from registration) are basically tents with real walls and private bathrooms. There’s still a propane fireplace, no remote, you’re expected to clean up after yourself, and your room is still inexplicably plagued by mosquitoes and ants (although the human lizard system has improved significantly.) All for only $100+. through the night!
Maho Bay also has an on-site restaurant. But it’s not that good and it’s not that much cheaper than going to Cruz Bay and getting a huge plate of delicious local cuisine ( We highly recommend Uncle Joe’s Barbecue. ) You can get more liquor in town since Maho Bay only allows beer and wine. .
As for the staff, most of them were friendly and competent. But there are probably a lot of friendly, competent people at Wyndham, too. And–although no one was anything close to hostile to us–we got a very weird vibe of clivishness on the staff. As if we weren’t there (which in retrospect probably isn’t.) I don’t want to say we felt unwelcome, but something close. Maybe they suspected we weren’t minimizing our environmental impact, I don’t know. But I know we probably haven’t experienced it at Wyndham.
To ice cake, Maho Bay has a rule that all guests must sweep the area before checking out. Seriously. I pay $100 a night and they make me a housekeeper? It’s a yeast on the border of the throat. When I pay $100 a night to stay somewhere, I want someone coming to my room with ice cold drinks and calling me “sir” for a moment to observe…not some lazy hippie telling me to sweep his floor before I leave.
I know what’s coming next… I’m getting a million comments on this article from angry part-time tree-huggers who think I just “don’t have it”. Trust me, I will do it. I understand – or rather – the concept behind the Maho Bay business model. It is a great concept. It is the execution of the idea that breathes.
A fellow traveler told us the place “used to be nice,” and it was worth the run-ins and crappy, because no one was sure if they were even going to renew the lease this year. I will explain what it is.
However, I can’t help but feel like something is missing – some integral part of the whole Maho Bay “thing”. The site has also been showered with awards in recent years. The Travel Channel put it in “America’s Best Beaches”. Caribbean Travel & Life‘s readers awarded it “Best of the Caribbean”. NewYork was called “the best value in Honorius”. When I have been there myself, I find it very difficult to swallow any of these accolades as anything more solid than the casual praise of a thing which defines itself by the circle of friendship. I’m also guilty of thinking the whole “hello environment” fuss is pretty cool sometimes. But hell is a lot less chilling when you’re out there, “saving the environment” with lizards and spiders frolicking on a boat.
So in closing, I’ll just try to leave you with the same “ewwwwww” feeling I had when I left Maho Bay. When I woke up on my last morning checking into Harmony Studios, a dead lizard was buried under the stomach of the mattress. Maybe this can be used metaphorically for the whole Maho Bay experience, but I want to wrap it up because my computer emits too many Conservative gases.
