St. Thomas - Charlotte Amalie Questions

[cruise4family]

Hi there to all. First time cruising with RC, May 22, 2008 on Explorer of the Seas. Numerous St. Thomas/Charlotte Amalie questions.

1. Does the ship dock close to where the shopping is, within reasonable walking distance, or does it require a taxi to get to shopping?

2. We want to shop and also have time to spend a few hours on the beach. I hear Magens Beach is lovely. The ship offers an excursion there. Do you recommend the excursion, or just taking a taxi to the beach? I read on another blog that the taxi is about $20 pp. That's about the amount for the excursion.

Thanks for any advice. :)

[Carnival Game]

I don't know about the beach.

 

The cruise docks about a mile and a half from the shopping area and it doesn't look like an area you'd want to walk.

[Carnival Game]

Ack, it double posted.

[zqvol]

Hi there to all. First time cruising with RC, May 22, 2008 on Explorer of the Seas. Numerous St. Thomas/Charlotte Amalie questions.

1. Does the ship dock close to where the shopping is, within reasonable walking distance, or does it require a taxi to get to shopping?

2. We want to shop and also have time to spend a few hours on the beach. I hear Magens Beach is lovely. The ship offers an excursion there. Do you recommend the excursion, or just taking a taxi to the beach? I read on another blog that the taxi is about $20 pp. That's about the amount for the excursion.

Thanks for any advice. :)

 

If your ship docks at Havensight there is shopping within steps of the ship. In fact there is a lot of shopping within steps of the ship, but you miss the ambiance of being in town. Town is about a 10 minute cab ride and the cost is about $5 (the Islander or someone with better knowledge will correct me on these estimations.)

 

By all means if you have not been to St. Thomas go to town if for nothing else to walk around and get the "feel".

 

There are lots of beaches. Meagans is offered as a tour by almost every ship, but a cab will work just as well as will some of the island tours that are offered by the residents. Check this board for suggestions. Almost any beach you select will be lovely, but some will be a LOT more crowded than others.

[AllieMB]

We were just in St. Thomas on Jan. 12, and having never been before, we opted to book a tour with Sunny Liston, 3 hours shopping in Charlotte Amalie, 1 & 1/2 hour sightseeing, then 2 hours at Sapphire Beach. The 3 hour shopping was more than we needed, but used the extra time to relax and enjoy lunch overlooking the harbor. It was $25 pp and was the best bet for us to see and do the most in a short time. Our ship was docked right at Havensight where there are a lot of shops within walking distance, but we didn't get a chance to check them out. We saw Magens Bay from Mountain Top and it looked gorgeous, but our group opted for Sapphire which was beautiful and had more to offer.(beach chairs, food, drink,water activitesetc.)

[daisy7113]

It depends on which pier the ship is coming into as there are now 2 in St. Thomas. One of them is right across the road from all the major shopping but the other one is about a mile out of town. We were there last year and were at the new one out of town. We did do the Magen's Bay excursion though the cruiseline and let me say, we would never do it again. We took an open aired 15 passenger van to Magens Bay via up over a mountain with NO guardrails. I was a bit scared. Once at the top, they stop at a lookout point, that I will say is a beautiful sight to see. Then it is down the other side of the mountain to the beach. The excursion had us there for about 3 hours if I can remember right. We found it to be quite crowded, the beach was dirty and it was HOT as hell. Hubby stayed in the water most of the time. This beach is dubbed as one of the most beautiful beaches in the world so I was looking forward to it. The scenery is beautiful but the beach itself was a bit of a let down. When we left there we hit horrible St. Thomas traffic trying to get back to the ship. We made it back just in time. We are going back in a few months and I think we will just do some shopping and then back on the ship.

 

Enjoy!

[boomshakalaka]

We just returned from St. Thomas on 1-21-08. We were on Carnival Destiny. The shopping was right outside the gate to the ship. Our group of 9 went to Coki and Sapphire beach with Papa Bear from Air Force 1 Fun tours. Both beaches were great. At Sappire beach we were about the only ones there(maybe 10 people besides our group) Coki beach was much busier with people everywhere and guys trying to rent you chairs and bring you food. Sodas from them were $3 but if you walked over and got your own they are $1. You can also buy food to feed the fish, if you do you will have 100s of fish swimming around you and it makes for great pictures. Papa Bear also asked us if we wanted to go to a secluded beach. We said absolutley, he warned us that it had no ammenities so don't expect food or chairs. The beach was beautiful and only had 3 people on it. As previously posted Papa Bear has a trunk you can lock things in if you shop first. Papa Bear was a great tour guide. He was very kind and open to any requests. We will book with him again if we make it back to St. Thomas. Also I would really look into taking a taxi, It wasn't much more to have a tour guide and getting a taxi at the ship is easy but I don't remember seeing a taxi at either Sapphire or Coki Beach. Also we did our shopping at the end of our tour not at the beginning.