Best place to stay in St. Thomas

[Scar55]

I'm trying to plan a vacation to St. Thomas sometime in Aug. I will be do some diving but my wife doesn't dive. I'm trying to find the best place to stay that is easy for me to get to a dive shop but more importantly, I want easy accessibility to the shopping area and possibly a casino for my wife. I've read different things about how far things are. Some have said they can easily walk from their hotels to shopping and dive shops. Others say you need to take a cab. I'm thinking the area where the cruise ships dock. I plan on using Admiralty dive shop. I google casinos and it shows some hotels have them but when I go to the hotel site, there is no mention of them. Also, I read where there is a bus that runs around the island. I assume we could use it to get to restaurant and shopping areas. We don't plan on exploring the island. Pretty much dive, shop and eat. Any ideas about this would be appreciated. Thank you.

Kelly

 

[diversteve]

There's no casino on St. Thomas. Some of the hotels (and maybe bars?) have Video Lottery Terminals. For a real casino, there's the Divi Carina on St. Croix. Probably comparable airfare - it was when we looked.

An obvious choice downtown would be the the Windward Passage. It's harbor front in the middle of downtown. Caribbean Vacations: St Thomas Windward Passage US Virgin Islands - formerly the Holiday Inn St. Thomas

Admiralty Dive Center is a full service St. Thomas dive center centrally located at the Windward Passage Hotel in Charlotte Amalie

Our in-house restaurant features West Indian and Continental cuisines, providing both a restaurant dining experience and in-room service. Also on property are a Harbor Gaming Center (Video Lottery Gaming), Club Lounge, and Courtyard Bar to keep our guests entertained.

We stayed at Bluebeards resort once in town. Up the hill from the waterfront but we walked to part of downtown from there - I'm not familiar with what the area was called but there were some shops and a few restaurants with harbor views. The first shot is the cruise port from my room, the 2nd is 180^o from the main lobby area. I'm reliably sure the yellow 3 story building at the far left at about 3:00 is the Windward Passage. I don't shop on dive trips so I'm oblivious to most of that - or where it's found.




Be aware that Charlotte Amalie is pretty trashy in some areas. Most resorts are security fenced and gated.

There's also buses or shared cab (vans) that go to Red Hook on the East End regularly. Some shops/restaurants, a couple of dive operators (Red Hook Diving) are out there. Be good for a day trip. If you don't need the access to shopping there's also several beachfront resorts - a couple have their own dive op also. Bolongo Bay is one, more upscale is the Ritz Carlton St. Thomas farther N.E. There's also several resorts in the Sapphire Beach area.

From Red Hook you can ferry over to St. John for more shops, restaurants, diving with those operators. Takes 30 mins. Also snorkeling is pretty popular there at places like Trunk Bay. Low Key Watersports also does day trips to the BVI's from there - both dive and snorkel. Haven't been there in a few years so some things probably have changed.

If you haven't seen it, this is a good reference for VI activities/options. St. Thomas - Virgin Islands

 

[Scar55]

Thanks. I have Marriott points so I think we will plan on staying there and deal with things as they come. We will be on vacation so we try to be pretty flexible.

Kelly

 

[DjDiverDan]

I stayed at the Holiday Inn Charlotte Amalie (now the Windward Passage) several years ago for my one and only trip to St. Thomas. While it was convenient to all of the downtown attractions, it was at that time dated, a bit run down, and a 2-star hotel at best. And Charlotte Amalie itself was more than a bit trashy. I dove several days with an operator out of Charlotte Amalie, and the diving (at least in that area - we never went more than about a 30-minute boat ride out of the harbor) was disappointing. Dead reefs, little sea life, mediocre visability - not a whole lot better than some Texas lake dives I've done, but with much warmer water. I ended up spending most of my time heading over to Red Hook to catch the ferry to St. John, which I found much more picturesque than St. Thomas. I also understand (though I have no personal experience) that the diving is much better from the East end. There are some very nice high end resorts at that end of the island, and if I had the money and the inclination to visit St. Thomas again, I would go the high-end AI Resort route. Shopping in Charlotte Amalie holds little attraction for me, but if the wife insists, it's worth no more than a day trip. I wouldn't stay there.

BTW, there are different options for travel around the island. If you are the adventurous sort, use the collective, an open air bus that the locals use to get around. You just hop on and pay when you get off - very cheap, as I recall it was only a couple of bucks to ride from Charlotte Amalie to Red Hook. And you'll actually get a chance to interact with the common folks who live there - a treat that, unfortunately, far too many Americans try desparately to avoid whenever they travel.

 

[Antietam]

With over 500 dives in STT I can tell you from experience that on the East End you'll find shallower reefs and smaller fish. Don't get me wrong, there are some great dives on the East End, but If you want blue water dives with deeper reefs, lots of large ship wrecks and bigger animals from Tuna, Wahoo and multiple species of Shark, then you'll want to dive the West End. East End visibility is not like the West End and I personally think It's due to ferry traffic and depths. Obviously djdiverdan needs a little more time diving the waters of STT before bashing the diving conditions.