St. Thomas and SeaDream Question

We will be on a 7-night St. Thomas round trip in November. Since we sail on Sunday, we are flying down on Saturday as early as we can. So, I have a few questions for those who have gone before me:

1. Can anyone recommed a good hotel in Charlotte Amalie for the one night pre-cruise?

2. Does the SeaDream embark passengers in Crown Bay? If not, where?

3. I am thinking of doing a daysail on Sunday before embarkation. Will I be able to have a catamaran/sailboat pick us up in Charlotte Amalie first thing in the a.m., run us around St. Thomas and/or St. John for a while, then take us to the SeaDream II? Or, does it make sense to taxi to Red Hook for the daysail? Would the captain still be able to drop us off at Crown Bay, or should we taxi back from Red Hook? I should mention that the fun for us is being in the boat, not necessarily swimming or snorkeling.

Thanks in advance for any helpful suggestions I get. I am sure that as the day draws near, I'll have more. Hopefully, there will be more trip reports and reviews between now and then to whet my appetite.

Bill

Hi Bill:

We are doing this itinerary on March 20 on SD I. Our TA is currently looking for hotels. Seems to be a tight fit in march. Will let you know what we find as it develops and will post a review after March 27th. Getting close, cant wait.

Jim.

Will let you know what we find as it develops and will post a review after March 27th.

Jim,

Thanks much, and happy sailing!

Bill

We just returned and stayed the night before in the Marriott Morningstar Resort right on the beach. It was a 10 minute taxi ride from the Havensight Dock where the SeaDream I was waiting for us. They also offer a water taxi for $5.00 per person from the hotel to the dock. My understanding is that they mostly use the Havensight dock which has enough shopping to keep you busy until they allow boarding at about 2:00 pm.

Have a wonderful trip. Hopefully you will not have Angela handling your excursions for you. She could use a few lessons in customer relations!

We were on SDI 20-28 Nov and disembarked in St. Thomas. We stayed two extra days -- at the Marriott Frenchman's Reef (sister to Morningstar). Very nice, but a tad expensive. Some people from the cruise stayed at a Holiday Inn in downtown that looked nice. There are also some "boutique" hotels, but I didn't hear any raves.

SeaDream docked at Havensight -- I think that is standard. All the shops downtown close around 1 pm (at least they did the day we were there), but Havensight stays open and has some rather nice places.

Can't help you much on the day sail, but you might want to consider taking the ferry from Charlotte Amalie to Cruz Bay -- I think it takes about 40 minutes and Cruz Bay has some nice shopping areas. Otherwise, you may run into a time crunch.

Joe Diver mentions Angela -- Jeff was our AD on the cruise and was absolutely wonderful! I knew he was transferring to SDII for several of the Mayan cruises, but think he will be back in March.

You'll have a wonderful week -- we can't wait to go back!

Vandrefalk

Wyndham on St. Thomas had a really good deal on its air-hotel package. Three nights hotel plus air from Sacramento was coming out almost exactly the same price as I was finding for air alone. Unfortunately, the package requires a two night stay which didn't work for me that trip so I stayed at Marriot Frenchman's Reef instead. The Marriot is fine but I've never met a Wyndham I didn't like. Marriot Frenchmans Reef and Marriot Morningstar are located together - the Morningstar is the rooms on the beach and Frenchmans Reef is on a bluff above the sea.

I just wanted to update you all on our travel arrangements.

After checking several website reviews and emailing back and forth with Ronnie, the proprietor, we decided to stay one night-pre-sailing at the Crystal Palace Bed and Breakfast. It is just a few steps away from all the shopping in Charlotte Amalie, and it looks to be an excellent value.

We are not going to do the daysail on Sunday before embarking because we decided to stay for three nights post-sailing at Caneel Bay Resort on St. John.

As an added bonus, I booked my airfare last week on United. The fare was higher than I had hoped, but seemed to be about the norm for all the airlines. I checked online yesterday, and saw the fare had dropped $50 per person. So, I called a reservations agent at United to see if I could get a voucher for the credit. She checked her system and found that the price was actually nearly $300 cheaper PER PERSON!!!! Needless to say, I am starting to think about our next vacation ;) .

Thanks all for your help, and happy sailing!