St Thomas -Crown Bay docking-Maasdam

[zil]

I see where my cruise on Maasdam in Jan will be docking at Crown Bay.
How far is that from the center of town? cab fare? Is there any shopping in Crown Bay?

[Esme]

No shopping yet, but a plaza/stores are being built.

Last time it was about a $5.00 cab fare, I believe, but that's a couple of years ago. It's a little further than from Havensite.

[Roz]

Zil,

I was in St. Thomas 2 weeks ago. The Zaandam docked at Crown Bay. It's an industrial port, with no shopping at the moment as Esme stated. I paid $3.50 to get back to the ship...told the driver to keep the change from a $5 bill. With 7 ships in port, traffic was gridlocked, and it took almost an hour to get back to the pier, so allow yourself enough time. I'm glad I took a shore excursion, because I thought Havensite Mall was horrible. I lasted half an hour there. The crowds, heat, and humidity really turned me off. If I go there again, I'm just going to stay on the ship and enjoy the pools and spa.

One other thing, Zil...there were 3 HAL ships in St. Thomas that day. The Prisendam was at Havensite, we were at Crown Bay, and the Maasdam was "sort of" at Havensite; they had to tender in. There was a huge mix-up with one of the shore excursions servicing all 3 ships. Everyone got back late, and then 2 of our passengers ended up trying to board the Maasdam. Eek! Our 2 ships did a mid-ocean transfer of passengers.

Roz

[Peggy Sue]

Last month we were at crown bay too. We got off the ship just slightly after the first wave of crowds. We wanted to find a cab to take us on an island tour. This was difficult to accompish from crown bay. long story short, we had to take an open air cab into town and then transfer to another open air cab for a tour. another couple joined us. It took us over an hour to get our tour underway due to all the confusion. We did not pay for the trip into town...we were told the price was $20 per person for the tour at crown bay and that included the ride to town where we transferred.

We were dropped off back in town. there were 5 ships in port that day. A zoo! We gave up walking around after an hour and hailed a cab, where we sat in traffic for an hour. Reason? Authorities were checking papers in all cabs!!!! Once we were past the check point, we were back to crown bay within 10 minutes!

a shopping area is being built at crown bay, but construction was just getting underway when we were there last month. Not a very large area.

have a great cruise!!

[iluvcruzin]

We docked at Crown Bay when on the Maasdam in November. I think the shopping area is to be completed in the spring. It looks like it will be pretty nice when finished.

Some will say if you are in good shape you can walk the 15 mins. to town. I wouldn't recommend it as there isn't sidewalks to accomidate. When you get off the ship after going through immigration, there will be cabs outside waiting to take you where you want to go. Most are open-air taxi's which will wait until it's full before boarding. Be sure to be clear on the cost with the driver before boarding as some drivers will hike the price. It should be $3.50 as noted above into town. Part-way before you get to town the driver will pull over and ask for the fare. Don't be alarmed thinking you will ripped off. The reason they do this as it's very crowded in the shopping district and there's no place to pull over and collect from everyone.

I don't have experience of hailing a cab coming back from town as it's been a few years since I shopped in St. Thomas. I took the cab over to Coral World. Traffic in town was pretty intense coming back so it's best to head back early to allow ample time to return to the ship.

[sail7seas]

[Quote] .....were at Crown Bay, and the Maasdam was "sort of" at Havensite; they had to tender in. There was a huge mix-up with one of the shore excursions servicing all 3 ships. Everyone got back late, and then 2 of our passengers ended up trying to board the Maasdam. Eek! Our 2 ships did a mid-ocean transfer of passengers.

Roz



With the picture, scan card system, how could a pax possibly be allowed to board the wrong ship? If that happened, it would seem the security folks on the gangway were not paying any attention at all.

The card had to be scanned for the pax to board and the person at the 'screen' is supposed to be checking 'faces' match the photo ID.....is he not?

