St. Thomas?

Re: St. Thomas?

• AprilH81 member

  

  November 2013

  I have been to St. Thomas once, but only on a cruise stop so my experience is limited.

  St. Thomas is a beautiful island with lots of activities (snorkeling, hiking, history tours, acquarium, etc.) but it can be very crowded during peak cruise season. If you are going to stay there for a week I recommend checking with the cruise ship calendars to check the number of ships scheduled to dock each day.  This will GREATLY impact tour availability and overall experience.  Try to schedule your tours on days where there are no ships in port if possible. 

  When we were there we spent the majority of the day at Sapphire Beach (great walk in snorkeling) and then we got a quick taxi tour on the way back to the ship.  There is a lot of great shopping that is tax/duty free and you have the benefit of not needing a US passport since it is a US Territory.

  

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• ac411020 member

  

  November 2013

  I have also only been to St. Thomas on a cruise, but it is beautiful!  I have been to Magen's Bay, which is a really nice beach  We also went ziplining the last time we were there which was a ton of fun if you are in to that kind of stuff.

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• hutchsl member

  

  November 2013

  We flew in to there but then caught a charter sailboat to cruise the BVIs. We loved doing a charter sail for 6 nights. Like an AI on the water with just us and a captain and his wife who did the cooking. We chartered through VIsailing.com.

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• alithebride member

  

  November 2013

  ive been a few times both on cruises and for land stay.

  i can say that when i was there in april the state of megans bay and the beach were DRASTICALLY improved from the last time i was there. it's not longer a dirty beach.

  for me staying on st john and saving st thomas for a day trip is the way to go. st thomas is very pretty and it's fun but it's totally and completely over run with cruise shippers all day every day. which is too bad.

  what is leading you to st thomas? give us your criteria perhaps we can offer alternate suggestions as swell.

   

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• 16maybeless member

  

  November 2013

  I've been to St. Thomas recently. Magen's Bay shouldn't be missed; it's beautiful, and I took an amazing paddleboarding lesson there. I also really liked Coral World and the sea lion/sea turtle encounter. (You get to swim with them!) 

  
  

  I really wasn't into the duty-free shopping near the harbor as much. Very crowded, and I didn't really want to buy jewelry or designer goods. If you do, then go for it. There are some good restaurants, including Gladys' and Oceana.
  

  
  

  I would definitely suggest making a trip to St. John on the ferry, if you can. Trunk Bay is like no other place on Earth. Caneel Bay Resort is worth a stop (you can have a beautiful dinner there and then go to Honeymoon Beach, I believe it's called, and take a kayak tour! So pretty.) 

  
  

  I will be honest, I didn't love St. Thomas as much as the other Virgin Islands. It's very commercialized and caters to the huge cruise ships. St. John was more my style: relaxed, laid-back, uncrowded, and eco-friendly.

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• lleblanc33 member

  

  November 2013

  St. Thomas you MUST- rent a car and drive on the wrong side of the road, stop at the alcoholic milkshake place (called something like utter delight...) and visit Meagans Bay. A catamaran cruise and snorkel is also amazing in this area.

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