A Couple Days in St. Thomas (2005)

Hanging out at the Old Mill entertainment complex. Duty-free shopping for jewelry and alcohol. The view from Island View Guest House. The sense of history in venerable Hotel 1829.

Quick Tips:

If, because of ferry schedules or whatever, you're only staying on St. Thomas for a night or two during your trip, don't waste money on beach resort accomodations that can cost more than a night. If you've already planned for a week of great beaches elsewhere, pay half the money during your time on St. Thomas and put the money you saved toward a bottle of Johnny Walker or a nice necklace to take home.

Best Way To Get Around:

Taxis, I guess. But they aren't cheap. When putting together our time on St. Thomas, we tried to minimize the number of cab trips we'd need, 'cause it just was too much of a pain in the ass during a previous visit. That's why we stayed in the city of Charlotte Amalie on the day we wanted to do our shopping.

Hotel 1829 is a good choice for those who are looking for duty-free shopping or just a place to stay a night before catching a ferry to St. Croix, St. John or BVI. Located at at the eastern edge of the duty-free shopping area in the capitol city of Charlotte Amalie (and online at http://www.hotel1829.com/index.htm), it was built for a wealthy Frenchman in 1829.

From what I gather, today it's more of a business hotel than tourist one thanks to its proximity to the government offices. But for our purposes, it was great. After a week of leisurely beach living in St. John (if you're a beach lover, check out that journal), we planned an overnight stay and short day in Charlotte Amalie before catching our flight home. So, having had our sand fix already satiated, we didn't mind not having a worthwhile beach around. The small pool and the nearby shops were enough to keep us smiling.

As for the hotel itself, it is what you'd expect of a building that is more than 175 years old. If you appreciate time-worn wooden furniture, and a sense of history, you'll love this place. The rooms featured dramatic wooden beams and the large, comfy bed has white netting hanging over it. The windows are shutters and you can throw them open (no screens here) to let the sunlight spill in or you can just open the louvers slightly to lighten the room a bit. Rooms are air-conditioned. The building features wrought iron black gates at the front and a Tiffany stained glass window. Similar items intensify the historic feel to the place.

Also, after seeing so many bright yellows and pinks and turquoise colors, the dark color scheme (a burnt orange, adobe-like color) and dimly lit areas were refreshing. Don't get me, the place is not under-lit and you'll never feel unsafe, but this is a building that just has interesting nooks that make for some dramatic plays of light. As an amateur photographer, I loved it.

The hotel is within walking distance of the shopping district, which features several restaurants. The well-regarded French restaurant Herve is next door (we didn't eat there).

Its location is close enough to the dock that we didn't need a taxi upon our trip from St. John. We each had two suitcases and, though we did pause to relax for a few minutes, it wasn't an unreasonable distance to walk. Even with the stop to catch our breath, it took about 10 minutes from the dock to the hotel. Elderly travelers, however, might be better off with a taxi.

This is an ideal hotel for anyone who has a one- or two-day spot in their schedule and they'd like to focus more on shopping than resort/beach activities. Also great for anyone with government business. However, because this is just a hotel and not a resort, you likely would be disappointed if you made this your main lodging for a trip to the Virgin Islands.

Much like Hotel 1829, the Island View Guest House (www.islandviewstthomas.com) fit our needs wonderfully during our 2005 trip to the Virgin Islands, but would not be ideal for all travelers.

Located along a narrow street above (very above) the capitol city of Charlotte Amalie, the guest house offers very nice views of the pretty city, the many cruise ships, and the Caribbean itself. Though the location offers nice views, it penalizes visitors as far as convenience. If you stay here, you should either rent a car (which I wouldn't recommend, since there are far more roads here than on St. John; much easier to get lost on St. Thomas, I suspect), or be prepared to spend quite a bit of money on taxis.

That's not to say that there's nothing worthwhile nearby. We walked maybe a quarter of a mile to the Old Mill entertainment complex and had a great time. (Review of the Old Mill soon to come.)

As for the Island View, it has nice, unremarkable rooms. Ours was tucked away at the bottom of a tight outdoor staircase that wasn't the easiest to negotiate with our luggage. Our room did have a balcony, however, and offered very nice views of the city. At night the view was just as good.

