Destination Review: St Thoms, USVI

St Thomas was the second port stop on our Exotic Eastern Caribbean cruise in February 2015. Scott and I were sailing with my best friend, Darby, and her husband, Marc. After extensive research there we a few things we knew for sure. We HAD to visit Paradise Point. We HAD to experience the beach (at least one beach in St Thomas is among the top ten beaches in the caribbean). And we HAD to do some shopping. Our first stop was Paradise Point. When I first started researching things to do in St Thomas, taking the Skyride to Paradise Point was almost always the first thing to come up. When I searched pictures, stunning views popped up. I told Scott right from the start that if that was the only thing I spent money on, we would be going up. :) Tickets can be bought through this site ahead of time, or through Carnival's Paradise Point excursion page. Or you can buy them at the window at the base of the tram ride. If bought ahead of time, you can still go whenever is convenient. There is no set time to go. Once you go up you can stay as long as you'd like, but you can't come and go.
After you get your tickets there are some stairs to climb to get to the platform where the cable cars circle around to pick you up. We had a short wait for the car and then the four of us, and four others, were put on a tram and on our way up the mountain. From the outside the cars don't seem so big. I wouldn't say we had plenty of room, but I don't think we were uncomfortable either.

At the top, the views did not disappoint! I stopped every few feet to take a picture, not knowing that the next turn would give me an even better picture. There's a small restaurant with seat yourself outdoor tables. There were tables in a covered area, and some on the patio overlook area. After looking around a little bit we chose a table that had the best view and an umbrella. It was not crowded at the time we were there. I'm thinking it was close to noon though. A server brought us some menus to look over and we ordered quickly. Our order took longer than we felt like it should take, given the fact that most of the tables were empty, but we weren't in a hurry so we sat back and relaxed while enjoying the view. Have I mentioned the view? :) Seriously, it was amazing!

There is free wifi at Paradise Point, but since the Virgin Islands are US territory we had coverage all over the island. Our carrier is AT&T, but I would assume it's the same for other carriers as well. If in doubt always check before you sail! We are usually thrilled to unplug, but in this case I loved that were able to text with our kids for a little bit. It was fun being able to show them where we were WHILE we were there. We spent almost two hours at Paradise Point before deciding we were ready to head to the beach. We got a quick group picture and then went to wait in line to get back down the mountain.

Darby and I had gone in circles, almost right up until it was time to cruise, trying to decide which beach to go to. There are three very popular ones that kept showing up in our searches: Sapphire Beach, Coki Point, and Magen's Bay. Magen's Bay being the most popular of the three. All three sounded amazing, but we were looking for something a little less crowded, and also not so far away. Taxi rates are per person and the further away you want to go, the more it costs. At the time we cruised, it would have been $12/pp, each way to go to any of those three beaches. After looking around some more, and finding quite a few smaller beaches, we settled on Morningstar Beach, which was a very close (5-10 minute) drive and only cost $4/pp. Our taxi driver was delightful. He was very kind and informative and didn't try to get us to go to a different or further away beach. When he dropped us off we asked if there was a way to make sure he was the one to take us back. He told us he would be back in a few hours, and if we weren't ready to go, to look for a couple other specific people. I really appreciated that he was willing to give names of friends rather than set up a specific time to pick us back up.
I was anxious to get my feet in the sand. We finished up business with our driver and walked the very short distance from the parking lot to the beach. I'm talking, about 100 feet. And once on the beach it was not even half that to get to the water. If you're looking for a small, somewhat secluded beach, this is the place to go! There's a small restaurant if you need food or drinks. As far as I could tell there was no beach side service though. We planted our towels almost right in front of the restaurant. Mostly because it was a short walk and there was no one else around that area... possibly because the music from the restaurant was loud. It didn't bother us though. The only true downside to this beach was that there is no public restroom.
It didn't take long for Scott, Darby, Marc, and I to get in the water. February is beautiful, but it was still quite hot in St Thomas. The teal green water felt awesome after being outside for half the day. Marc wanted to get out and relax in the lounge chair that happened to be available, but the rest of us stayed and played in the incredible rolling waves. They were huge!

At one point Scott and I took a few minutes to Facetime our son who was home sick from school. We showed him the little cove we were enjoying, and then after hanging up, we walked to the other end of the beach (maybe 1/4 mile or so) to explore the big beachy rocks on that side.

Standing on the east side of the cove, looking west. The yellow building is the restaurant where we set up our stuff for our time at Morningstar.

Big beachy rocks on the west side of the cove.

Standing on the west side of the cove, looking east.

Time slipped by quickly. It seemed like we had only been there for 15 minutes. I was not ready to go, but at the same time, I really wanted to have time for shopping, as did Darby and Marc. So we all packed up and just like he said, our driver was waiting for us.
It was a good thing we left when we did, because we ended up only having about an hour to find whatever we wanted to buy. That's really not much time. Not when the shopping area is as big as Havensight. The picture may not be a good way to show how large the area is, but there are MANY buildings!

We made a few quick stops and pushed the time for getting back on the ship. It was worth it though. We definitely made the most of every minute in St Thomas!