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Today we arrive on the US Virgin Island of St. Thomas. We wake up around 7:30am and find that we have already docked in Charlotte Amalie at the Havensight Pier. They get clearance and start letting people off the ship by 8am. We gather ourselves together and leave the ship by 9am. Once again, it's a hot day, for me. Stacey is fine. Everyone else we meet says it's a hot day, so….I'm going with hot. I know, I know, it's not the heat it's the humidity.
We had learned before we left that Reg and Diane MacIntosh would be here for a wedding, so we had hoped to see them today. Stacey had exchanged cell numbers with them earlier, but we weren't sure which phone would have access to the US phone plan. We guessed Diane's, so I tried texting first. No response. Ok, let's look around. We wander around the port area and check out the local tourist shops. It's already very warm out, so I'm grateful for any air conditioning in any of these shops. Looking back at the ship, we see that it's nose to nose at the pier with the Norwegian Getaway, who was with us at St. Maarten as well. Behind the Getaway is the Royal Caribbean Freedom of the Seas. Interesting seeing this long line of cruise ships all in a very long row.
While walking around, we see some kind of taxi or mall security giving a guy a hard time about trying to pick up passengers from the area when he isn't allowed to. I guess there are taxi dispatchers who enforce who can pick up passengers and who cannot. We see her do it again a short while later with another man. "You were a dispatcher once, you know better. Get out of here." Sounds like they take their taxi service seriously here.
We get a taxi to go downtown, not knowing how far away it is. We're told it's $4 per person. Ok, let's go. A driver opens a 9 passenger van door and….there's already 4 other people waiting in there. Umm, ok. I'm told to be co-pilot, while Stacey gets in the very back seat. The door is closed and…the driver walks away with a dispatcher to try to talk more people into getting into the taxi. How long are we gonna be here?? It's only a minute or two. I guess they couldn't find any other willing victim…err, passengers. It's only a short ride with a few stops for traffic lights. The strange thing is, we're in an American territory. The cars all have the steering wheel on the left side, but they are also driving on the left side of the street, like they would in England.
We get left off at a taxi drop off area and almost immediately are asked by 2 or 3 other guys if we want to go to a beach. Or on a tour. Or take a taxi back to the ship. Competitive business this, huh? We study the free map we've picked up and figure out where we are. Stacey finds that we're close to a couple of stores and I'm thinking that there's got to be some a/c or fans in there somewhere. Did I mention it's hot today? I still haven't heard from Diane, so I decide to try to phone just in case she doesn't have a texting plan. No answer, so I leave a message, and we carry on browsing. Not long later I get a text message from Diane. Except it wasn't Diane. Diane had left her phone at home with Mandy to look after the shop while they were gone, and she didn't answer my call because she has the flu and no voice. Fortunately I didn't wake her, since I realize after that it's 3 hours earlier back home. Doh.
I then try texting and phoning Reg, but again, no answer. They're probably busy with wedding plans or touring around themselves, so we carry on.
Stacey finds a nice heart necklace in one shop. In another, we see a couple of really nice ones, but the price is more than we want to pay, or probably afford, but they do look nice. It's from a company named Kabana. They specialize in inlay jewelry. Insetting different materials in a metal like gold or silver. Stacey likes the pink mother of pearl and a very cool looking green and blue opal. We chat up Dexter, the salesman, a very friendly young guy who explains that since it's offpeak season and slow, he's able to go to his manager and get us some big discounts. The discounts are off of the regular marked up retail appraised value, I'm sure, but it's a decent sized drop in price. Still more than we can justify though. He also shows me some Bulova watches and discounts them about 40%. Tempting, still they look pretty nice, but I can't justify it either. I don't wear watches that often, and the styles have a very large face, and looks a bit too, blingy, in a showy display of ones means of life, kind of way. I don't need a status symbol like that, and can think of better ways to spend money. Like on the credit card bill for this trip. Ouch.
We wander down the main street area, moving in and out of air conditioning for me, and back outside into the heat for Stacey. The heat is winning. We get past the main shops area and into more family owned shops and the vibe changed. Every storefront has someone standing out front trying to engage you to enter the store. Either the owner personally, or someone that he's hired to get you inside. They aren't rude, but they are very persistent. And there's lots of them. Even 4 or 5 drivers in open air buses and a couple of taxi's slow down near us as we're walking and ask if we need a ride, within a 1 and a half block span. It doesn't take very long before looking ahead and seeing an stretch of storefronts ahead as far as we can see, each with one person in front of them, that we decide that we're looking like a fat cow taking a swim down a piranha infested stream. It's an about face and we run the gauntlet again back towards the taxi area.