What we really liked about this place was its casual atmosphere. The office is located next to a large area that features a pretty nice continental breakfast selection. This area also has a really cool do-it-yourself bar with several bottles of booze, mixers, and bartender's books. You're welcome to mix yourself whatever cocktail you'd like (If I recall correctly, there's a blender for frozen drinks as well), and the owners trust guests to the honor system as far as paying for your drinks. Basically, you mark how many drinks you've helped yourself to during your stay, then settle your tab later. And, the cost per drink is modest (I don't recall exactly how much it was). It was a very nice touch, that we appreciated, even if we only took advantage of it for Coke to go with the rum we'd bought at the airport.

As with Hotel 1829 (which is where we stayed a night after our time on St. John), this is a good place for travellers in transit. It's nice and casual, and good for those en route to or from somewhere closer to the beach. For our one night on St. Thomas before heading to St. John, this cost about half the rate of the resorts alternative... and since we had a week on the island of perfect beaches ahead of us, we didn't feel like we had missed a thing.

Our favorite restaurant in the Virgin Islands, the Agave Terrace, is located on the grounds of Point Pleasant Resort. Situated on a hillside, the resort and restaurant offer beautiful Caribbean vistas with a westerly view, so you can see the sun drop below the land on the other side of the bay below. The grounds are well manicured and the staff is friendly, and it's all you would expect of an upscale restaurant.

The restaurant features live steel drum music on some nights and offers fantastic seafood selections. The food is delicious and priced accordingly, but for a romantic special night out, you can't go wrong at the Terrace. Have a cocktail before your meal (or a couple afterward) in the bar and enjoy the spectacular sunset view below.

If you're weary of salespeople pushing their hardest for 30 seconds then moving on to the next person while you're jewelry shopping, step back from Main Street Charlotte Amalie and stop by and see Brandon Kuhnert at Gem Casa. Brandon claims to have the largest selections of unset stones on the island. I'm not sure if he actually does, but I was very impressed by his collection of sapphires (of ALL colors) during our last visit. And he told me he often supplies stones to the Main Street stores. He obviously has a relationship with the other jewelry shops, since he sent the stone I selected and a specific ring style I wanted to a Main Street store to have it set and sized for me.

When I bought an engagement ring from him a few years ago (at the time, he was a partner with Gemstone House—he is owner of Gem Casa), Brandon showed me an array of diamonds and though he obviously wanted to make a sale, he didn’t steer me toward a particular stone. He brought out the loupe, let me examine each stone, and told me he that if none of the loose stones appealed to me that he would unset any others that were in the store (that’s what ultimately happened). I had been teaching myself about diamonds for a few months and had been pricing them back home. For a diamond ring that would cost $2,200 to $2,500 back home, I paid less than $1,400.

Brandon is very upfront about the pros and cons of each stone he sells. He doesn’t try to downplay flaws (in fact, the diamond I ultimately selected has a small fleck of unformed carbon), and I especially like the education I invariably get during our visits.

It was not so easy to tell if I got a great, good, or not-so-good deal with a sapphire ring we bought last year. We see similar rings advertised at the chain stateside jewelry stores a couple hundred dollars below what we paid ($650), but we haven’t found any that have both such a dark hue and a lively sparkle. I suspect most of the chain sapphires are augmented through heat or irradiation treatments that darken lesser quality stones and robs them of that sparkle.

Great selection of Opals. If your girl is born in October, get a birthstone piece here. They're beautiful!

Gem Casa also focuses on custom-made jewelry featuring minerals and semi-precious stones. You can find really interesting, unique pieces that are eye-catching and affordable (we saw many items priced at $75 to $400). Though our purchases have been relatively modest compared to some of the jewelry sales in town, Brandon made us feel like we were his most valued customers. Because of his personalized, unrushed attention, we'll stop by his store every time we’re on the island.

TIP: Brandon tends to give a better price to those who pay cash. Feel free to tell him that Brian and Chris from Pittsburgh say hello.

What St. John is to beach lovers, St. Thomas--Charlotte Amalie, in particular--is to duty-free shoppers—mecca.

We’ve taken advantage of St. Thomas’ duty-free shopping on both of our trips to the US Virgin Islands. We’ve limited our shopping to alcohol and jewelry (two of the essentials, right?) and found that doing your research beforehand and doing comparison shopping will certainly result in getting the most for your buck here. Here, I'll cover the booze. I discuss our favorite jewelry shop in a separate journal.

