We’ve heard that cruise ships are going to be headed to Alaska and the Mediterranean this summer leaving us with only 3 days per week with ships in. That’s bad, very bad.

Expect an extremely low season and start to prepare if you’re a Downtown or Havensight business. I imagine this will be tough considering our already very fragile economy.

Received this email yesterday:

“I was researching our upcoming day in port in St. Thomas at the beginning of October. My husband and I are bringing friends and wanted to take them to Mountain Top, so they could have a view of the area as well as a daiquiri. I have read that it had a fire and was wondering if you could please let us know if it is reopen.”

There was a ground-breaking ceremony this past February, from that time we’ve heard possible re-opening dates of Sept, Oct or Nov 2010. I’ve also seen “during the winter season”. As Sept draws to a close we’ll see what Oct brings. Unfortunately it may not open in time for your stop here…however, if it does re-open just before your arrival you’ll know it as soon as you step off your ship; I’m sure the safari cab drivers will be letting everyone know!

In the meantime you can catch almost the same view (although much lower) from Drake’s Seat, which also overlooks Magens Bay.

Drake’s Seat Pro: the opportunity to get your picture taken with Madonna the goat (please tip her owner)…

Drake’s Seat Con: No banana daiquiris…

Those tasty and popular fritters appearing on appetizer menus all over the islands are pronounced ‘CONK’ fritters – the spelling ‘conch’ is misleading (don’t get tempted by the seemingly soft-sounding ’ch’ on the end)…

St. John’s is one of the following:  the oldest English-founded settlement in North America, a university in New York, the largest city of Antigua and Barbuda.  St. John (there’s only one, keep it singular, people) is one of the three Virgin Islands; more specifically it’s the one with both 1) World Famous Woody’s and 2) a house owned by Kenny Chesney…

A pina colada is a frozen drink; please don’t order it ‘on the rocks’…

We appreciate that you worked out before your vacation and want to show off your gym efforts while simultaneously scoring an awesome tan - however there is a local custom/law in all three Virgin Islands that requires men cover up their bare chests when shopping and dining in downtown areas. Ladies, this also applies to you; cover up your bikini tops when not on the beach. This ain’t the Jersey Shore (my apologies to New Jersey).

Unfortunately there is no law regarding fanny packs…

That is all.

***UPDATE***

From Cruise Critic Cruise News:

According to a statement from Royal Caribbean, at approximately 1 p.m. yesterday afternoon, as the ship was making its way from Nassau to St. Thomas, crewmembers reported a coworker missing. Security immediately began their search, and alerted the U.S. Coast Guard as well as the Bahamian Coast Guard.

In an effort to locate the missing crewmember, the ship’s captain made the decision to turn the ship around and retrace its course from Nassau. After reviewing closed-circuit footage, it was confirmed that the crewmember did in fact go overboard. The crewmember has not yet been located, and the U.S. Coast Guard is continuing to search the area.

This is the second time this month an overboard case has impacted a Royal Caribbean itinerary; on May 5, 2010, a crewmember from Explorer of the Seas went overboard, delaying the ship’s turnaround.

****************************************

Tuesday usually means an appearance by the huge Oasis of the Seas ship in Crown Bay, St. Thomas. But not this Tuesday – reports are floating around that someone fell overboard yesterday.

A message thread was started by a member of Cruise Critic yesterday afternoon. They are currently on the Oasis and stated that the Captain was turning the ship around to search for a possible person who fell overboard. The latest post on the thread was from the same person, typed early this morning, 12:44am, stating that it’s believed to be a crew member who failed to show for work yesterday morning. Further web searches are revealing that the crew member is male.

What a scary situation, for confused and worried passengers – but definitely for the family members of the missing person. We hope for a positive outcome.

Before you read on make sure to read Moving To St. Thomas Part 1 and Moving To St. Thomas Part 2 and Moving To St. Thomas US Virgin Islands – Everything You Need To Know. I’ll wait…

…I hope you had a chance to read all the comments, over 200 of them because most of the answers are there.

So here we go

1. How much money do I need to live in St. Thomas? Who the heck knows? What’s your lifestyle like? Here’s what we do know, St. Thomas is expensive. Everything comes in on a container so it’s all marked up, a beach chair that sells in the states for $30 is $50 here. A gallon of milk can run you $7 yet a bottle of rum can run you $6. What do you drink more of? There is an entire post dedicated to grocery pricing here: http://www.stthomasblog.com/?p=2510

If you’ve ever been to Manhattan it’s that plus some. So if you’re moving here from cowland get ready for some high costs, probably 35%-45% more cost of living. I personally would have at least a half a years salary in hand if you intend on moving here. But we know a lot of folks who came on a plane fair

2. How much is rent? Where do you want to live? How many bedrooms? Pets? All this comes into play. Expect higher rents than the states for sure. You can rent a small studio for about $900/month and then it goes up from there. But Electricity will run you 3 times the cost of the states (currently at .32kw). And if gas prices rise so does the electricity as WAPA (Water and Power Authority) makes electricity from gas here

Oh and most rentals aren’t exactly legal. What’s that mean? It means they’ve added extra apartments where one was so you may or may not be on a shared electric meter. You’ll have to work that out with the landlord. I always tell people to pay per square foot if you’re on a shared meter.