We decide to walk along the shorefront and see where we get to. We only have to cross the street to get there, and with the traffic on the wrong side of the road, and busy, we don't risk jaywalking and go to the nearest crosswalk and press the button at the light and wait for the Don't Walk sign to change. And wait. And wait. The traffic light changes twice and we still don't have a Walk sign. Looks like the button position on the stand is different from us in BC. The button we pushed is for going across the road on the same side. Ok, we push the other button and wait. And wait. Finally a woman approaches from the other side of the street, where we want to get to, and presses the button on her side and we press ours again. We wait for another 2 traffic light changes. By now, an American couple has joined us on our side. Looks like the pedestrian crossing signal is broken at this intersection. We pass this information on, and move up a block to the next intersection. Success! We look back as we cross and the people waiting are gone. We think that they must have jaywalked, or jay-ran when we stopped traffic further ahead.
We walk along the sidewalk next to the shore as a large speedboat pulls up beside the dockside shore and ties up. There is no shade here, and I'm roasting. Stacey is not admitting that it's hot out, but is starting to say that it's warm. We've had enough, and we circle back towards the taxi area and try to find a ride back. It takes a couple of minutes, since now we're gun shy about who we're allowed to ask. Finally 2 men sitting in an open air bus parked see us. "Need a ride back to the ship?" Yes we do. "Over here" as one of the men jumps down and opens the 9 passenger van next to the bus. Are we leaving right now? I don't want to have to wait for 7 other people to show up! But he says we're leaving right now, and off we go. Stacey thinks that it was a walkable distance, guessing we could have walked it back in less than an hour, but in that heat and with me out of water in my bottle, I don't think that I would have made it.
We take a couple of pictures of the outside of the ship before boarding and going back to the cabin to drop off our stuff and get our swimsuits on. We're just about to leave the cabin when I get a text from Reg, telling us where their hotel is. It's on the far side of the island near the airport, but it's too late for us to go. The ship leaves in a little over 2 hours. I've had enough heat and we're both hungry. It's too bad. We really don't know Reg and Diane that well, or as well as we probably should, even, and it would have been nice to do something with them or just meet up and compare island stories, but the timing just didn't work out. We didn't get cell phone service until we got into port, so we couldn't have set up a meet time the day before either. We go up to deck 11 and get some drinks and food. Stacey needed to eat.
Next, time to cool off on the Aquaduck!
The Aquaduck lineup is short due to people being out on excursions, so we go on 3 times in a row, getting thoroughly soaked. Next we're up to the adult's only area on deck 12 for some sun for Stacey and shade and a breeze for me for us to dry off a little. We don't fully dry out but we dry enough to not leave a dripping trail everywhere and go back inside to check on booking a future cruise.
Booking a future cruise on board is the best way to do it. You can book up to 18 months ahead, you save 10% off the listed price on their website, get a stateroom credit and a reduced deposit on 7 night or longer cruises. You can also cancel before a set date and get your full deposit back too.
Back at the cabin, I start working on blog and pictures but find that I'm out of wifi. I have to buy another wifi package, so I get the smallest one possible. Picture posting will have to wait. We skip the variety/comedy show today and watch us pull away from the pier and back into the ocean. Beautiful view, and sunset as we cruise away. I always find it cool when I see a rainstorm on the water and us in a clear area. Just fascinating to see a localized rain like that. So used to Squamish where localized rain means Maple Ridge to Whistler is greyed out and raining.
We still have some time before dinner so we go back out for another ride on the Aquaduck. We wanted to do it at night and cross it off our list. It's colder with the sun down and with the ship moving now, there is a good breeze on deck. If fact there is a sign at the Aquaduck showing that single riders are not allowed, only doubles due to the high winds. The wind can cause the raft to flip on single riders inside the tube in a couple of spots, though I think my girth would be enough to hold it down. Don't want to set a bad example for the kiddies though. Our suits had almost dried off, but we're now soaked again, and have no sun to warm up with, so it's to the back of the deck to the hot tubs, where we sit and warm up for a few minutes before going back to the cabin to dry off and change for dinner.
Dinner is good once again, and for the first time this cruise, Stacey gets her food before the rest of us. Usually, she's been getting her main course well after we have all finished eating ours and we are near the last ones out of the restaurant. Our server brought a couple of extra desserts out that were not on the menu, a pumpkin dish with a foam like texture, surprisingly good actually, and some kind of chocolate mousse thing decorated up like a spider. Stacey is not impressed, and I don't try it, but those at our table who try say that it's good.
That's a long enough day for me. I'm fading, but have to force myself to blog, while I still remember it. Days are blurring together, and it's harder to keep straight what happened and when. Stacey turns on a movie or two and relaxes.
It's almost 12:30 when I finish and I'm ready for sleep. It's a sea day tomorrow, so the plan is….nothing. Sleep in and take it really easy. Midnight tomorrow, there is a PremEAR at sea. They'll be showing the new movie: Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good really bad day, so if we get enough sleep tomorrow, we'll go to that. Nothing pressing the next day but relaxing on Castaway Cay at the beach before packing to fly home.
Not a bad day, huh?
WYWH
Kim =) and Stacey :)
- comments
Jasmyn I'm a bit surprised about USVI. It seems like there were less pushy salesmen in St Maarten. Good to know. What's the next cruise you guys are taking?