[MandyGirl]

... and if you are planning to go to Red Hook to catch the hourly ferry to St John, the cab drivers really don't want to make that run. We were placed in four different vans by the dispatcher (moved several times) before that van driver departed. Paid $9 each for each way. Both ways (Crown Bay - Red Hook) the driver would not leave until the van was full, including when we came back on the 5:00 ferry. We hopped in a van that was half-full from the first 5:00 ferry (sometimes they run two ferries depending on peak times). There's also a less frequent longer ferry from "town" (Charlotte Amalie) to St John. (We've enjoyed that one before - convenient when arriving at the STT airport and also scenic going along the St Thomas coastline)

From previous cruises and vacations there, we learned that depending on time of day, they make the fare going one way or the other, but in the morning, not very many people are needing a cab from Red Hook back to town unless they are heading to the airport like we were one morning after vacationing on St John. On the plus side, lots of cabs were ready and waiting 11/23/04 to go from Crown Bay to town.

Examples of other taxi fares can be found here: http://www.**********/stthomas/getting_around_stt/taxi_stt/

[iluvcruzin]

We had a cab driver who tried to switch us off as we were the last ones on the cab and because he didn't want to drive all the way to Coral World. They make more money in town. I think Marc's cab got them to switch. If he's reading he could chime in.

[ekerr19]

We were there too - last April on the Maasdam. Seven ships, including ours. We did not venture ashore - hardly anyone did.

My 16-yr. old and some of his new friends wanted to go alone - we parents discussed this idea and decided against letting all of them go alone.

For us, there is very little of real interest anymore and the crowds are ridiculous, also the problem with filling the taxis and vans is insane. We got off one of those vans once when the driver had us waiting 20 minutes for 2 more people to fill it. He then got really nasty with about it, go figure.

In my mind, St. Thomas is a perfect day to stay onboard. :)

[Roz]

Sail,

By way of clarification, the 2 passengers from the Zaandam rode a tender to the Maasdam. It's when the security guard checked their IDs that the mistake was found out. They didn't make it through security. If I implied that, I didn't mean to. The 2 passengers in questions were newbie cruisers, didn't realize there was more than 1 "dam" ship in port that day. Their first clue should have been that when they got off the Zaandam that morning, they were walking on a pier, not getting into a small boat!

Someone at my dinner table who was on that particular shore excursion said that the tour personnel gave very confusing and conflicting information, considering that they had passenger from 3 HAL ships on the excursion.

Roz

[zil]

Thank you all for the info. I have been to St. Thomas and hate to think that one should stay onboard at that port.
I will take your advice and plan my return to ship in plenty of time.
I noticed on WWW.********** that Maasdam will be one of four ships in port.
Jewel of the Seas, Millennium, and Zenith-Could total 6,700 cruisers...
Boy, these boards are wonderful for up to date info.

[sail7seas]

Thanks, Roz. Now I understand.


I just checked and we will be at Crown Bay on Veendam.....Yuck!!! We will get off as we have friends there we want to visit but I hate when we dock there.

[JohnR49er]

I was surprised last month when we docked there. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It wasn't as crowded and we had no problem getting a ride to or from town. I would rather dock there than have to tender. It was a very quick ride because all the traffic was over at Havensite.

[colada]

In this situation I would suggest a ship sponsored excursion to a beach on St. Johns (Trunk Bay, Cinnamon Bay). These really are some of the best beaches I have ever seen and the excursion will work out the transportation details which seems to be the tricky part of this location in port.

[gizmo]

Like JohnR49er, we never had any problems getting a taxi back to Crown Bay. The traffic has always been much less between Charlotte Amalie and Crown Bay I have been in traffic much worse going back to Havensight.

It is still much better to dock than have to deal with tendering.

[boards]

I would imagine the cabbies are not to happy to be travelling out to Crown Bay with possibility of no fare back or having to wait for one longer than they would in town or at Havensight. We never had a problem getting a cab back to the ship at Havensight.