8 Cruise ships in St. Thomas?

[jdm]

In looking at the schedule for our cruise it looks like there will be 8 ships in port that day with 5 of them arriving before the Magic. I've never been to St. Thomas before. Over on the cruisecritic boards there are some posts saying any more than 4 ships makes for an absolute zoo. Does this mean we'll "tender" in? Has anyone done this? When you take a boat in from the ship, do you get dropped off in a different pace? If there is anyone with any info on this that can describe it, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks
Jenn

 

[WDWLVR]

If the ship anchors instead of docks then you tender in. The process is pretty painless really. The big difference is that instead of coming off the ship at the dock with the small shopping village you are actually dropped off right in Charlotte Amile which is where the main shopping area is.

If you want to go to Paradise Point you would now need to take a cab over (it is a short walk from the dock). However if you are docked and want to go into town to shop you would have to take a cab over.

 

[Skywalker]

We had the same situation in January, and yes it was a zoo! 8 cruise ships x an average of say 3000 people makes for 24,000 people descending on that island at once! But we really only felt it near the dock area. Once you go out and about it really wasn't a zoo...the people seemed to disappear or disperse so evenly you hardly noticed! LOL.

Disney was quite unorganized for tendering on our cruise. Long, Long, LONG wait to get a ticket to get off the boat. People were joking about going to the back of the line to "scalp" them. Others were grumbling about missing their excursions. I'm sure they have a better system in place now. Once on the boat though, no problem. We got off and took a water taxi (5.00 each for unlimited rides - kids free).

 

[mmouse37]

Here is a link to a pic of the harbor at St. Thomas...you can see how ships are anchored in the habor....what you can't see is that there are 3 ships docked at the pier as well.

http://community.webshots.com/photo/118565870/118566589kTVyFf

We have been to St. Thomas several times with DCL and never encountered any "zoo" even with that many ships in port...we have tendered and docked and both were fine!!

And here a pic of the tender at St. thomas

http://community.webshots.com/photo/118565870/118566062Hdrhso

MJ

 

[mickeyfanmom]

We also tendered in St. Thomas on the 1/22 Eastern and the process was pretty quick and painless. We did not wait at all. (But we also got going early and took just the second boat after they announced it.)

The main pain for us was that we wanted to see St. Thomas from the Paradise Point tram, so we had to take a cab over to the area. After the cabdriver changed the fare on us once we arrived, and we argued with him to get the price quoted, we were a little annoyed. Went to the top, saw the great view and went back down. Then couldn't find a cab right away- so started walking back.

The walk is not long, but with a five year old it was kind of a pain. Once we had already started walking, then some cabs slowed down and asked if we wanted a ride, but we had already got hot and sweaty so we kept going.

We made it in plenty of time for our excursion, so all ended well though!

PS- Our excursion was the coolest in the world- the DOUBLOON sail and snorkle. Very awesome indeed!!