New Year in St Barts is the one week of the year when the Caribbean charter fleet arrives all at once. Gustavia fills, the outer anchorages fill behind it, and for about ten days a small French island holds a concentration of yachts and people that no marketing budget could assemble. If there is a single anchor event in the Caribbean season, this is it.
Here the charter is not a way of attending the event. The charter is the event. Your yacht is your table at the party, your view of the fireworks over the harbour, and your escape from an island where every villa and restaurant was committed a year ago. Guests come and go by tender, and the deck is the only place on St Barts with space and quiet on the thirty-first.
Demand is absolute and it prices accordingly. Christmas and New Year are quoted as a single festive period at a substantial premium, with minimum stays of ten to fourteen days and payment terms to match. Gustavia’s inner harbour takes limited length, so most larger yachts lie off Gustavia or in Colombier and run tenders in. The best yachts are gone twelve to eighteen months out.
Our Caribbean fleet runs from 26 to 122 metres at weekly rates between roughly 41,000 and 3,000,000 euros, the widest spread of any cruising ground we cover. For New Year we shortlist on tender capability and deck entertaining space as much as on cabins.
