Tourists need to be aware that these busses are fun, and convenient, but they operate on island time. Going to your beach won’t be a problem. There’s lots of people all going to the beach, so the bus gets full quickly.
It’s going BACK to your starting point at the end of the afternoon, that is the problem. For me, I needed to get back to the ferry to St Thomas.
The drivers are not concerned if you urgently have somewhere to be, such as if your ferry is leaving in 1 hour and you NEED to get on it in order to not miss your cruise ship.
They will tell you that 1 hour isn’t enough time; blaming you for being in a hurry, even though it’s just a 20 minute drive and you HAVE prepared a plan ahead of time by being an hour early for a 20 min trip… but dude, you just made me sit here in an empty bus for 15 minutes and now the clock really is ticking. I wasn’t in a hurry before, but the longer you wait for more customers well yeah now I am starting to be in a hurry. I guess that makes me the AH.
Just be aware that they will only start the vehicle when they’re good and ready, and even if you offer to pay them more for a private ride, or pay them more to leave now, they still won’t hurry. They want a FULL bus of people before they depart.
I get it, a full bus is how you make money… But when there’s nobody else around at the beach wanting to share the ride back to the ferry, it becomes a desperate situation where the customer is relying on the driver to “get going” and the driver is sitting around chatting with their buddies and waiting for more (nonexistent) passers-by to jump on.
It’s also irritating to have people tell you to “relax” when you have a ferry to catch, a ferry which DOES depart on schedule. I was relaxed… until I needed a ride from these guys.