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Review of a beautiful day in St-Thomas


sebas030
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This visit, 2 weeks ago, was our second visit in St-Thomas,

 

We arrived in port early in the morning ( 1st ship in port ) but we were scheduled to tender into St-Thomas because 6 ships were scheduled that day. Having priority debarkation we quickly left the ship in the first tender after the excursions and the VIP's.

 

So we were the third or forth tender to actually leave the ship. On our last visit we went to a renowned beach and we didn't appreciate it like others did...so we decided to explore an other beach this time.

 

We wanted to leave the ship early because we had our eyes set on Megan's beach and I knew it would get busy as the ships pulled into port. So as soon as we got of the tender we started looking for a taxi to quickly take us to Megan's.

 

Our tender left us downtown, in the shopping area, and there was a lot of traffic and in a small parking lot on the opposite side of the street there were a dozen of taxis ( the open air kind with seating for about 20 passengers ). On the sidewalk we saw many guys trying to sell tours and rides, we walked up to the fellow at the end of the queue and asked him to take us to Megan's beach. He agreed and told the dispatcher he was riding to Megan's, he asked us to wait to get more passengers. We waited about 5 minutes and he quickly got 8 other passengers and he guided us to his taxi in the parking lot on the other side of the street.

 

Now this is where we were lucky...we, the 10 of us, boarded the taxi and he pulled off immediately...there were 3 or 4 other taxis in the parking lot, they were almost full, certainly 15 or more passengers per taxi, and they didn't move because they wanted to be full before they left...2 families were shouting to their drivers that they wanted to get off and get in our taxi...but the answer from their driver was obviously "NO"...and we left the parking.

 

8$ per person got us quickly to Megan's beach ( an additional 4$ pp was needed to access the beach ). He dropped us off right on the sand and the end of the parking. We were taxi number 2 or 3 I guess because the beach was empty...and fabulous !!! What a beautiful beach...

 

We put our towel on the beautiful sand and quickly jumped in the water !!! Ok the water was a bit cool ( somewhere around 80 ), the waves were smooth and the beach very very wide, not very deep ( meaning that 2 rows of towel would cover the sand part between the bushes and the water's edge ). But we were alone for a good part of our stay on the beach and it was great !

 

Getting in the water in the section we were was easy, no rocks, no shells, no vegetation of any kind, when we were about knee deep in the water there was like a step down and we were suddenly mid-thigh...but the rest was gradual.

 

We stayed there for almost 4 hours...about 2h1/2 after our arrival the beach was getting very busy. We meet folks from our ship who just got at the beach because they were tender #21...SO glad we got out early and enjoyed an empty beach. When we left there was a line of taxis at the gate waiting to enter the beach ( about 10 taxi's, all full of passengers, so about an other 200 person on an already crowded beach )...very very very happy about all of our decisions that day ! It was simply amazing all the way. We easily got a taxi back downtown for an other 8$ pp. We shopped a little in all the boutiques downtown but not in the small flee market next to it...it had very very very cheap stuff.

 

We jumped on the tender waiting for us and we enjoyed a half empty ship until the last few tenders came back ( I was told the line for the last few tender was about 45 minutes long )...again, so glad we did all this early !

 

Now for the facts :

 

Rentals available : chairs, umbrellas, floating mats, kayaks, stand up paddle boards.

 

Facilities : showers, large bathrooms, accessible and family bathroom.

 

Services : rentals, bar ( beer 5$, drinks 8$, NO debit card, credit card MINIMUM 15$ per transaction ) plenty of taxis to get back.

 

Here are a few pics:

 

Boat rentals next to us

 

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The view ( and a bird ) from our place

 

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<a href=IMG_18421_zpssxlkrlb5.jpg' alt='IMG_1842

 

 

We will go back to this beach one day !

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Thank you for the review and pictures. We keep debating between Coki or Magens so your review is quite helpful. Sounds like it's a great beach.

Interesting how the taxi cabs work there. It looks like you can't just take your family of 4 in a taxi and head off?

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  • 1 month later...

What a wonderful review of one of my favorite places. After several cruise stop visits to Magens Bay, my family rented a villa for a week overlooking this beautiful place. We visited almost every day and enjoyed the left hand side away from the bar and rentals. Never crowded and lots of locals.

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