Peter Island Resort, BVI

For Thanksgiving this year, thirty-five of my family members went to Peter Island Resort in Tortola, British Virgin Islands.  It was heaven on earth.

Because there were so many of us, and not everyone could get off of work and school at the same time, we left in shifts.  Brad, my brother Graham, my sister-in-law Elizabeth, and I left on the Friday before Thanksgiving and flew down to St. Thomas and met up with the crew who was already there.  We spent Friday night at a hotel in St. Thomas, and then got up Saturday morning to take a ferry to Road Town, Tortola (the other end of the island where we stayed last year).

Once we got to Road Town, we spent a little bit of time shopping and sightseeing before we were picked up by a taxi and taken to the Peter Island ferry dock and whisked away...

Peter Island is an all-inclusive resort (except for your alcohol -- oh, and bottled water at meals -- found that out the hard way for $12 a bottle!), so basically anything you want to do is included -- kayaking, snorkeling, sailing, windsurfing, etc.  Of course, the spa is extra -- and I took full advantage of that!  However, because we were all staying for a week, we got a nice room credit that we could use at the bar, the spa, or the boutique, so that went a long way to defray those costs.  

We stayed in the ocean view rooms.  We had thought about renting the three villas that they have on the grounds of the resort, but they weren't available for the whole time that we were staying.  The ocean view rooms were nice, though -- and I liked that Brad and I had a room to ourselves:

This was the view from our room:

Most of our days were spent on Deadman's Beach.  We would grab as many beach chairs as we could, and plop ourselves down right in front of the beach bar.  There we would read, listen to music (our own -- that was one thing they didn't have much of in the daytime), hang out in the water, sip beachy drinks, and watch the boys try their hands at sailing/windsurfing/paddle boarding/etc.

This was the view standing on Deadman's Beach, looking back towards the beach view rooms:

And looking toward the other direction:

And out toward Tortola and Deadman's Chest (another little island where Blackbeard supposedly dropped other pirates off to die with only a barrel of rum for comfort...):

The following pictures are from the day we went to White Bay beach.  It was a more secluded beach, and we had to be dropped off there by the Peter Island staff.  They brought us a picnic lunch, and we mostly had the beach to ourselves -- in addition to some Germans who we managed to make angry within the first three minutes of being there:

One of the villas:

One evening we went to watch the sunset from one of the highest points at Peter Island (the island gets as high as 5000 feet).  It was beautiful!

While eating dinner one night, this humongous boat pulled up in Deadman's Bay.  We were amazed by this boat and tried to guess who in the world could be on it.  I tried to get pictures of it at night all lit up, but it wouldn't show up well.  So, I took pictures of it the next day.  Turns out this boat is called Fortunato, and you can rent it if you so desire, for $450,000 per week plus expenses!  That yellow thing coming out the side of it is a slide...

Looking onto Deadman's Beach from Deadman's Grill:

The pool:

Deadman's Chest:

It was really a beautiful place and a really relaxing vacation...overall; we did have our share of craziness, though.  Tomorrow I will tell you about all of that!

Who wants to go with me back to Peter Island?!?!