After two days on the high seas, we had our first port of call on this trip and it is St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. We were docked here in Charlotte Amalie from 8:00am to 6:00pm. This gave us quite a bit of time to explore. But before heading off of the ship, we met for breakfast at the Garden Cafe Buffet.
We have been to St. Thomas twice before so we decided to do something different. Marie was trying to find something that Brodie would enjoy and she came across Coral World Ocean Park ($27.14 CAD / person). It is a made up of an aquarium, marine exhibits, outdoor pools and an underwater observatory. On today’s adventure, we had Kris, Becca, Maria, Brodie, Marie, Karen and myself.
What is nice about St. Thomas is that you can walk off the ship and easily grab a taxi. The other good thing is that the rates for the taxis are a flat rate. You know the price up front. We walked off and very quickly we were in an open air taxi. It was a few minutes before we left because they want the taxi filled before leaving. Someone on the taxi said the ride to Coral World reminded them of a roller coaster but scarier … lots of twists, turns and bumps due to potholes. We were all very happy to arrive there safely.
The first thing that we went to see was the Sea Lion presentation. We got there after they started but we did manage to catch the last few minutes. I believe the sea lion’s name was Rosie and she was huge.
The next presentation they had was the Stingray Feeding. The cool part was that if you wanted, you got to feed them. They would swim up to the side of the pool and take the fish from you and then usually they would slap the side of the pool. Kris, Brodie, Marie and Becca each took a turn feeding the stingrays.
The last presentation we saw was the Turtle Feeding. They have four green sea turtles and we learned that they can live anywhere from 80 to 100 years old. The turtles that live at Coral World are over 20 years old. The staff sat at the water’s edge and feed the turtles lettuce and other vegetables.
We finished off our visit by going into the Undersea Observatory to view the natural coral reef and sea life. It felt like you were inside an aquarium.
It was after 12:30pm so we stopped and had lunch at their onsite restaurant. You really have to pay attention when eating because there are many wild iguanas hanging around looking for food. Before heading back, we quickly checked out Coki Beach which was next door to Coral World.
We grabbed a taxi back to Charlotte Amalie. Pam, Mari, Becca, Kris, Karen and I got dropped off downtown while the rest of the gang went back to the ship. We spent the next couple of hours checking out the various duty free shops. You can not believe how many jewellery stores there are. Each one of them is vying for your business, trying to get you into the store. No jewels were bought but purchases were made. Instead of taking a taxi back to the dock, we decided to walk and were back on board by 5:00pm.
We posted to the group chat that some of us were going to have dinner at Savor, one of the main dining rooms at 5:30pm. For dinner tonight, it was Mari, Pam, Kris, Becca, Karen and myself. The dinner was fine except for the slow service. What did we do for the rest of the evening … 8:00pm comedy show in the Theatre, 9:00pm go-karts for Jon and Kris and nightcaps in the Observation Lounge.
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