Departure from St. Thomas

[Fang]

I am thinking about cruising on the SeaDream out of St. Thomas this coming January.

 

American has a flight out of St. Thomas at 9:30 AM. Is this flight to early? Due to babysitters etc. we need to be home on Sunday when the cruise ends. The earlier the better and if we do not get on the 9:30 AM flight the next flight is in the afternoon, making us get to st. louis very very late.

 

Any thoughts would be great.

[its_my_dime]

Before you can disembark, everbody (the whole ship) needs to be cleared by emigration/customs. And the luggage needs to be off loaded. This probably won't be done before 8:00 and could be later, especially if it is a heavy ship arrival day.

 

You will need a taxi and trip to the airport (figure 20-30 minutes).

 

The St. Thomas airport lines including inspection can easily take 30 to 60 minutes to get thru and you need to be at the gate 20 minutes before flight time.

 

Conclusion: Sorry, but don't even think about a 9:30 flight.

 

Have you checked every alternative (St. Thomas - San Juan - home), etc.

[frequent traveler]

We disembarked in St. Thomas on a Sunday morning in March 2005. Customs/Immigration was more than an hour late and the ship was not cleared for disembarkment until 8:30 a.m. Staff said a late arrival by customs/immigration was routine on Sunday, but less likely on a Saturday.

 

If you are docking at Havenside, you will not make it in those circumstance. You will have a better chance if the ship is docking at the newer Crown Bay, which is at most about 10 minutes from the airport.

 

The SeaDream staff will be wonderful -- once customs is there -- at getting you to the front of the line and getting you off the boat as quickly as possible. They were frustrated with our delay but the govn't is the govn't.

 

good luck

FT

[Jim Avery]

Hi Fang:

Have to agree with Its My Dime. St. Thomas is a pain to get home from. The Sunday Disembarkation does not help us travelers that need two or more flights to get home. The main problem has nothing to do with SeaDream, in fact our SD disembarkation in March was the best of numerous St. Thomas events on other lines. the problem is our Customs. Everyone has to be up and in line in order to wait (sometimes for hours) on our bureaucrats. After doing this on board, you get to do it all over again at the airport. As you found out, nearly all flights are within two hours in the evening. This means chaos at the airport with lines often winding out into the parking lot. the reason? Our wonderful "security" frisking old ladies and babies. For these reasons, any cruise beginning or ending in St. Thomas are automatically discarded for us. This has nothing at all to do with SeaDream but wish they would find somewhere else to operate from. Even though flights are longer, embarkation and disembarkation, as well as return flights always seem much better from Europe or even Mexico.

Have a great cruise,

Jim.

[Fang]

Thank you for you responses.

 

Sounds like if we do the seadream we will be on the afternoon flight.

 

John

[LaPaloma]

Thank you for you responses.

 

Sounds like if we do the seadream we will be on the afternoon flight.

 

John

Make arrangements for a car--to handle your luggage, and do some shopping in town--it's an easy place to kill time--the shops are great, and there are some great places for lunch--be sure to allow plenty of time at the airport--it's a zoo--and be sure your bags are not locked--we saw hundreds of bags in the" locked bag" pile at the airport--from there they disappear forever!! Have a great trip!!!

[DisneyJen]

Have to agree with folks on the zoo that they call STT.

 

We had to wait quite a while for customs in STT on trip last Novemeber. For the life of me I don't know why we couldn't have cleared customs on Saturday afternoon/evening as we more or less just "parked" on the north side of STT Saturday evening. Guess SD doesn't want to have to pay for the pier space overnight:confused:

 

Another tip that we have learned after many flights over the years out of STT ... let a porter handle your bags when the taxi drops you off. Last year, when we were returning home our bags were no heavier than when we left NC. We were in the first-class line at USAir and one of the three agents pointed to our bags because she felt they were over and needed to be weighed. The porter more or less said to her don't hassle these folks and told us to follow him, which I did while DH just looked confused;) Actually the porter found a shorter customs/immigration line for us (yes we cleared on the ship and we actually had the same officer that cleared us that morning ... he even joked about it). He dealt wit the bags until we went through security. Well worth the investment.

 

Lots to do in STT for the day.

[its_my_dime]

A few more comments:

 

SeaDream was, in fact, very good at getting us (and our luggage) off the ship but as noted, nothing happens until the ship is cleared.

 

Should you wish to go to town for a while, they had a policy of watching departed passengers bags until the passenger came to pick them up which you can do by cab on a town-ship-airport circuit.

 

Unfortunately, SD's 100 passengers get added to the several thousand leaving St. Thomas on a cruise Sunday which is a zoo in the afternoon.

 

You might try posting your question on the rec.travel.cruises newsgroup to see what other advice you (and we) might get.

[Jim Avery]

Why are we not all raising heck over the stupidity of onboard and again at airport customs? If the on board exam gets us nothing, why ruin the ambiance of your last morning by an early cattle call for the bureaucrats. Anyone else think our bureaucrats a little less than sharp?

Jim.

[johnnycruise]

Why are we not all raising heck over the stupidity of onboard and again at airport customs? If the on board exam gets us nothing, why ruin the ambiance of your last morning by an early cattle call for the bureaucrats. Anyone else think our bureaucrats a little less than sharp?

Jim.

 

That's just part of life in the post-9/11 world. Prior to 2001, I was on a cruise which stopped in Jamaica and then in Key West, FL. In Key West there were no formalities since Fort Lauderdale was the debarkation port. We walked right off the ship and noticed no police/customs inspectors/sheriff. Made me think contraband could have been dropped off without a hitch!

 

But back to the original post, the STT cruise ship immigration/customs inspections are so cursory it really accomplishes nothing. I think most of the ships which begin/end in STT are small. I arrived on the Wind Surf last December at Crown Bay port and was at the airport picking up my rental car by 8:30 a.m. and we definitely weren't the first ones off. I don't recall the airport being very busy at that hour since most airlines don't overnight their planes in STT ... most flights don't arrive/depart until noon or later. In December, however, Sea Dream was using Havensight which means you have to traverse the crowded town of Charlotte Amalie and contend with 2-3 megaships and their hordes of passengers. As the STT authorities don't post the port assignments until about 6 weeks ahead of time, you would be taking a chance.