IGCA 2019: Day 4 – Home aka St. Thomas, Virgin Islands

Life has a way of working itself out to how things are supposed to be (or in this case people that you are supposed to see). More on that later. But today was the day we were ‘home’. My husbands sister and niece were flying over from St. Croix. My husband’s dad and my dad were meeting us at the port. We were all going to spend the day together with the little time that we had on St. Thomas.

For whatever reason, Carnival on this itinerary comes into St. Thomas port at 11:45am, so most of the morning is gone and all you have left is the afternoon. But, that’s even worst when it’s raining. We had passed by a storm at sea the night before and somehow it landed right on top of us when we got to St. Thomas.

As we got ready to get off the boat, all was clear. We took pictures of us pulling up to St. Thomas, then backing into port. We tried to make calls out. My phone for some reason kept going into roaming. No worries, maybe it was just while aboard the ship. WRONG. My phone, which is a local number was not having it, no matter how many times I restarted.

Port Delays and Phone Issues

Then, as we headed down to get off the ship, here comes the rain. The rain apparently didn’t care that we had plans. And if it were just me and my husband, we would have been fine bracing the rain, but things are different when you have kids in tow. Nobody wants or likes to take care of sick kids, times two. So, we waited and waited and waited. An hour lost.

Then on top of it all, my phone kept roaming so no calls were coming in or out. I had plans to sign books, get to the radio station, meet up with family, and try to hit at least one beach. Was any of that going to happen?

I didn’t get too frustrated as we still got to do most of what we wanted but in small doses. I met up with our family members who were waiting at the dock, we all jumped in rentals and headed down to WSTA to meet up with Peter Ottley for his 2:30PM show. Listen to the interview here.

Finally off the ship, St. Thomas finally

My daughter got to play around with her cousins and met her aunt who she’s only ever spoken to on the phone or WhatsApp. She even got to jump on the end of the interview and say hey to St. Thomas. She was even singing along to the songs on the radio. Even though, this was her first time on the island, I always play local music for her, new and old. She already things she’s from the Virgin Islands.

After the interview, we ran across to street to eat at Island Flavor (review coming soon), one of the restaurants I previously mentioned as one of the best places to eat in St. Thomas. I also tried to go to the 340 Bookstore but it was closed. Then, we hit John Brewer’s Beach because my sister-in-law and her daughter had to be at the airport by 4:30PM to head back to St. Croix. So, no swimming, just a foot dip that I posted on Facebook Live. We must hit a beach on one of these next stops, because that water felt sooo good!!

After dropping them off at the airport, we headed towards Havensight because we were bound to hit traffic at some part of the way and we had to be back on the ship by 6:30PM. Alls well that ends well. Definitely not enough time.

But before we head back to the dock, we took a swerve in Lockhart Gardens where I happened to run into one of my friends since childhood. If we didn’t lose all the time from this morning and were basically rushing through the day or my phone worked, I would’ve surprised her at work. But somehow, it still worked out where I got to see her by accident. Isn’t life funny that way?

Where to next?

Puerto Rico was next on the list. I’ve been here at least 2 times before, once when I was much younger and then again as a cruise port that we were leaving from on a different Eastern Caribbean cruise.

Island Gurl Signature

I looked forward to see the island post IrMaria and finding a spot where I can eat the infamous dish, mofongo. Looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully it will be better than today as far as weather and time to explore.

Have you ever been to the Virgin Islands? Let me know which island you visited in the comments and what you enjoyed most about it.

See Day 4 in Pictures here.

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