Here are some rough rental costs:

Studio: $800-$1200

1 Bedroom: $1000-$1600

2 Bedroom: $1200-$2000

3 Bedroom: $2400-$5500

4 Bedroom: $3500-$6000

Contact our friend and realtor Karen Korsgren for all your buying, selling, rental needs: http://www.buysellvi.com.

Here’s a couple of other places to look: http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/, http://stthomassource.com/

3. Employment! Tourism and government is the only industries we really have here in St. Thomas. So if you’re looking for a job in the bar, restaurant, hotel, boating and general tourism industry you will be able to find a job. And if you’re actually reliable you’ll be able to keep it. The pay here is low. Lower than most states so if you get a job say at an insurance agency you’ll probably make less and pay more for everything else. You want to live on an island? That’s the price

Here’s a couple of other places to look: http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/, http://stthomassource.com/

4. Buying or Building? Will you be buying or building? Right now building is VERY expensive. I’ve been told by builders that a yard of concrete sells for $2000, yikes! And get ready to throw your budget out the window because it will be more than planned guaranteed. Oh and add 4-6 months on to the projected deliverable if you’re lucky If you think building is a headache in the states then don’t build because it will be 10 times worse here.

Buying works the same way as the states with the exception of what they call a stamp tax. Transactions in the US Virgin Islands require 2% to 3.5% government transfer tax or stamp tax. All property transactions over $350,000 require a mandatory 2.5% stamp tax. You can negotiate this with the seller. In a down market a buyer can usually get a seller to pay it but in a good market…

The US Virgin Islands,which include St. Thomas, St. John, St. Croix and Water Island, are unincorporated territory of the United States. Thus, purchasing property in any of these islands grants you the same guarantees and Constitutional protections and rights that you would have in anywhere in the United States.

Things to consider:

a. Cistern – A cistern is how you get your water supply. Our gutters on our roof catch the rain and then funnel it down into a holding tank. So if it doesn’t rain for a while you will run out of water. Water costs run me $340 for 5300 gallons and we have two 10,000 gallon water tanks so you do the math. We have a complete micron, charcoal and UV light water filtration system which cost around $1500.

b. Electricity – We pay 3 times the average cost in the states or about .34kw. But be forewarned our system in the US Virgin Islands generates electricity from gas. So when gas goes up so does your electric bill. Two years ago when gas hit $5/gallon our rates were .52kw.

c. Insurance – Hurricane insurance is ridiculously expensive! For $500,000 replacement fee expect to pay $14,000/year or so. Replacement fee is what it would costs to replace whatever was broken/missing but not exactly what a builder may charge you at the time of repair. That’s where the insurance company can really stick it to you. It may suddenly be a lot more money in labor/materials after a hurricane We use Tunick Insurance at: 340-776-7000.

5. Pets We have 2 parrots and bring them to and from St. Thomas every year. You can bring them on Delta or Continental as a carry-on. We need to get a health certificate from our vet within 7 days of travel. I’m not sure about other pets but I know you can bring them with no worries, check with your airline for that info. Do to public health and environmental concerns importing pet snakes into the territory is not allowed.

There are some places that will allow you to rent with a pet. I’m not sure of them but contact our friend and realtor Karen Korsgren for all your buying, selling, rental needs: http://www.buysellvi.com.

6. Crime Don’t go looking for it and it probably won’t find you. Yes we have a high murder rate but chances are it’s one bad guy killing another. It’s very rare that you hear of an innocent person being murdered but it happens… If you go looking for drugs you’ll put yourself in a bad position. If you’re walking around drunk in a bad neighborhood you’ll put yourself in a bad position. Be street-smart and know your surroundings and you’ll be fine.

7. Cars and License! Buying a car in St. Thomas is expensive. They know they got you by the short hairs because of the cost to ship it here. So cars are typically 15%-25% more to buy. That said if you own a nice car it may be worth it to ship it here.

It can cost around $1000-$1500 to ship a car from Miami. Check out Tropical shipping at: http://www.tropical.com/external/en/.