Americans can bring as many as five bottles home duty-free, provided that at least one of them is distilled in the Virgin Islands. I recommend going with Cruzan Rum (either one of the cheap flavored rums, if not the pricey Cruzan Single Barrel), but don’t waste this opportunity by buying multiple bottles of Cruzan. You can get it at home for about the same price. Use your bottle allowance on the many incredible buys.

Some background: My home state of Pennsylvania is one of the few backward states that regulates the sale of booze with an iron hand, so all our purchases or wine and liquor take place at state-run liquor stores. While this sucks in many ways, I made this work for me--during our 2005 trip, I took along the liquor store’s free magazine that lists prices on all of its offerings. Armed with this and a notebook to jot down prices as we strolled around Charlotte Amalie, we were able to the spot the absolute best deals relative to prices at home. Thanks to this strategy, we were able to stock our home bar with Johnny Walker Gold, Stolichnya Elit vodka (and yes, there’s plenty of Grey Goose, vodka fans), 1800 Anejo tequila, Mount Gay rum, and several other premium spirits, and for these oversize bottles, we often paid about half of what we’d pay at home for regular 750ml sizes. Do some research beforehand and know the difference between different varieties of a brand (and jot down the price/size of the bottle at home), and you can stock your bar with some very impressive bottles at relatively modest prices.

Don’t limit your homework to just prices. If you’re using this opportunity to buy alcohol that otherwise would be out of your price range, it wouldn’t hurt to see how alcohol experts rate the brands. This is how I stumbled across Mount Gay rum from Barbados, a real nice blend.

I've noticed that not many people take advantage of the the window seat during their flights. Not me. Here are some of my favorite pictures from above during our flight to the Caribbean last August.

TIP: If you're going to take pictures out of a plane window, use the widest angle lens you have and place it right against the glass. If you plan to do this, be sure to get a seat that isn't near a wing.

Located above Charlotte Amalie, we found ourselves at the Old Mill for dinner and drinks because there are no other walking-distance food options near the Island View Guest House. And since we would be staying in the city of Charlotte Amalie for a night later in our trip, we didn't feel the need to donate to a taxi driver. So the Old Mill it was.

Housed in a 212-year-old sugar-mill complex, the Old Mill is about a quarter mile from the guest house. It is divided into a sports bar area and a section that features a piano bar/jazz club. I also heard that it's a good place if your looking for a dance club with a DJ (later that night, before a prolonged power outage blackened the entire city, we heard the loud music from the club from our balcony).

Anyway, we stuck to the sports bar. Arriving around 5pm, we sat at the bar and drank for a couple hours while making small talk with the bartenders and other patrons, but mostly we watched replays of Mike Tyson fights, courtesy of HBO Classic. We're both boxing fans, so this was shaping up to be a good night.

The setting made it even better. The design of the sports bar nicely blends outdoors elements with indoor convenience. There is a large tree in the center of the dining area and the Old Mill building structure sort of curls around the dining area, which is protected from the elements by not-unattractive protective tarps. It's tough to explain, but the end result is the place has an open-air party feel to it.

We both ordered burgers and fries and enjoyed the food. And we ordered drink after drink—our best guess was that we'd each had six drinks, and maybe even seven. When we asked for our check, we had a big case of sticker shock ... in a good way. For a dozen drinks or more, and two burger platters, we were expecting to shell out maybe $50. The check was in the low $20s—Wow.

Those looking to minimize expenses of accommodations with kitchen appliances, will be surprised when they go grocery shopping. As is the case with most islands, much of the provisions on St. Thomas arrive via ship—that means it ain't cheap. While you can find good deals on freshly caught seafood for sale in the Red Hook area , I was surprised during a trip to a local market in Red Hook to discover that it was cheaper to buy a fifth of Cruzan rum, than a gallon of milk. So, penny-pincher that I am, I forced myself to suffer through a vacation full of rum and Cokes.

Joking aside, we did buy milk , cereal, bread, and butter. Eating breakfast in, will save you enough money to feel alright about splurging on a place like Agave Terrace for dinner, or treating yourself to a sumptuous breakfast buffet one morning.