St. John&St. Thomas, can we do both?

[tterryj50]

We have one day in St. Thomas on the Zuiderdam, ship is supposed to leave at 9:00pm. I hear the jewelry stores close at 5:00pm. Is it possible to go to St.John (Trunk Bay) on our own and still get back to St. Thomas in time so my wife can put in some good shopping time. Would like to spend 2-3hrs. at the beach.

[MandyGirl]

When we were on Zuiderdam this past November, we hurried to make the 9:00 ferry out of Red Hook (could have taken the 9:00 out of Charlotte Amalie but had somewhere to be as soon as possible in St John - you actually go through town to get to Red Hook from Crown Bay).

 

If you make the 9:00 RedHook ferry, you could be on the beach by 10:00 (all of the beaches along the north shore are gorgeous). However, based on our experience that one day docking at Crown Bay, not many drivers want to make the run all the way to Red Hook and we were placed in four different cabs before one actually left at 8:25 (we were one of the first pax off the ship). You would have a better chance of making the 9:00 out of downtown (Charlotte Amalie) since they don't mind making the run to town as much and it is a shorter van ride. It is a scenic ferry following the coastline and takes about 45 minutes. (That would be my personal recommendation)

 

Ferry schedules: http://www.*****/general_usvi/interisland_ferry/

If arriving in St John 9:45 (from 9:00 Charlotte Amalie) then you could easily be on the beach around 10:15. Trunk and Cinnamon both have good facilities. (Trunk seems to be where the cruiseship excursions go and also has an entry fee of $4 pp).

You could take a cab back to Cruz Bay around 12:30ish and be on the 1:15 ferry directly into Charlotte Amalie (around 2:00) - allowing a few hours for shopping.

We had rented a dinghy for the day in St John so we did not do shopping in St Thomas that day. The next day is Tortola and you won't find nearly as much shopping opportunities there (we did a daysail to the Baths).

NOTE: We were almost tendered into St Thomas... the VINOW scheduled showed Crown Bay (it is put out at the end of the previous month), then on embarkation day 11/20 the schedule in our cabin denoted tendering. All ship excursions were given times accordingly. Then on our day at sea (Monday) it was announced that we would indeed be docking at Crown Bay on Tuesday (so several ship excursions changed times). If you do end up tendering, that could make a change in plans for you as far as how quickly you can make a ferry. Also, for clearing Immigration, get to the Queen's Lounge around 7:30 to be first in line. After officials are onboard, you show your ID, get a pass, and can go wait on the deck to get off when the official announcement is made. By 7:45 there was quite the line waiting for Immigration.

By the way - the extended time in St Thomas / St John is the biggest reason we booked our Zuiderdam cruise. :) Plus we had enjoyed HAL Maasdam the previous year, but the number one reason for booking Zuiderdam was the 8A-midnight port times (which obviously now have been changed - they had chnaged by our November cruise after booking in June). Have a great cruise!

[Chadzbrew]

It looks as though HAL has changed its 9PM till 6pm might want to update your plans. Very frustrating!