St Thomas on your own

[MS52]

I have never been to St Thomas before and I'm wondering if my plan makes sense.

 

We will be in St. Thomas in January from 7 AM to 5 PM - there will be five other ships there on the same day.

 

I don't particularly want to do a ship's tour. I would like to go shopping in the morning. Is shopping within walking distance of the ship? I would like to shop and if we have any purchases, return to the ship to drop our stuff off maybe around 11 AM. For those of you who have been there - is this practical?

 

Change into a bathing suit and grab a taxi to Sapphire Beach, where I would like to spend the remainder of my day. How long is the taxi ride to Sapphire? When should we leave Sapphire to get back to the ship by 4ish?

 

Is this plan do-able? Or would I be better off just booking with somebody like Sunny Liston Tours and do the shop-tour-beach tour?

 

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

The day in St. Thomas is on my birthday so I want to have a GREAT day! :cool:

[blue_water]

Your itinerary is perfect. If you are docked in Havensight many of the stores found downtown in Charlotte Amalie are right in the Havensight dock area. The taxi to Sapphire is $10 - 11pp each way, about 1/2 hr on the way there and I would leave Sapphire no later than 3:30 to be safe with more traffic returning to the dock.

If you are docked at Crown Bay downtown is closer and the taxi will be another 10 minuteds to reach Sapphire.

Great beach choice, enjoy!

[MS52]

Thank you!

[jennmaybe]

Your plan sounds fine. If it were me, the only thing I would do differently would be leave Sapphire Beach by 3pm, since your ship leaves at 5pm. Anything can happen on the way back to the ship (from personal experience).

 

When we were in St. Lucia 2 yrs ago, we booked a tour (private tour) and the way back to the ship was by speedboat (our tour completed on the opposite side of where the ship was). Should have only taken 20 min to get back by boat; however, the boat broke down just as we were leaving to go back. We had to wait for someone to bring a part so the guys could fix it. It took us 1 1/2 hrs to make it back. We were those "last ones on" running to the ship, you know the ones everyone is yelling at from their balconies!:D Luckily, our friends were on another boat (same tour), arrived a few minutes before we did and they told the ship personnel at the gangway that we were coming. We were sooooooo fortunate that they waited for us.

 

Needless to say, lesson learned and now we try even harder to leave us enough time to get back to the ship.

[smilz]

You are lucky! A few years ago we left a family of 4 jumping up and down on the dock in St Lucia!

[blue_water]

One difference with taking a taxi back from Sapphire or one of the other beaches is that if there is a mechanical problem there are several other taxis going in the same direction. If I were on St John, for example, I would allow a greater amount of extra time because there's a ferry involved.

But 3PM is a good time to leave too, allows for any last minute shopping or drinks at Senor Frogs. Just hate to take away from the time one has staring at the beautiful sapphire-colored water :)

[2wheelin]

Haven't been there in a few years but at that time nothing downtown opened until 10:00 am.