St. Thomas is basically one extremely curvy, giant hill. I strongly recommend a 4 wheel drive vehicle here especially when it rains. Expect to replace brakes twice a year and transmissions also get pretty roughed up. Oh and our roads are full of potholes that usually go unfixed or fixed wrongly so they re-appear

Things to consider:

a. Can you get parts for your car if you bring it here and can someone fix it? I brought my Infinity QX4 here and there is literally only 1 guy that can fix major things on it. Things like regular maintenance, brakes etc. are no problem. We have most major dealers here like Ford, Honda and Toyota.

b. You’ll need a VI license plate for your car. Your stateside license will not work here.

c. You’ll have to clear customs. You can call the Customs Office at (340) 714-1600 for more information.

d. You’ll need the title to your car.

e. Road tax: You must get a Bill of Lading from the shipping agent when the car arrives in the USVI. For more information call Internal Revenue office at (340) 714-9332.

f. Insurance is required in St. Thomas. You must get your vehicle insured before requesting a moving permit. We use Tunick Insurance at: 340-776-7000.

g. You’ll need a permit to move your car: Go to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) to get a permit to move your vehicle from the dock. The permit allows you to move a non-registered vehicle from one point to another.

h. Take your vehicle to the DMV to get your vehicle inspected. Bring with you, receipt that you paid the road tax, title, proof of insurance and stateside driver’s license.

i. How to obtain a VI drivers License, click here: http://www.stthomasblog.com/?p=1682

8. Motorcycles & Bikes: Bringing one or buying a motorcycle is the same as the car above. Here’s the deal, the roads here are pretty bad. All windy and up and down hills. You can’t get over 40mph in most spots. The rain makes things doubly worse. People drive like complete idiots here with safari taxi’s stopping and letting out tourists in the middle of the roads. That said I think owning a motorcycle or standard bike is crazy here. But to each their own

9. Education: I’m pretty unfamiliar with the public school system here. Everyone I personally know sends their kids to private schools: http://www.antilles.vi/ and http://www.vimsia.org/ to name a few.

10. Health Care:Not good enough. Period. It’s getting better. Talk to any doctor or nurse from the states and they’ll openly tell you it’s not good. Anything serious and I would leave the island for the states. We have the Roy Lester Schneider Hospital: http://www.rlshospital.org/. We have many primary doctors and facilities.

Again make sure to read Moving To St. Thomas Part 1 and Moving To St. Thomas Part 2 and Moving To St. Thomas US Virgin Islands – Everything You Need To Know.

Hope this helps and remember most of this is just my experiences and opinion

Before you comment or ask a question please read ALL THE COMMENTS as the answer is probably already there.

Here’s a ridiculous story we heard at Magens Bay yesterday. My sister came in on the Carnival Glory; here’s what the Cruise Director announced prior to arrival in St. Thomas:

“Because there are several cruise ships in town Magens Bay may be full and they may close the beach. We strongly suggest you purchase the Magens Bay $35 per person TWO HOUR tour as people on this excursion are guaranteed to get in.”

Complete Fraud!

Carnival you should be ashamed at this deceit. Magens Bay NEVER turns anyone away. To passengers: from Havensight a cab ride costs $8 per person each way or $16 roundtrip, it’s $4 per person to enter Magens and once there you can stay ALL DAY. Let me ask you this, have you ever heard of a place closing for fear of too much business coming their way?

We confirmed this nonsense with the blue-towel Glory cruisers next to us. One couple actually fell for this scam and the other couple took a taxi. You can imagine how ripped off the couple that paid $70 for a taxi ride felt. There was nothing to this “tour” - they dropped them off and picked them up two hours later. Here is the unhappy couple that got ripped off:

St. Thomas, what is going on?

How is the taxi association going along with this?

Magens Bay Authority should step in on this as I’m sure a lot of folks didn’t get to come to beautiful Magens Bay because of the $35 per person price tag or fear it would be closed with four ships in the harbor. 

Help spread the word on this scam. Post it to your Facebook and Twitter accounts, post it to cruise message boards, let’s stop this type of scam nonsense!

And to ALL cruisers out there, please don’t fall for these scams. Most tours offered on ships are legit but you can always come off the ship and do a tour from a local for less money. Research is your friend. Our beaches here in St. Thomas are public and they never turn people away.

***** This scam has now been confirmed on the Princess line (owned by Carnival)*****

Yup, it’s our villa and this is shameless self promotion. Go to our website: http://www.caretbay.com and check it out.  It normally rents for $9,950 for either of those weeks but if you email me at scott@stthomasblog.com and use the code “Big Special” you’ll get 15% off or $1,500. That’s not chump change you know. So hurry and rent this St. Thomas Villa now.

Here are some pictures to look at in the meantime.

The Oasis of the Seas is coming, and brother, your cab better be in working condition that day.

Today, as I was glancing at our stats I noticed an increase in people searching for ‘oasis of the seas’, ‘largest cruise ship’. Last June we tossed up a quick post about this monster ship with a few pictures. I have more info to share, now, as this ship is on the water, with scheduled trip dates and tickets for sale.

