Schedule confusion - Opera

Can someone help me understand the Opera Eastern Caribbean schedule?

The website, as well as my documents says that:

It arrives to San Juan at 19:00 on Monday,

It leaves on Tuesday, at 0200 (2 am).

We are spending the evening only in San Juan?

Then:

It leaves St. Thomas at 17:00, and arrives to St. Croix at 0700 next morning.

This seems absurd … Ferry takes just over an hour, and I can swim there in 14 hours.

Hope past travelers can explain this?

Thanks in advance,

Miro

Miro,

You're right about San Juan, you're there in the evening from 7pm - 2am. Not much to do on a Monday night, imo. We ate at Cafe Puerto Rico in the town square (where there is a statue of Christopher Colon) and it was great, authentic food.

I don't know why we had to leave St. Thomas's port so early (5pm) instead of staying most of the night then heading to St. Croix early the next day. Makes no sense but I guess since they pay for port time, that came into play.

We were scheduled to get into the Bahamas at 2pm but they surprised us and ported earlier at 12pm.

The schedule is bizarre. The ship is making pit-stops everywhere but at St. Thomas.

Stopping in San Juan is a joke. St Croix one can do without. Nassau seems to be a necessary stopover, so this is in essence a cruise to St. Thomas and back.

Oh well…

:mad:

I REALLY don't care about the ports of call; all I want to do is CRUISE! But we're hoping for beach at St. Croix, and i want to do this really neat store called Crystalix in Nassau (check it out on the 'net if you want an adorable souvenir for the better half) and I want to do the PC Frommers' rave in Puerto Rico -- Parrot Club restaurant in old San Juan, with Caribbean food. Aside from that, I want to do nothing except look good.

I am disappointed – to put it in gentle terms. I was looking forward to exploring the Old San Juan, which I though was the only place worth stopping on this cruise. Being a milking cow for locals at St Thomas and elsewhere is not my idea of fun… Otherwise I agree with you Benitad: cruising is about cruising. Hope that all those rave reviews (of late) are correct, and all those horrible stories (of not too long ago) were all wrong…

I will see in a few days, and let you know…

I REALLY don't care about the ports of call; all I want to do is CRUISE! But we're hoping for beach at St. Croix, and i want to do this really neat store called Crystalix in Nassau (check it out on the 'net if you want an adorable souvenir for the better half) and I want to do the PC Frommers' rave in Puerto Rico -- Parrot Club restaurant in old San Juan, with Caribbean food. Aside from that, I want to do nothing except look good.

There are actually several beaches near Frederiksted, Including one that is just north of the Fort. (walking distance) While we did not avail ourselves of the beaches there, supposedly they are decent, with the farthest north being a good snorkeling beach.

Another thing about the ports. We left either on time or EARLY from each. No announcements looking for missing pax. We left from St. Thomas at 4:45. Our tour guide thought that the ship left at 5:30 like the other lines, so we raced thru town to get to the ship. They were pulling up the gangway when we arrived. But we made it.

We went to RAinbow Beach on St. Croix and took a cab for $6 pp roundtrip although there were tons of ppl who walked there. It's probably a 15 min walk.

I'm a little dissappointed in the short stay in San Juan, but we've been there a lot and have spent several days there as well. Maybe we'll eat at Parrot Club, too. The food is excellent.

There are going to be 4 other ships (Zuiderdam, Triumph, Navigator of the Seas, and Caribbean Princess) in port in St Thomas and they all are usually gone by 6pm. My guess is that's we'll share with the Zuiderdam. It's gets pretty interesting hearing all of the ship horns' blowing for a half hour! No wonder the ships are asked to scatter by early evening! St Thomas locals don't want to have to entertainment cruiseship paasengers any longer than they have to.

Has anyone here ever docked at the "sub-standard pier"? I've seen a few HAL ships docked there, but I have never been on a ship that docked there.

I can't decide what to do in Nassau. I considered a day pass to Atlantis, but for $84pp and only a few hours, it isn't really feasible. Any other suggestions? We've done Blue Lagoon, don't like shopping, and have seen Blackbeard's Cay.