Coral World in St Thomas

[Leigh-Anne V]

We will be in St Thomas in March, and this is one excursion I think I might like us to do .. there will be my husband and I and our 9 year old daughter. I was looking at the Sea Lion encounter. Two questions, has anyone done this and what did they think? Second, how hard is it to get from where the cruise ship docks to Coral World?

 

thanks!

Leigh-Anne

[crusinmama06]

Coral World is an easy taxi ride from the port. We were just talking about it here...

http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?t=907527

 

But none of us have done the sea lion excursion, so if you do, then please come back and tell us all about it.

[Leigh-Anne V]

thanks! Are taxi's expensive there? Do you know what we could expect to pay?

[clairesmom]

We were just there but missed the sea lion stuff because it was only once a day at 3:00 or so. I would call them and see what time it would be. We wanted to do Megan's Bay so we didn't get to stay for it.

[arlsvera]

We did the sea lion swim with our 9 and 12 year old kids. It was fantastic. They enjoyed it more than the dolphin encounter because it was more personal. There were four people in the pool (my family) and two sea lions (and two trainers on deck). The sea lions are extremely gentle. It's not a ton of action - just a lot of swimming with them, petting them etc. We played ball with them and we got to have a flipper ride. It also made for a great photo op!

[c-cruise]

We went to Coral World this past March and really can't recommend the place at all. The folks on our tour were generally very disappointed. Out tour didn't involve a sea lion encounter however. It was basically a bus ride to Coral World and access to the adjacent Coki beach. The beach was ok, but certainly not the best St. Thomas has to offer. The snorkeling was good however. Coral World itself entertained us for about an hour, but that was a stretch. I had been to Coral World as a kid before it was destroyed by Hugo and had great memories of the place. Maybe our expectations were too high this time around, but we were definitely disappointed.

[Jeff_R]

thanks! Are taxi's expensive there? Do you know what we could expect to pay?

 

We went to Coki in December and it was $40usd each way for the 4 of us.

It was only about a 15minute ride and the drivers were nice but that was a stupid amount of money to have to pay for the ride. We found St Thomas to be possibly the worst island for commercialization and getting bugged by people to braid your hair, get you a beach chair, a drink etc.

 

Coki was good for snorkling and swimming, very beautiful beach really.

[rebeccalouise]

I am glad to read this. My feeling (having been to the Caribbean many times) is that life is way better on the shp. You aren't hassled for money and ripped off at every turn. Since my son hates sand- there isn't much reason for us to get off the ship. I may just save the money and enjoy a nearly empty ship- get a good chair by the pool and relax!

[c-cruise]

There are still plenty of worthwhile things to do in even the most mainstream Caribbean ports, but they mostly involve getting out of the port areas on an excursion. I agree though, it is getting to be ridiculous in some of the ports with the ever increasing numbers of cruise passengers and tourist trap shops. You almost have to take a 10 day itinerary to get to some of the lesser visited ports where this isn't as big of a problem.