Shopping in St. Thomas

On Tuesday we finally had the time to eat breakfast at Lobster Grille. We had fresh fruit, mimosas, I had french toast and Trey had eggs benedict with grilled pineapple. This was one of the only times I took a picture of our food.

Sitting at breakfast

Trey's breakfast

We got a cab in to Charlotte Amalie for the day to go shopping! Trey had been wanting to get a new watch and I just thought I'd see if I could find anything that really jumped out at me. In St. Thomas you don't pay taxes and they are more willing to cut the price on things, so it's definitely a good place to shop. We found a watch that he liked in the first shop that we went in to but shopped around for a little while. We didn't like any other watches better so we went back to that store. While he discussed a price with them I was looking at rings. My engagement ring was a solitaire and I found a setting that matches my wedding band and fell in love with it! They offered us a great price and we were able to watch while they took my diamond and put it on this band. It was a pretty cool process. I couldn't stop staring at my hand for the rest of the day :) It suddenly got very decorated over the last few days! We also went shopping for liquor while we were in town, they have a huge liquor store and will box it up for you to transport it back home. Bottles down there are liters, not fifths, and a little bit cheaper.

Trey in the open air taxi with his new watch!

Excited about my new band!

One of the yummy rums we bought

 After shopping we came back to the hotel and had some drinks at our swim up bar! We laid by the pool and got some sun. The iguanas walk around the pool deck a lot and one of them was hanging out under our chairs for a while. They are very used to people, Trey even picked up his tail and he didn't care.

Trey's mudslide at lunch

Looking at the beach from the pool deck

Having a drink in the pool

The swim up bar

Trey holding the iguana's tail

Pretty palm tree by the pool deck

Our stay included a sunset cruise to Charlotte Amalie. It was beautiful!

About to go on our sunset cruise

Charlotte Amalie harbor

An old building on a little island just off of St. Thomas

Cruise ship about to leave St. Thomas

Beautiful sunset. Two cruise ships in the back leaving!

 When we got back from our sail we had dinner at Lobster Grill - another food induced coma! It was carnival night at our resort so after we ate we went over to watch the show for a little bit.

Performers at the carnival night.

Our first full day

Waking up we could hear the ocean, it was so close to our room. We signed up through our resort to go on a day sail over to St. John to go snorkeling and hang out on the beach. Our room was so close to the beach and the dock for the boat that we were able to just hang out on our patio until we saw others boarding.

Trey waiting to go sailing.

We boarded the boat at about 9 am and it took a little over an hour to get over to St. John. The weather was beautiful the whole week we were down there (welcome change from the weekend!) BUT that didn't provide any wind to sail - so we motored :) They still put the sail up for looks though! The day included lunch and an open bar!

Heavenly Days Sailboat

Laying on the front of the boat

The house on the top of the hill was in Charlies Angels - where Bernie Mac answers the phone to the angels.

Getting some sun on the way to St. John

The way to get back on to the boat

Right before we went snorkeling!

St. John is beautiful. We snorkeled off the edge of Honeymoon Beach. The park director for St. John (it is 70% national park) lives in the house on a cliff overlooking the water at the end of honeymoon beach. The house was apparently built by Roosevelt and then given to his daughter as her wedding present, for her honeymoon - hence the name. The beach is next to Caneel Bay, a very nice resort that is pretty isolated on the island. He owned all of the resort area also. We walked along the nature trail back to the resort to see what it was like. It's a very short distance, not a bad walk.... if you're wearing shoes!

Our boat

Honeymoon Beach

View as we walked from the beach over to Caneel Bay Resort

From the resort the sign back towards the beach

An old building at the resort

Caneel Bay

House at the end of honeymoon beach over looking a reef

We snorkeled for about an hour. There were a lot of sea turtles in the area and in front of the house there is a large reef. It was a lot of fun, we saw a lot of different sea creatures!

One of the many sea turtles that we came very close to!

Fish around the reef

Trey snorkeling

Trey on the bottom

More reef

Us snorkeling

Me on the beautiful honeymoon beach

Us after snorkeling

The barracuda that kept swimming around our boat! They like the shade that it provides.

For dinner that night at the resort, Iggie's had all you can eat crab legs, which Trey of course enjoyed plenty of.

One of the many iguanas running around the resort.

The koozie that we got for attending the "meet the managers happy hour"

Eating at Iggies - in the tent is the set up for all you can eat crab

Trey took advantage of it! He almost filled this bucket by the end of the night.

The best week of our lives

We left Monday morning bright and early for our honeymoon to St. Thomas. We flew out from RDU at 7:15, had a layover in Atlanta and landed in St. Thomas at 1:30.

De-boarding our plane in St. Thomas. They don't have jet bridges you just walk right off.

 Then we were on island time - everything goes slower. Much slower. It took a while to get our bags and find our shuttle to our hotel and we were off! The traffic driving through Charlotte Amalie (the main town/harbour) was nuts - very busy - there were a couple of cruise ships in for the day which didn't help either.

We stayed at Bolongo Bay Resort and loved it! As we arrived the lobby staff brought us rum punches - they are so good and you can hardly taste the rum.

My rum punch

We finally made it to our room at about 3:30 pm. We loved it, the beach is one of the larger ones for the resorts down there. The rooms were nothing too fancy but it was all we needed and wanted. Not only did we have the best view you could imagine but everything else that we needed or wanted to do around the resort was within an easy walking distance to us.

Our honeymoon welcome from the management

The view on our doorstep - it was wonderful waking up to that all week.

Our room. The open door is the "back" door - the beach is behind me while I take the picture.

More of our room. All that you need.

After putting down our things we of course went out to explore the resort and the beach. We had an all-inclusive package so we could eat and drink all we wanted for the week!

Our ticket to all the food and drinks we wanted.

We found Iggie's, the sports bar on the beach and had a few drinks.

After attempting a long-arm shot, a couple that we met took this for us while hanging out at Iggie's.

For dinner on our first night (and almost every night after) we ate at Lobster Grille, their fancier restaurant that overlooks the pool and beach. We could order an appetizer, salad, entree and dessert each time we went. It had a way of putting us in to a food coma! Luckily that night we made it through and went back to Iggie's to party for a while and enjoy ourselves.

In order to not make this the longest blog post in history, I will split up the rest of the week by days :)