More importantly we know when this giant vessel will be parking at St. Thomas, it’s first Eastern Caribbean port-of-call. Tuesday, December 8. Prices for this trip start at $1299.00 (interior), or $4829.00 (to travel in style) and according to this page that doesn’t include airfare, any excursions…etc. It does, however, get you a place in history. You know, until someone builds a bigger boat (and you know someone will).

A few stats, courtesy of the fabulous Wikipedia:

Price tag: $1.4BILLION. Completed on 10/28/09. Maiden voyage: 12/1/09 (details). Length: 1,181ft. Height: 236ft. Sixteen passenger decks. Speed: 22.6 knots. Crew: 2,165. Capacity: 6,296 possible passengers. There are seven ‘neighbors’, which include countless bars/restaurants, a science lab, tatoo parlor, a spa for teens, a freshwater pool, an outside amphitheater, rock-climbing walls, boutiques and the first living park at sea complete with 56 trees and over 1200 plants. There are 7,000 works of commissioned art, over 3,000 miles of electrical cable, over 5 million pounds of water in 21 swimming pools and jacuzzis and over 110,000 pounds of ice cubes are made each day. Room counts: 496 interior, 254 outside and 1,956 balcony.

I’ve been on one cruise my entire life, around 2005, on a ship that took it’s maiden voyage back in 1986; the Carnival Jubilee. After learning the stats of the Oasis the Jubilee stats make me laugh: Passenger capacity: 1,486. Deck count: 10. Length: 733 feet. Crew count: 670. Total cabins: 743.

A stat they don’t measure? FUN! Which was limitless.

According to this article in the St. Thomas Source the Oasis will (unfortunately) be docking in Crown Bay on December 8. I say unfortunately, not because of Crown Bay, but because more people would have a chance to view it in Havensight at the WICO dock. That area has to be dredged to accomodate a ship of Oasis’ size, and the goal is for WICO to be ready for the Oasis in the cruise year 2010-2011.

So, safari cab drivers, like I said, make sure your cab is in working order for this momentous day. I figure with a possible passenger capacity of over 6,000, and with most cabs holding roughly 22 people, we’ll need about 270 cabs rides to get everyone out of Crown Bay and over to Magens Beach.

On a related note: Magens Bay bartenders, make sure your blenders are ready. I’m serious.

Unless I’m working on 12/8, I plan to be parked at Tickles restaurant, which overlooks the Crown Bay dock. I’ll have my camera in one hand (and most likely a bloody mary in the other…) to catch this vessel as it slides on in. I wonder how loud the horn is on this sucker.

Have you seen our Tees and Tanks? Click here to check them out and order: http://www.stthomasblog.com/?page_id=2821, help support the St. Thomas Blog:

Click here to order:  http://www.stthomasblog.com/?page_id=2821

Facebook is a social network. It’s a place to meet and communicate. IT’S NOT A PLACE TO SPAM YOUR BUSINESS. A lot of people don’t know that, especially businesses trying to promote themselves. You first have to introduce yourself and open a line of communication. Then you’ll spark the interest of the person you’re trying to reach.

This morning I got a chat message from a stranger called Joe Blaster at Radio 106.1because he “friended” me on facebook. Here’s how he opened the conversation:

Joe

RADIO JOE 106.1 FM …THE NEW RADIO STATION IN THE CARIBBEAN !!!

First off EVERYONE knows in the US Virgin Islands it’s a big time no no not to say Good Morning, Good afternoon or Good night before you say ANYTHING. He should know this given the market he’s in.  Secondly why would I listen to him? He’s shown no interest in me? He’s just screaming his message at me, all in caps. I don’t even know what type of music they play?

Here’s the rest of the conversation:

Scott

dude or dudet, why do you just spam?

Joe

WHAT ?

I am just letting you know, have a problem ?

Scott

yea, all you do is promote yourself by spamming others. try communicating first like a real human, then maybe I’ll listen and promote you. maybe introduce yourself? You know, non spam stuff.

Joe

i dont need to introduce myself, this is facebook and its for promoting. this is a social network. have a nice day.  RADIO JOE 106.1 FM. THE BEST MUSIC ON YOUR RADIO , BYE.

-Huh? What happened to the word Social in Social Network? It’s not called a spam network.

Joe

AND IF YOU HAVE A BLOG YOU SHOULD DO THE SAME THING, SPRAD THE WORD IS FREE DUDE !!! SPREAD IT

-Yea dude, we spread the word by creating a real interest. I didn’t run around St. Thomas yelling at strangers. We wrote intersting articles and gained readership through natural word of mouth. Call me crazy

Moral of the story…Social networks like facebook and twitter make it easy to communicate. But do it right by showing a real interest in the person you’re reaching out to. You’ll not only gain a customer you’ll also gain a friend.

Radio Joe has been defriended. How did that work out for him?