Day 1 – Saturday

Bowman, John and I arrived at St. Thomas between 1:30-2:00 on Saturday. We caught a shuttle to the Dollar rental car office. Even though there’s a new fancy garage at the airport, our car was not.

The last time I was in St. Thomas was February 2017 and the two hurricanes that came through hit the islands (Irma and Maria) in September 2017. So a lot has changed since then, but some things remain the same. When you get off the plane and walk towards the baggage claim yes they offer you a free shot of rum. There used to be people with steel drums playing, but they’re no longer there and instead of people handing out the shots you just help yourself to one on the counter. So welcoming energy was not the same. Bowman was the only one who got a shot of rum.

When we arrived at Bluebeards, we could check right in since it was after 3 pm. Our first day on the island was a little crazy. After checking in, we unpacked our luggage and then decided to head over to the Tap and Still for dinner. We ate hamburgers, wings, fries, and Bowman had her first frozen drink of the trip. After dinner we made our way over to the Gourmet supermarket. It’s definitely a more expensive market however, because so many of the large yachts get their provisions there, there’s a lot of good food. Everybody was working really slow so we didn’t stay there long. Our plan was to next go to the Pueblo market, but that didn’t happen right away. We pulled out of the parking lot onto the main drag and realized we had a flat tire. So we pulled into the Giant gas station to check it out. It was clearly flat. So we called Dollar emergency assistance. While waiting, John found an air pump, so we pulled over to where he could fill up the tire. There were a couple locals sitting on a picnic table having a couple beers. John walked over to the Pueblo and we stayed with the car. That’s when the trash talking happened. They were very chatty and opinionated. They kicked and pounded on the tire and because it sounded solid, they were overly confident it was fine to drive on. I said NO, we’re staying here and waiting. We only had the car 4 hours, hopefully this wasn’t a sign of what’s to come. Dollar help didn’t take long. The Dollar guy had a bottle of soapy water which he poured on the tire to watch for air to come out. It was good that we didn’t listen to the locals. There was a hole, probably from a nail, and it was leaking. He was able to plug it.

He offered to take us over to the Pueblo so we could pick up John. He also was trying to get us away from the guys knowing that they’d chat our ears off. He started driving over to the Pueblo with the drivers door open, So I said oh shut the door. He said, I can’t. I’m too big, it won’t fit. So we drove across a busy 4 lane road with the door open and his left leg hanging out.

We had all of our provisions or enough provisions to tied us over and headed back to Bluebeards Castle. We are tired after a long day of travel, a flat tire, so we just chilled in the room.

Day 2 – Sunday

On Sunday, we woke up to a rainbow over Charlotte Amalie.

We decided to cruise around the island or at least a portion of the island. We started off, heading to Mountain Top, which is famous for inventing the banana daiquiri. Didn’t know that did you? It’s also a huge hanger filled with St Thomas souvenirs. Once you go through the the hanger, there is a beautiful view of Magen‘s Bay, St. John, and some of the British Virgin Islands.

Bowman found a botanical garden which we considered going to, but we were a little concerned about its location, size and the amount of hiking it might require so we passed on that. We drove down to Hull Bay to see the water. That was quite lovely.

Next, we went to brunch at Fish Bar. John ordered avocado toast with an egg and flowers on top, Bowman and I ordered burrito with scrambled eggs, carne asada and potatoes, which was delicious. Hadn’t been there before, but we’d go there again.

Next, we trying to find Little Magen‘s Bay Beach but unfortunately it’s behind a private gate. So we couldn’t get to it. After that, we headed back to Bluebeards Castle and decided to head for the pool. We hung out there for a while until it was almost dark. The shade was lovely.

For dinner tonight, we went to Crav’n Crabs in near Havensight. We had the silliest little waiter whose name was Rex. We believe he was from the Philippines and he was just hilarious. We laughed so much. The food was better than I remember it being. I had mahi. Bowman had salmon and John had shrimp.

Day 3 – Monday

There’s a great website managed by the US Virgin Islands that tells you what cruise ships are coming in on what days. What’s helpful about it, is you can plan to do the things you don’t want do on the days that lots of cruise ships are in town. So on Monday, we went to Coki Beach. We arrived there around 9:30 a.m. Its the best time to go because it was warm, nobody was there and we were able to secure a spot in the shade. We rented three lounge chairs and didn’t move for hours. The sound of the music, the wash of the waves, the beautiful colors of the Caribbean and the sunny day was heavenly.

We all had a chance to snorkel, but didn’t see too terribly much. There were small white fish, long white fish and bigger flat white fish. So we saw lots of white fish. Bowman and John haven’t snorkel in over 25 years. So it does take a few minutes to get your comfort level with doing it again. (This is Bowman commentating: Jacqui’s being nice, I was a mess knowing I was gonna drown – calmly coach Jacqui said “stand up!”).

Day 4 – Tuesday

Tuesday was another day without many cruise ships in town so we decided to go to St. John for the day. We took the ferry over from Red Hook and caught a taxi that took us on a hour and a half long sightseeing tour of the island. Kenneth was our driver Originally from Dominica moved to St. John and has stayed here for a while. He talked about the hurricanes from 2017. They experienced 250 mph winds and two hurricanes hit the island nine days apart. Some places are still recovering almost 8 years later.

We drove a different way than I had done before. For example we visited the Myrah Keating Smith Health Center, a hospital that is currently closed. After the hurricane they inspected it and found that there was asbestos in the building so they condemned it. In order to have a baby you have to go over to St. Thomas. While hearing about the hospital, our driver pointed out Kenny Chesney’s house, which is on the hill behind it.

