St. Thomas

Tuesday, March 10

After spending most of Sunday backtracking and fighting strong winds and traveling all day Monday, the ship was still 45 minutes late getting into St. Thomas…actual arrival time was 10:45 am. This gave us a chance to have a more leisurely morning AND be out on deck to watch as the ship sailed into St. Thomas.

The Glory was the third ship docked at the Havensight pier (along with the Disney Fantasy and the Celebrity Reflection) and the monster-sized ship, Oasis of the Seas, was at the other pier…Crown Bay. In other words…another island inundated by cruisers.

Being at the very far end of the dock, I was happy to see that there were taxis located right by the ship when we disembarked. We were directed to a van taxi headed to our destination for the day…Coki Beach, and then waited while they filled it beyond full for the approximately 20-30 minute drive.

With our late arrival, the beach was packed when we arrived. Bob Marley-type guys were competing for business to rent their broken-down lounge chairs on the beach. I happened to see a family packing away their stuff and asked if they were leaving. They were more than happy to turn over their one chair to us. Since we were in the water most of the time, we made do with just the one lounger. Mainly we used it as a place to leave our bags and towels.

I am a little paranoid leaving things lay on the beach so I put our cash and ship cards inside a waterproof snorkel box that I wore around my neck. My waterproof camera also went with me. Our backpacks didn’t have much of value inside, but I had a strap that I wove through both handles and then latched onto the chair. It certainly wouldn’t stop anyone from stealing our stuff, but it would slow them down enough that they might move on to easier loot instead.

The two of us snorkeled for awhile. Compared to other sites in the Caribbean, St. Thomas does not rank very high for great snorkeling, but we did see some colorful fish hanging out around the rocks on the side of the beach by Coral World. 

Bob got chilled after awhile (the price he pays for being skinny!) I continued to float around on my noodle while he strolled down the beach. 

At the far end of the beach I saw him waving his arms and motioning for me to come see something…which turned out to be iguanas! The lizards were sunning themselves on the rocks and were happy to pose while we took lots of photos.

Growing on the hill were some very large cactus (cacti?) and other enormous tropical plants. 

I thought having Bob stand in front of the fauna would give a better perspective to the size when I took a picture. I walked backwards into the water to get a better view and as I did, I tripped on a rock and then lost my footing in the loose sand. In slow motion…I fell flat on my back…in deep enough that I swallowed a really big gulp of sea water! Total humiliation…but apparently very humorous to my husband who just stood and laughed. Hopefully the incident doesn’t show up on YouTube.

 This was our third visit to St. Thomas and each time we have gone to Coki Beach. Bob used the Coki Beach Dive Shop on our previous trips to do first a shore dive, and then a boat dive. Since scuba wasn't in his plan this time, we debated about going to another beach. In the end we just stuck with a familiar place…and one that is certainly beauiful!

Around 4 pm we started packing up and Rasta-Man quickly told us he could get us lined up for one of the open air taxi trucks. There were only a few of us in the taxi when it left Coki, but the driver made a second stop at Sapphire Beach. Apparently he had made prior arrangements to pick up a bunch of people there…but they didn’t show up. He went looking for them but came back with no one. Not being happy about losing so much income, he took off driving like a maniac so he could get us back to the ship and return for another load of paying customers. A few photos out of the many blurry ones I snapped on our drive...

Bob and I were sitting on the back bench of the truck and there were times we bounced so high going through potholes that we hit our heads on the roof!! All in all it was the taxi ride from hell. And…once back at the pier, the driver insisted that he “was required” to drop us off at the first ship which meant we had to walk the length of three ships carrying our snorkel gear to get back to the Glory. (Think “three football fields”!) For some reason all of the other taxis were able to drop off passengers right by our ship. Hmmmmm.

Back on board, Bob and I grabbed our mugs and stopped by the buffet to get some ice tea. With free cell service in St. Thomas, I spent some time on the upper decks calling home to check on family. 

I took some photos while I was up there and it wasn’t until I got home that I realized that this one large home was one I think I saw featured on HGTV. The guy has water cannons on the front porch and shoots at people as they sail by in kayaks! I wonder if he owns the pirate ship as well?

After showers, we were too lazy to dress for dinner. Instead we watched the Glory sail away from St. Thomas at 6 pm and then ate at the buffet. Many other passengers had the same idea and the lines were very long. But…seeing the lights from St. Thomas after dark was beautiful. The Disney Fantasy pulled out just ahead of the Glory, blowing its horn to the tune “When You Wish Upon a Star!”

Evening entertainment in the Amber Theater was the musical production show, “Divas.” From there we went to watch the cruise director do a 70’s and 80’s themed “name that tune.” The whole thing was a repeat from what we had seen the previous week but we were still laughing like crazy from Dr. E’s antics. He is definitely one of the most fun cruise directors we have had.