Does Magic Dock In St. Thomas all the time?

[Tluvs2talk]

We are going on the Magic in October and was wondering if it would be docked at Havensight or anchored. We went a few years ago on Magic and were anchored and had to be tendered. They rotated between docking and anchoring depending on cruise shedule. I looked at a cruise schedule and it appears that the Magic docks all the time now. Any info appreciated.


Teri

 

[tvguy]

I read somewhere on this board that docking rights are rotated. Something like every 5th of 6th trip (every 10 or 12 weeks), it's the Magic's turn to tender in passengers.

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

During the summer, the Magic docks just about each time. During the winter "high" season, there are more ships in the Caribbean, as they move from places like Alaska or the Mediterranean. It's during this time, bascially October to May, that there can be as many as six ships in port on a given day, and the Magic occasionally has to tender.

The WICO (Havensight) pier can hold three ships, and the Crown Bay Marina's cruise ship pier holds one, possibly two smaller cruise ships. After that, the rest of the ships will anchor and tender.

 

[TheWog]

We anchored at St. Thomas on our Jan 10 Eastern trip. Tenders take you right to downtown though.

 

[westjones]

Someone posted this website to check to see if you had to tender in:

http://www.ships.vi/

Only thing is, I don't understand how to read it. The September schedule isn't up yet either, so it isn't any help to me anyway.

Does anyone know what to look at on this schedule to know if you have to tender or not?

DJ

 

[jrabbit]

Since Lloyd didn't give you the link to the docking schedule at St. Thomas, I will.

US Virgin Islands Ship Schedule The docking schedules are on the left. Currently only through August.

 

[glindamood]

DJ - looks like the last comumn shows where the ship will be - WICO is the pier by the mall. I pulled up one from January looking to see how it showed for tenders and some say Inner Anchorage and some have Outer Anchorage so I would think those are the ships that tendered in. Hopefully we will get to dock next month but will have to wait for the schedule to come out.

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

WICO (West Indies Company) is the Havensight pier. CB denotes the Crown Bay marina. On some schedules, ships docking at Crown Bay will have "CBNS" on the schedule. I'm not sure what the NS stands for, maybe northside?. Inner and Outer anchorage is pretty self-explanatory. On some schedules, ships at Inner Anchorage will be noted with "CA" for Charlotte Amalie harbor.

In addition to the ships.vi site, these two also have a schedule:

http://www.usvi-on-line.com/cruiseschedules.shtml

and

http://www.vinow.com/general_usvi/getting_here/usvi_cruise_ship.php

The schedule for a given month is usually released during the last week of the preceeding month, depending on how long it takes to finalize it. I've also heard of ships docking when they were scheduled to tender, but I've never experienced it firsthand.

 

[Tluvs2talk]

Thanks everyone for your help. I guess I will have to wait until the first part of October to check the cruise schedule.


Teri

 

[Verandah Man]

We just arrived in St. Thomas a few minutes ago, we docked at the pier.

It's time to get some breakfast, then my girls want to go shopping in the downtown district, lucky me, LOL!!!!!

 

[Tluvs2talk]

I hope we dock at the pier this time. I already saw the other side of town. Does havensight have a lot of neat places to shop??


Teri

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

Most of the downtown shops have a location at the Havensight mall, I think. I prefer to wander downtown. I think the mall is kind of antiseptic, while downtown has the character of a seedy Caribbean port. It's only about a $3 cab ride.