Wednesday September 21 Day 4- St. Thomas, USVI
Welcome to:
It was the usual routine for us this morning, Ron up early, me sleeping as long as I could. He went exploring up on the Sundeck- which are the cantilevered wings over the bridge that extend out over the ocean. It is a great place for pictures and to relax, but it is now quite popular:
We had not yet arrived in St. Thomas.
Ron spotted this pirate ship, not knowing that it would be the one we would be on for our excursion!
Breakfast on the balcony, this morning it was from Park Café. The boys enjoyed the breakfast sandwiches similar to Egg Mc Muffins from McDonalds. They did like the sandwiches overall but didnt care too much for the Canadian bacon on them.
This is all I had, and the girls both had just cold cereal. Would that turn out to be a mistake?
Look how well behaved they are. Ha ha ha
.. These moments are few and far between.
Finally we docked (late) and were cleared quickly to disembark. Our excursion had a meeting time of 8:30 and we did not even arrive in port until 9 AM. Today we would be doing the Turtle Cove Sail & Snorkel through Royal Caribbean. We normally do not do excursions through the cruise line, as we can often arrange our own plans for less cost. But this excursion was so reasonably priced and was right what we were looking for- a short unique snorkeling experience- that we decided to go with it. The cost is $56/adult and $30/child and we felt that was well worth it for the experience. Sarah, at age 3 was still too young for this experience so she would spend the morning in the kids club. She did offer a little bit of resistance about going to the club this morning but once she was there, she was fine.
You know what's cool about this excursion? You can do it on
DCL too! See! :
http://disneycruise.disney.go.com/cruises-destinations/shore-excursions/st-thomas-st-john-us-virgin-islands/doubloon-turtle-cove-sail-and-snorkel/
Our shore excursion tickets just said to meet at the dock, so we headed down to the gangway to disembark. Once outside on the pier we could see no obvious meeting place for the group.
I spotted these pirate flags from across the bay though and figured thats where we would be. I
.was right!
We made our way through the security gates, and since Ron didnt believe me that we needed to head towards the pirate flags, he finally found a gentleman with a sign for our excursion and pointed us
where else
to the pirate flags! Well, now that we are sure on where to go, we took the short walk over, past all of these guys
.so cute!!
We still had to wait for more folks to arrive. This is a very popular excursion and often sells out; there were in fact well over 100- maybe close to 200 people gathered once everyone had arrived. Here is my favorite tip for excursions: use this time while you are waiting to apply sunscreen! We were slathering on the sunscreen now, while most were just hanging out. Later on they were all applying the sunscreen on the boat, a more cramped and bumpy environment, while we were just enjoying the ride
.sort of. More on that to come, I dont want to get ahead of myself.
Before too long, the excursion operators began to divide us into groups for the boat ride. We had read many reviews of this excursion and had read while most often one the Pirate Schooners is used- occasionally a catamaran is used for overflow. Having kids who were really excited about the Pirate Ship, we were a little antsy to get our tickets in and get placed on one of the Pirate Ships, the Doubloon or Bones. We were lucky enough to be one of the last few families to get onboard the Doubloon. (I dont think getting stuck on the Catamaran would have been an issue today- we did not see one at Turtle Cove while we were there.
In any event, here comes Doubloon to the dock:
We boarded Doubloon and headed up to the bow. Along with the minimal breakfast this may have been mistake #2.
At first we enjoyed the ride from Crown Bay over towards Turtle Cove at Buck Island.
But the water was quite choppy and even though I am not prone to sea sickness, I among a few others in the boat (including Savannah) felt a little -or a lot- nauseous by the time we finally arrived about 40 minutes later. I know I would be fine once I got off the rocking boat and into the water. Savannah though, felt really sick and didnt want to go snorkel at all. We let most folks get off and into the water while I waited with her hoping she would feel better. The really nice family we were sitting next to on the boat gave her a Bonine, which she took, and with a lot of persuasion I finally convinced her to at least take a little swim in the water.
Turtle Cove at Buck Island:
Just as I thought, as soon as she was off the rocking boat, and in the water she was fine, and then she decided to snorkel. I waited while she swam back to retrieve her equipment. The staff of the boat- by the way- was great. They were very funny, and friendly and helpful. We had Captain Alex, and Mermaid Dawn, and First Mate Kurt was the other guy I think. Just an awesome crew!
Meanwhile, Ron, Brendan and the rest of the excursion-goers were following mermaid Dawn as they called her on a short guided tour of the cove. Right away they saw the wild sea turtles, and other great tropical fish, coral, urchins, and other sea life.
Before too long Savannah was back in the water with her gear on, and snorkeling around like a fish. Most everyone else in our group had already seen the turtles following Dawn around, we were playing catch-up. It took us a while to find them, but then when we finally spied one, they seemed easy to find.
It was about 2 1/2 to 3 hours. It was exactly what we were looking for because this vacation was much more about the ship than the ports.
) entertaining report is giving me alot to think about! Thank you. 
