Shopping in paradise

We are at the half way point of our cruise. Today’s port of call is St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. Lucky for me, my cell phone works here, and I was able to call Nana to find out how much snow Southern Ontario has received.

Instead of eating at the buffet, we decided to try breakfast in the Summer Palace Main Restaurant. It was a nice change of pace from the hustle and bustle of the buffet. Food was fabulous, as usual.

Since it was raining, we decided to do a bit of shopping before heading to the beach. The Havensight Mall is right across from where the cruise ships dock. (There were 5 ships in port today). We made a couple of purchases and before you know it, the sun came out. We grabbed a taxi and made our way to Magen’s Bay Beach. What’s good about the taxis in St. Thomas is that they are plentiful and the rates are not metered. That means it’s a fixed price and you’ll know exactly how much it is before getting in. The strange thing is that they drive on the left side of the road, with the steering wheel also on the left.

Magen’s Bay is beautiful. One of those turquoise beaches that you see in photos. It’s crescent shaped with hills on both sides. The beach was not overly crowded yet. We rented a couple of beach chairs and set up our spot. We immediately got into the water. It wasn’t a warm as I thought it would be but it was still nice. We spent the next couple of hours relaxing and enjoying the view before the clouds rolled in and the rains came. It didn’t look like the rain was going to let up so we grabbed a taxi and headed back to downtown Charlotte Amalie.

St. Thomas is known for their duty free shopping so we thought we should see what it has to offer. Every store practically was a jewellery store. If it wasn’t, it was either a liquor or perfume store. We visited quite a few jewellery stores, and bought lots of stuff, before deciding to call it quits.

There was one more thing we wanted to do on St. Thomas and that was to take the Skyride to Paradise Point. It’s a tram and once you get to the top, you get a panaromic view of the harbor and of Charlotte Amalie. The restaurant up there is famous for a frozen drink called a Bushwacker made with Baileys. Karen and I thought we should try it since it’s world famous. It was quite yummy. We got back to the ship with fifteen minutes to spare.

Tonight we had dinner in the Indigo Main Restaurant. Karen had the french onion soup, broiled lobster and red snapper with basmati rice, asparagus, mixed vegetables, buerre blanc sauce and drawn butter. I had the ceasar salad, teriyaki sesame chicken kabobs with jasmine rice and pineapple salsa. We each had the key lime pie for desert.

We went back to the room before heading out to the theatre to see “Oh What A Night! A Musical Tribute to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons”. I love the entertainment on the ship. We came back to the room to call it a night. We arrive in Tortola in the British Virgin Islands tomorrow morning at 7:00am.