I am a first time cruiser and sailing the Navigator of the Seas on 7 October. I will be visiting St Thomas from 8am-6pm and am presently booked with Godfrey Tours for shopping/island tour/beach stop in Sapphire Beach. However after reading the rave reviews and seeing unbelievable photos on St John I am thinking of cancelling it and getting the ferry and cab ride over to Trunk Bay
Is it feasible to still go to Trunk Bay and return to Charlotte Amelie for shopping and perhaps a short tour of island. Appreciate any advice offered.
I am a first time cruiser and sailing the Navigator of the Seas on 7 October. I will be visiting St Thomas from 8am-6pm and am presently booked with Godfrey Tours for shopping/island tour/beach stop in Sapphire Beach. However after reading the rave reviews and seeing unbelievable photos on St John I am thinking of cancelling it and getting the ferry and cab ride over to Trunk Bay
Is it feasible to still go to Trunk Bay and return to Charlotte Amelie for shopping and perhaps a short tour of island. Appreciate any advice offered.
The ferry ride from Charlotte Amelie about about 45 minutes each way. Trunk Bay is beautiful, but not very big. It can be crowded. When i was there, the water was so choppy that you could not even swim, so it was a waste of time if you were into doing anything in the water. They have changed the ferry schedule so that there are only 3 ferries back to Charlotte - at about 7, 3 and then 5 or 6, so you may need to catch a 20 minute ferry to Red Hook, and they leave every hour. You can catch cabs in Red Hook. Shopping is right next to the boat, so you will have time to shop and see a little of the island, but just by driving around, you'll mostly see the poverty of it, and not the scenic beauty as you would see at a beach.
I am one of the many who don't even stop in st. thomas, before i first visited i researched the USVI, and found st.john was the place to be. Here is a great site that will give you everything about it. http://www.stjohnbeachguide.com/Beaches/beach_home.html
We fisrt went to trunk bay, and snorkeled before the tours started, and stayed an hour after the first wave left. then we taxied to caneel bay, where we snorkeled with virtually the whole beach to ourselves. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would like to try st. croix once as it is less visited, but St. John. is the best!!
Remember though, if you book through RC you'll only get 1 hour at Trunk Bay and that won't leave much time at all to go shopping in Charlotte Amalie. I would head out early to the ferry at Red Hook, find out for sure what the ferry schedule is in advance. Someone else posted somewhere that they got off the ship at 7:30am, took a cab to the ferry and got to Trunk Bay before all the tours and didn't have to pay the admission. I did take a RC excursion to Trunk Bay this past Jan. and I was upset that there was only an hour there. You'll want more time there I'm sure. In Nov. I'm going to St. Thomas and I was thinking of going to Sapphire Beach, heard it was nice, what have you heard of it?
Thanks everyone for your replies, it's been a great help. I will not be doing the ship tour of Trunk Bay as there is only 1 hour stay at the beach. I am now looking at a 6.5 hour tour of Trunk Bay and the Island of St John with Shore Excursions - they are a little expensive though as there is only 2 of us travelling together, but they do appear to provide a quality tour.
I originally chose Sapphire Beach in St Thomas from looking at the images on the Godfrey website, www.godfreytoursvi.com. Good for snorkelling and other water activities and the surroundings are quite pretty. Although from the reviews I've read, I think Coki Beach also has good snorkelling.
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