We had an absolutely fantastic time in St. Croix. The weather was warm (~80F), and the water clear and blue. What more could you ask for! (Pictures Here)
We arrived Monday afternoon, and go to the Buccaneer Resort about 5pm. Got our selves checked in, and they upgraded us from a mountain view room to an ocean view room (Yay!), but they somehow missed that we had gotten the honeymoon package (every trip like this one should be a honeymoon), so we didn’t get our welcome bottle of champagne or the tickets for the activities that we supposed to be included. We corrected that, and we got everything but the bottle of champagne the next morning. After checking out the room and our ocean view (and trying to convince Chris that we were on the north side of the island) , we decided to walk around the resort and see where everything was, and the sun was setting, so Chris wanted to take some pictures. We checked out the two main beaches, and after it got too dark to see, we went up to the main dining room for a nice dinner. By then we were pretty much walking zombies having been up since 3:00am EST. We slept like logs that night.
Tuesday we spent on the beach. Chris did some sea kayaking (which he really enjoyed), and I just soaked up the sun. We had lunch at the open air restaurant down on the beach. All the buildings were kinds that way…You couldn’t tell where the outside stopped and the inside began. I guess you can do that when the weather is almost always nice. The food was good, and you can’t beat the feeling of eating a nice meal right out on the beach. That night we couldn’t get dinner reservations anywhere because it was valentines day, and everything was booked the week before, so we relaxed and read in the room and ordered room service.
Wednesday morning we finally got around to making our plans for the rest of the week. Scheduled the sunset sail for that night, with dinner reservations at a restaurant on the boardwalk in Christiansted. We spend the day on the beach again (this was a very lo-key trip for the two of us), occasionally dodging the rain. It was mostly nice, and sunny, but then the wind would pick up, the clouds would quickly roll in, and it would rain for about 5-10 minutes. Then as fast as it rolled in, it would roll out again, and be sunny for an hour and a half before doing it all over again. As late afternoon approached, the clouds started staying longer and longer, so they cancelled the sunset sail, and it was rescheduled for Thursday evening. When the concierge called to inform us of this, we asked her to make sure that our dinner reservation and taxi were moved too, and to make us reservations someplace else for that evening. We had dinner at a restaurant called Savant, which specializes in Mexican and Thai food. That was an interesting menu, but the food was excellent!
Thursday we got up early so we could get breakfast before our 4 hr. island tour at 9 am. We were on the tour with 3 other couples from the resort. The tour basically consisted of a taxi-van driving us around the island at top speed with the driver pointing out “Look! We have KFC just like the mainland! And there’s a Pizza Hut! Soon we’ll be getting a Home Depot!” Occasionally he would stop in the middle of traffic to point out a large house. He drove like a maniac, and I wish I had taken Dramamine. We had stops at the Cruzan Rum factory (the only good part about that was we got free rum drinks at the end of the tour), the St. George Botanical Garden, which had an interesting mix of tropical vegetation and desert succulents, and The Domino Club, home of the beer drinking pigs, which we didn’t bother to pay and see. I think everyone on the tour agreed it was a complete waste of time. After we got back, we had some lunch, went out in a double sea kayak and then headed out for our sunset sail. The concierge didn’t get us a taxi like she said she would, so we almost didn’t make it on time. Luckily JP (the captain) is a very laid back guy and waited around for us. It was fabulous! A definite must do for anyone who visits the island. Dinner afterwards was at RumRunners. Remember how the concierge didn’t book us a taxi? She didn’t move our reservation for dinner either. They weren’t too busy, so they were able to get us a table anyway.
Friday we took a snorkeling trip to Buck Island. Chris had a great time, and used up all the pictures on the disposable underwater camera we’d taken with us.. I didn’t much care for it. I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and kept panicking. I was in the water long enough to get the guided tour along the trail, but that was enough for me. Maybe I’d have more fun if I had more experience using a snorkel. We met a nice couple on the trip and had lunch with them when we got back to Christansted. Talked about what we thought of the island, and they told us how it compared to other Caribbean islands they’ve been to. Did a little souvenir shopping, and then headed back to the resort. Got massages in the afternoon, which was wonderfully relaxing! Had another nice dinner in the hotel restaurant too.
Saturday we had a relaxing morning on the beach, before heading to the airport to catch our 5pm flight out. Ended the vacation arriving back in Syracuse in a snow storm. That wasn’t really what we wanted to come back too. Didn’t get back to our house until 1:15 am Sunday morning.
Overall we had a great trip. We were a little disappointed that most of the buildings down town were very run down and abandoned. The service was poor almost everywhere we went. They sounded like they wanted to help you, but then (like the concierge), didn’t follow thru on anything. We had to ask several times to get our water glasses refilled at the restaurants, and we quickly learned that we should expect lunch to take atleast an hour, and dinner an hour and a half or more. This wasn’t a problem since we didn’t have anywhere to be, until our lunch on Saturday, which we started at 12:30, and it didn’t end until 2:00, when we insisted that we needed the bill immediately, since our taxi to the airport was coming at 2:15, and we needed to shower and change before leaving. Like everything else, the taxi was late, so it didn’t end up being a problem, but it was still annoying. Everyone else we talked to seemed to have the same impression, and said it was not the same on the rest of the USVI.
So that was our trip. Hope I didn’t bore you with all the details 
