My Freedom Cruise – St. Thomas part 1

On Wednesday morning we were set to dock in St. Thomas USVI.  The ship was set to arrive at 7am but since we didn’t have any excursions set we decided to stroll off the ship at a leisurely pace.  We had breakfast on the Lido and then disembarked around 8:30.

We already knew we would be heading to the beach a little later in the morning but first wanted to do some shopping. Once off the ship we took one of the safari style buses into town.  Most of the time these buses won’t pull off until  they are at maximum capacity, this usually takes anywhere from two to fifteen minutes.  Since there were droves of people heading in the same time as us we didn’t have to wait long before space was filled.  The ride in was uneventful which is a welcome change of pace from most taxi rides you’ll take in the Caribbean.

The girls spent alot of time milling around the sea of tents that so many cruisers are fond of.  Since I had already purchased my hat in Puerto Rico I wasn’t looking to buy anything other than a couple of souvenirs for some of my co-workers.  The girls ended up buying a couple of pieces of “handmade” jewelry, they actually ended up getting pretty good deals.  If you have a strong poker face you can usually get the vendors to cut their prices quite a bit.

Once they had gone through every booth three times they had finally had enough of the tents.  We walked a little further in to where the actual store fronts are, where they did some more browsing.  The vultures were out in full force trying to herd you into their stores.  I usually just walk through the streets like a horse with blinders on, unless someone truly has a great pitch (I hope no islanders are reading this but I’m a sucker for shop owners that comment on my Steelers hat).  There wasn’t any meaningful shopping done although I do believe a couple of dresses may have been purchased (yawn).  I upheld  my usual responsibilities of making sure everyone drank enough water to stave off even the mildest case of dehydration.  People generally underestimate how quickly one can get dehydrated walking around under the Caribbean sun (don’t be one of those people).  Finally it was beach time.

Related posts:

1. My Freedom Cruise – Nassau Part 1
2. My Freedom Cruise: Elegant Night 1 (part 1)
3. My Freedom Cruise – Nassau part 2
4. My Carnival Freedom Cruise – San Juan, Puerto Rico
5. My Freedom Cruise Part 3

If you found this post useful, feel free to leave a comment or sign up to get free updates and get future blog posts delivered to your feed reader.