Jump to content

Beaches of St. Thomas or Tortola, BVI?


AlohaLivin

Recommended Posts

We lost two cruises to this pandemic and had enough $ in FCC we were anxious to book. We found a nice repositioning cruise in April 2021 and then yesterday an Eastern Caribbean for 10/31. But I don’t want to end up with 3 beach days (I am fair, plus that is a lot of repetition).  For the beach day we would like a lack of crowds if possible, clear and warm water, and relatively painless access (distance wise and otherwise).  
 

The competition for beach vs. non-beach is between:

1. Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas - 8am - 5pm

    - in the past I had decided on Linguist beach on our own (some cruise lines refer to it as “secret sands beach”), but the ship docked too far away to make that workable and we changed plans. 

2. Tortola, BVI - 8am - 7pm. 
   - I know less about the beaches here, or their distance from the port, but it is a longer day.

 

Just looking for some opinions about which beaches might be best between the two and what the really good non-beach options might be for each.  thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We were in St Thomas in October and had a wonderful day doing a private tour with St Thomas Scuba and Snorkel Adventures. We had the full day to plan our activities with our guide. We started with an island tour, then went to the beach and snorkeled with turtles, visited a second beach, toured some more and did picture stops around the island. We had a few ideas of what we wanted to do that day and adjusted them as the day progressed with our guide. 

8DF18C50-ECAC-4493-BD4A-32788E122251.jpeg

6427AB4D-DB9C-4876-ADB9-D8E6A799E229.jpeg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, BoxerMomNC said:

We were in St Thomas in October and had a wonderful day doing a private tour with St Thomas Scuba and Snorkel Adventures. We had the full day to plan our activities with our guide. We started with an island tour, then went to the beach and snorkeled with turtles, visited a second beach, toured some more and did picture stops around the island. We had a few ideas of what we wanted to do that day and adjusted them as the day progressed with our guide. 

 

 

Lovely! I had not really considered combining the two but it might be a nice way to spend a long day.  One thing I have wondered about is that every time I look at the Tortola beaches they seems to have much stronger surf than the waters of St. Thomas (although I can’t say why that would be the case); not as strong as Hawaii but rougher water.  Is that the case?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, 2Beeze said:

Lovely! I had not really considered combining the two but it might be a nice way to spend a long day.  One thing I have wondered about is that every time I look at the Tortola beaches they seems to have much stronger surf than the waters of St. Thomas (although I can’t say why that would be the case); not as strong as Hawaii but rougher water.  Is that the case?

We did a catamaran tour in Tortola.  It was nice and we went to 3 different places and snorkeled but no beaches. The water was a little choppy and they said it was from remnants from Hurricane Lorenzo.   Overall, my family said they prefered St Thomas and my husband says he would go back just for the tour again.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, BoxerMomNC said:

We did a catamaran tour in Tortola.  It was nice and we went to 3 different places and snorkeled but no beaches. The water was a little choppy and they said it was from remnants from Hurricane Lorenzo.   Overall, my family said they prefered St Thomas and my husband says he would go back just for the tour again.  

Sometimes it is tough to find anything other than a certain kind of tour in a port - like snorkeling1, snorkeling2, etc. We like variety but it is hard to find sometimes. And for whatever reason RCL does a pretty lack luster job at given more than the most barebones, vague info on any of their offerings. That means I often lean toward 3rd petty tour operators to get more info and some reviews.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...