Caribbean Princess Day 4 of 7 - St. Thomas - Excursions save the day

Caribbean Princess cruise - Day 4 of 7

Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands

About 10AM today, we arrived in port in Charlotte Amalie, on the island of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands.  The sun was shining and it was a lovely sail-in.

We started the day like most days - grabbing breakfast at the buffet.  Because today's plan was a snorkeling excursion at 1:45PM, we took a leisurely morning and just hung out.  This allowed me to grab a few snaps of the guest laundry.  There is one on every floor with staterooms.

There are two washers and two dryers

Tokens are available with a tap of your Medallion - I don't know how much they are - the tokens can be used to purchase soap, bleach, and fabric softener

All the machines operate by token as well

There are two ironing boards with irons

We spent some time on the balcony, reading.  I am not a fan of the guest room layout on Princess.  This isn't a criticism of Princess - just a recognition that I don't care for the design.

We're on deck 11 - the balconies above us are directly above us - the balconies below are jutted out on deck 10 and deck 9 offering full views into those balconies as well as providing them views back up to us - I'm not a fan

We decided to grab a slice of pizza at...Slice - the pizza joint on deck 15.  They make three types of pies - cheese, pepperoni, and the pizza of the day.  Pepperoni is the #1 selling pizza in the US, so you'd assume they would have it ready all the time.  Nope.  They only had their pizza of the day with ham, bell peppers, artichoke hearts, and some other stuff I didn't want.  Oh well.  Before we walked away, they pulled a cheese pizza from the oven so we settled for a slice of that.

After our slice, we opted for an ice cream cone.  We both got a vanilla-chocolate swirl cone.  It didn't taste like vanilla.  It didn't taste like chocolate.  We couldn't identify the taste, but it was cold and sweet, so we ate it.

We headed back to the room to change into swimsuits and head down to the dock.  They told us that towels were available at the gangway.  They weren't.  We asked and someone went into a back room and got a couple of beach towels for us and we headed down to wait for our tour departure.

Our group, scheduled to depart at 1:45PM started walking to our vessel at about 1:48PM - pretty timely.  It was a short walk down the pier to our waiting catamaran.  The group split between two large catamarans and we were off.

 

We headed to Buck Island and a stop at Turtle Cove for some snorkeling.

After that, we sailed to Water Island's Honeymoon Beach for another snorkel stop. I have to admit - after 10-15 minutes, we thought this stop was a bust.  There was nothing to see.  But then...turtles!

Our tour boat

Arlona and some friendlies

A cool starfish

We also spotted something huge - perhaps six to eight feet, but it turned and swam away before I could get a shot of it.  It sure got our attention.

All in all, it was a very good tour.  Captain Dave and his crew did an excellent job and we enjoyed the day.

Once back on the ship, we decided to try the buffet for dinner rather than a sit-down dining experience.  Overall, it was good, and certainly a lot faster than the two to two-and-a-half-hour dining experience in the main dining rooms.

We did try using the Medallion app to order drinks.  Your medallion locates you through the tons of sensors around the ship.  You place your drink order and it gets sent to the closest bar to you.  A waiter brings you your drink - well, that's the plan.  Arlona placed an order, and amazingly, less than five minutes later, her drink arrived.  That's pretty impressive!  I then tried it.  After about 20 minutes, my order said that someone was bringing it.  We waited, and waited, and waited.  It never arrived.

Since Arlona had success, she tried another order.  In less than five minutes, the app said it was delivered!  Great!  Except that it wasn't.  At least not to us.  Ultimately, we went to the nearest bar.  They made us our drinks and a manager apologized for the flaws in the system.  So again, my comments on the Medallion Class app - nice idea, not ready for prime time.

We headed to the theater for tonight's entertainment, comedy magician, Naathan Phan.  I've learned to not expect much in this category on cruise ships but tonight, we were pleasantly surprised.  He was entertaining and we enjoyed his performance.

After that, it was time to head to the room to put this blog together.  We have an early morning tomorrow on St. Kitts, with another snorkeling trip at 8:45AM.

Farewell, St. Thomas, it was fun.  Tomorrow, St. Kitts and Nevis.