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« Last edited by Yuh Yuh on May 30, 2022, 04:52:51 PM »

Author Topic: St Thomas Island  (Read 16152 times)

Offline ueaiouioei

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #40 on: June 29, 2014, 11:58:06 AM »
Sorry for the delay, heres my trip report from St. John.

Sunday – flight was delayed out of JFK so we only arrived on St. Thomas around 830. We payed the $120 or so to have the Westin pick us up straight from the airport and take us over to St. John on their own boat. Totally worth it. We docked at the Westin’s marina and were met on with music playing and free drinks! They gave us our room keys right at the dock and then brought our luggage to our room a few minutes later.

Monday – I picked up the car from Conrad car rentals. We caught the Westin’s afternoon “round the island” tour. The guy took us around on one of those pick up truck/open taxi’s. It was really nice. He stopped at a bunch of overlooks and at an old sugar processing plant. Then we went on the Westin’s sunset cruise. It left at 5 and sunset was at 5:55. It was a cloudy so we just enjoyed the nice boat. I tasted my first pain killer. It was amazing.

Tuesday – We slept in and then packed up our room to move to another room with that had a patio. Then we headed out to Trunk bay. Spent a couple of hours there. We rented snorkeling gear and went snorkeling in the reef. It was ok. Water was very rough and visibility was low so we couldn’t really see anything. Then we headed into town. First we went to Mongoose Junction and walked around the shops there. I bought locally brewed bottles of beer. They were very good. Then we headed to the main town, Wharfside village. Sat at a bar to drink (pain killer for me and diet coke for Miri). Walked around a bit more. Bought a huge (later we found out delicious) Mango for $5 from a lady selling fruit at a corner stand. Then we went to this little shop (http://www.ourmarketsmoothies.com/) where a guy took whole coconuts, chopped the top off and put in a straw. I mixed some rum into mine. It was amazing. He taught us two “life lessons”. One about always be nice to every one and another about having mercy. He was very entertaining and charged $4 for the coconut + $5 for  the rum. Then we came home, watched some friends and went to sleep.

Wed – We met the dive instructor at 9am at the pool. Miri got her first intro to diving. Then we spent the rest of the morning sun baking and playing in the pool. At 1:15 we headed to the dock and got onto the dive boat. It was just the two of us together with the dive master and captain. Miri did her first real dive. It was amazing. I was sooo happy. Then we came back and went back to the pool to relax. At around 4:30 we went back to the room to change and headed out to Dennis beach. It’s a tiny deserted beach that is down a path that breaks off from peace hill. It was like a 10 minute hike down and we stayed there for like 30 minutes until just before sunset so we would still have light to go up. Miri got some nice shots of the almost sunset though. Then we drove further up a bit, past cinnamon bay. We headed back, stopped at the supermarket, rented a video then came back.

Thursday – We booked in 10am spa sessions. It was absolutely heaven. Then we headed out on our round the island excursion. We circled the whole island and explored every publicly accessible road. Good thing we had a 4x4 jeep.

Friday – Shabbos started early so we didn’t have much time. The supermarkets had tons of kosher food. The one closer to the Westin even had “fresh” packaged Challah. We got ready for Shabbos and then at like 12 we rented a 10’ dinghy from the Westin and took it around to Trunk Bay. I must say, that was the highlight of my trip. It was amazing! I pulled up to the far end of Trunk bay to let Miri and our stuff off the dinghy. Then I had to take the dingy about 100’ out, tie it up to the mooring and then swim back. It felt like I was in heaven.
Shabbos – Shabbos was just nice and pleasant. We had a ground level room with a little table and two chairs right outside and had the seudos there. We spent most of the day around our room so that we wouldn’t have to lock the door. (doors are opened with a key card, I tried getting a room with a regular key but they don’t have any) When we did, inevitably get locked out,  I started explaining to one of the custodians why we needed them to open our door for us and they were like “oh, your jewish” and opened it right away. We went to the kitchen in the Westin’s restaurant and got hot water for our coffees Shabbos morning.

If you've got any questions feel free to PM me
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Offline efflpetzel

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #41 on: June 29, 2014, 06:13:02 PM »
Nice TR!
Which airline did you fly with, points?

Offline ueaiouioei

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #42 on: July 01, 2014, 10:52:57 AM »
Nice TR!
Which airline did you fly with, points?

Thanks!

I've never actually found any good point tickets to St. Thomas (from NYC). Avios officially has but I check all the time and have never seen any available, I look all the time. I ended up getting a great deal on Kayak. $384 round trip on Delta from JFK with a stop over in ATL on the way back.
Live life to the fullest

Offline nirc

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #43 on: December 11, 2014, 03:01:57 PM »
My cruise stops in St Thomas for 1 day. Any suggestions on what to see/ do in that short amount of time?

Offline Marco Polo

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #44 on: December 11, 2014, 03:02:27 PM »
My cruise stops in St Thomas for 1 day. Any suggestions on what to see/ do in that short amount of time?
Check out the shul there. Very cool and has sand floors. Up a very very steep hill though.
Quaerite et Invenietis.

