Christmas/Anniversary Cruise 2021: Day 5, St. Thomas U.S. Virgin Islands
Day five of our Christmas/Anniversary cruise, December 27, 2021. Today is the anniversary portion of our cruise, Robbie and my 15th wedding anniversary! We were sailing into St. Thomas U.S.V.I at sunrise. I went up to the upper promenade deck to watch the sunrise as we sailed into the islands. The islands were bathed in the warm golden hour glow as our ship glided past. The pilot boat slipped alongside and our St. Thomas pilot jumped onboard to guide our ship into the port.
The town of Charlotte Amalie was about two miles from the cruise port. We could have just walked into town from the port. We thought that it would be nice to get a birds eye view of the island. We booked a shore excursion that took us to Mountain Top, the highest point on St. Thomas. From Mountain Top there is a great view of the blue water of Magens Bay, the best beach on St Thomas. We met our tour group on the dock by the ship.
The gift shop at Mountain Top claims to be the home of the banana daiquiri. So naturally Robbie and I had to have an anniversary banana daiquiri! Of course the scenic overlook is through the gift shop.
We made a quick photo stop at Drake’s Seat, a scenic overlook where we got a nice view of the port and Charlotte Amalie on our way into town.
We arrived in Charlotte Amalie near Fort Christian, a fort built by Denmark and Norway in the 1600’s. We were on our own to explore the town. Our guide and safari bus driver would be back in 1 hour to take anyone who was ready back to the ship. Then again in another hour for a ride back to the ship, so we had two hours to explore. The historic town of Charlotte Amalie has cobblestone streets, lined by colorful colonial buildings with big wooden doors and iron hardware. It’s not hard to imagine the streets filled with pirates drinking grog and singing Yo-ho-ho! Unfortunately, a lot of these beautiful old buildings are filled with high end, high pressure jewelry stores. I think there were over a dozen jewelry stores in a three block area. That’s great if you are looking for jewelry but we did not need any jewelry today.
We needed to get off of the main street. There are several really pretty stone alleyways with shops and restaurants. In one of the alleyways we found Glady’s Cafe. We were getting hungry so we stopped in for a bite. It was Robbie and my anniversary! We were married 15 years ago in Jamaica. To calibrate I had the jerk chicken and a Red Stripe beer! It was great to be back in the Caribbean with my beautiful Angel on our anniversary! I love you honey!
We had a nice leisurely lunch and we missed our ride back to the ship. We needed to walk off all of the wonderful food that we had been eating on the cruise, so we took a nice long walk back to the ship. When you get back to the ship there is always cold wate and lemon-aid and my favorite the cold damp towel! We had a great day exploring Charlotte Amalie! The next day was a day at sea on our way to the Bahamas and then back to Florida.
roy thoman photography 