We stopped at the Annaberg Plantation. John took some nice photos. Formally a sugarcane plantation.

Next, we saw some of the beautiful beaches on the island: Hawknest Bay, Cinnamon Bay, Trunk Bay, Canal Bay, Maho Bay, and others. Since we’ve gone snorkeling the day before we chose not to wear our bathing suits and go snorkeling while at St. John’s.

After our tour concluded, we arrived back in Cruz Bay, but we’re not ready to leave yet so we stopped and had lunch at the High Tide restaurant and did a little bit of shopping. John walked for a little bit and went over to Mongoose Junction, but did not buy Bowman any diamonds.

We caught the ferry back to Red Hook and headed back to Bluebeards Castle. Almost every night since we’ve been here, when we come back from our daily adventures, we head up to the pool, try and find a shady spot to just chill. Sometimes that’s not easy since there’s typically a lot of people up there and they don’t tend to disperse until about five.

Day 5 – Wednesday

On Wednesday we had two activities planned for the day. We started off the morning having breakfast at Bumpas and then shopping in Charlotte Amalie. Well, Bowman and I did and John went to the Pueblo. We entered through the little cute hidden alleys before the cruise ship guest descended up upon the city. Then John picked us up and we headed back to Bluebeards Castle. The plan was to take a nap in the middle of the day prior to our evening adventures.

We scheduled a sunset dinner cruise on the VI Cat, leaving from the Marriott Frenchman’s Reef area. The catamaran left the dock around 5:30 and it was a two hour cruise. First we set sail towards the sun set, and dinner was served, consisting of barbecue, chicken, pulled pork, veggies, hummus, rice, mac & cheese, a beef dish and lots of Painkillers.

After the sunset, we headed towards Charlotte Amalie. We saw two cruise ships leave the dock. But we headed towards the back of the small island where we could see two other cruise ships were moored. I don’t think there’s a dock there. There was a Celebrity cruise ship as well as one called the Wonders of the sea. That one held 5500 guests not including employees. it was absolutely enormous compared to the celebrity ship. I believe it’s owned by Royal Caribbean, but don’t hold me to that. The Icon of the seas is the largest ship in the world and that’s coming to town in late February. It holds 7600 guests. I can’t imagine being on a boat that large with that many people.

Day 6 – Thursday

Unfortunately, on Thursday, there were four cruise ships in town but they were big boats. Which means there were 18,000 guests who descended upon St. Thomas today. It was the day we chose to go to Magen‘s Bay. We were guessing there were a couple thousand people there. It was a little crowded, but we were able to find and rent some chairs and sit in the shade. I was the only one that went in the water and I swam parallel to the beach. It was calm day. The sun was out all the time. It was really beautiful and not too hot which helped.

We hung out for a few hours and then headed back to Bluebeards Castle to the pool. It drizzled a couple of times and then the last one seemed to come down pretty hard. We decided to head to dinner a little early at a new restaurant I haven’t been to before called Root 42. It was on the way to Magens Bay. With the sun going down the evening was cooling off. We ordered shrimp potstickers, Bowman got a beautiful piece of wahoo, and John ordered a Caribbean mix of pulled pork and barbecued ribs. I ended up trying a Caribbean bahn mi sandwich, but not nearly as good as the Vietnamese version.

Day 7 – Friday

We decided Friday was going to be a lazy day, which means getting slowly going to get fancy coffee and breakfast and hanging out by the pool. We stopped at two places for breakfast. The first was Stir It Up in Havensight which was where we ordered delicious pastries. Our second stop was Virgin Island Roasters which we are hoping they’d actually have coffee you could drink, but they’re more of a roastery so there was only two kinds of coffees and no food so it was good that we stopped at the other place for food. But John and Bowman bought coffee beans; Sumatra if that means anything to you.

Holiday started off nice with just a couple passing showers. They ended up being more showers and heavier showers throughout the day. John drove us to the local market in town for some souvenirs. We hung out at the pool for a little. I tried reading my book but kept falling asleep. So I went back up to the room to take a nap, but I couldn’t sleep.

We had dinner reservations at Oceana, which is in Frenchtown at the point and on the water. The restaurant had a lot of damage during the hurricane and rebuilt in two years to open back up in 2019. Here are some pictures of the location.

Bowman got some amazing photos while we were waiting for dinner and appetizers to come.

We ordered three appetizers, garlic shrimp, focaccia, and gruyer and pecorino fondue. Bowman and I ordered a drink called “The O,” a special drink made by them. It was delicious. I wish I’d taken a picture of the menu. For dinner John and Bowman ordered scallops and I ordered a seafood bouillabaisse. Everything was delicious.

At 7 PM The VI Cat that we had been on Wednesday sailed by the restaurant. They have a tradition that when they go by the Oceana, they blow a conch shell. Then the restaurant rings a bell. Then everyone on the boat, everybody yells and hoots and hollers. they do this every night. It was cool to see them knowing we’ve done the same thing couple days ago.

On the table next to us, they need their picture taken so we took it out of them and they took it off us so here’s us at dinner.

We left the restaurant with full bellies and headed back for an evening of packing and chilling. Tomorrow, our flights leave in the afternoon; hopefully we don’t run into any problems with the weird weather in the Philadelphia area for me, in JFK for Bowman and John. Philly is going get sleet and icy rain but JFK will get snow. And of course for me. It happens right when I land.

We had a wonderful time and will definitely be coming back together again. As we’re getting ready to leave, we see another rainbow.