Offline yos9694

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #45 on: December 11, 2014, 04:34:02 PM »
Check out the shul there. Very cool and has sand floors. Up a very very steep hill though.

Agree that's a worthwhile stop. Not a whole lot of great stuff on STT though, I much preferred St. John, especially the east end and the no road areas of the national park. One thing you might enjoy on STT is taking the cable car up the mountain, it's a very very touristy thing to do but there is a nice view (was able to see PR from there), a few hikes for better views, and if you like parrots there is a lady there who does a parrot show a few times a day.

Offline nirc

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #46 on: December 11, 2014, 04:43:51 PM »
Agree that's a worthwhile stop. Not a whole lot of great stuff on STT though, I much preferred St. John, especially the east end and the no road areas of the national park. One thing you might enjoy on STT is taking the cable car up the mountain, it's a very very touristy thing to do but there is a nice view (was able to see PR from there), a few hikes for better views, and if you like parrots there is a lady there who does a parrot show a few times a day.

my stop in STT is from 7-5pm, do i have enough time to go to st john or is it not worth it?

Offline yos9694

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #47 on: December 11, 2014, 08:26:47 PM »
Not enough time

Offline CS1

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #48 on: December 11, 2014, 09:16:15 PM »
Not enough time
+1

Technically time is there, but not enjoyable to get onto another boat and rush to and from St. John.
Similar, empty beaches can be found on St. Thomas if you research well and take a taxi over the hills -- and you can see the amazing Megan's Bay and buy some delicious mangos:
California Gourmet Belgian Nut-Free Chocolate Chips https://bit.ly/CaliforniaGourmetDirect

Offline davidmal

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #49 on: March 01, 2017, 05:21:15 PM »
Bump....
-DMC
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it ~Ferris Bueller"

Offline davidmal

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #50 on: March 01, 2017, 11:58:39 PM »
-DMC
"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it ~Ferris Bueller"

Offline pointer

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #51 on: April 30, 2019, 02:31:13 PM »
Trying to figure out where to stay close to chabad and its very confusing,
where is the shul located? how about where they do the shabbos meal? not much info on the website

I see a few addresses, on chabad.org: 6501 Red Hook Plaza STE 201 St. Thomas, VI (google maps points to a paking lot)
on the main website jewishvirginislands.com, I see 19 main st. mentioned, which according to google maps does not exist

Offline shmuels2

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #52 on: April 30, 2019, 02:43:36 PM »
Trying to figure out where to stay close to chabad and its very confusing,
where is the shul located? how about where they do the shabbos meal? not much info on the website

I see a few addresses, on chabad.org: 6501 Red Hook Plaza STE 201 St. Thomas, VI (google maps points to a paking lot)
on the main website jewishvirginislands.com, I see 19 main st. mentioned, which according to google maps does not exist

Previously I believe the best location for Shabbos proximity was the Ritz which has not yet reopened after Irma. They're aiming for Fall 2019. Main St address is for weekdays only, and the Red Hook address is for mailing only. I think the Elysian resort and The Anchorage are decent location as well. This is to the best of my recollection. Probably a good idea to just call Rabbi Federman.

Offline pointer

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #53 on: April 30, 2019, 02:46:54 PM »
Previously I believe the best location for Shabbos proximity was the Ritz which has not yet reopened after Irma. They're aiming for Fall 2019. Main St address is for weekdays only, and the Red Hook address is for mailing only. I think the Elysian resort and The Anchorage are decent location as well. This is to the best of my recollection. Probably a good idea to just call Rabbi Federman.
Idk why its so difficult to find an add.
So whats the add. for weekday? 19 main. st. ? nothing comes up on google maps
how about shabbos? the meals?

Offline shmuels2

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #54 on: April 30, 2019, 02:56:42 PM »
Idk why its so difficult to find an add.
So whats the add. for weekday? 19 main. st. ? nothing comes up on google maps
how about shabbos? the meals?

Things are a bit more "complicated" on the island. Or, if you prefer, "backward". Everyone there knows "Main Street" but looking at Google Maps it seems that that's not the proper name. Or maybe it has two names, one from the Danes and one from the English. Dunno. Shabbos meals/davening when I was there were hosted in the shliach's house. This is a few years back. If I recall correctly the address doesn't really register on Google Maps either, it goes along with some explaining of twists and turns. That may be the reason it's not there, or maybe they just don't want their home address posted.

Offline Hjay

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #55 on: January 25, 2021, 11:51:41 PM »
Anybody been to St Thomas recently? Any update on food, Chabad things to do etc? & would I be better off going to St John?

Worth a trip to either for 2.5 days with an 8 month old?

Offline emineh17

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Re: St Thomas Island
« Reply #56 on: January 02, 2023, 10:50:15 PM »
Anyone been to St Thomas recently?

Working on going in a couple of weeks.