St. Thomas tender or dock

[buzz&woody'smom]

In St. Thomas do we tender in or dock? I saw a photo of a RCI ship at the pier but it looked like in the background the Magic was anchored or maybe just leaving.

Same question for Antigua, will be anchor or dock?

Thanks!

 

[TheWog]

We tendered in January even though we were told we we would be docking. I know there is a set schedule, but it may also depend on traffic.

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

In St. Thomas, it depends on the number of ships in port that day, and to some degree which ships are there. I believe there's a kind of seniority which determines which ships get to tie up and which have to tender. The Magic usually docks in St. Thomas, but does occasionally tender, especially in winter when there are more ships in the Caribbean. The monthly schedule is posted online at:

http://www.ships.vi/

and

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

But are only published for the current month. The next month's schedule is usually posted during the last week of the month.

St. John's, Antigua has a pretty large cruise ship dock that holds probably 4 ships, so it's likely that the Magic will dock there. Since DCL has yet to call there, there's really no way to say how often ships have to tender. Here's a link to a webpage about the Antigua pier:

http://www.antiguanice.com/places/cruise/cruise.htm

The page has an email address you can contact for a cruise ship schedule. When your cruise gets closer, they might be able to tell you whether or not the ship will dock.

Good luck!

 

[buzz&woody'smom]

I swear you are the most knowledgeable and sharing person around thank you. You are a walking and typing website.

How about this question:

In St. Thomas would I have enough time to take my boys on the sky way tram and Megan's Bay?

My Mom is disabled and it looks like there are too many stairs for her in the photo's to manage but I found a great tour for her on shore excursions.com

Any ideas of what to do in Antigua for the boys and me . They are 3 and 6 and I just need sand, calm water and low cost

Also for my Mom, is Antigua accessible for her?

Thanks so much for always being helpful!

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

You could certainly visit the tramway and Magens Bay on St. Thomas. It will be especially easy if you dock at Havensight, since the tramway is essentially right across the street, just a few minutes walk down the road. Even if you tender, you could take a cab from the tendre pier to the tram, which should only be about a 10-15 minute ride early in the day. If you get off the ship reasonable early, you can hit the tramway for a few hours, then catch a cab from the pier to Magens Bay (or hit the beach first, then the tramway).

I've not been to Antigua, and we've cancelled our Oct. 2 cruise for this year, so I haven't done a whole lot of research on it. My guess would be that there's a good chance the ships docks, so getting on and off the ship shouldn't be too much problem. ShoreTrips.com has an Antigua page, so that might be a good place to start. Also, the site I linked in my last post has a link to Antigua beaches which might have some good info for you.

 

[dazie52]

I have been unofficially told that we are docking in St. Thomas until October when the season gets busier. Don't hold me to that, but I'd say it's a pretty safe bet. Last spring (until mid-March or so), we tendered every other time in St. Thomas, so I'm assuming that's what we will be doing again starting in October some time. A lot of it depends on how many ships are there the same day we are.

Robyn

 

[buzz&woody'smom]

Thanks for the info. I hope they let us dock on our October 2, 2004 sailing. It makes it a lot easier on my Mom than tendering in which was very hard on her in Grand Cayman.

Thanks for the info and links. I think I have a plan of attack for my boys and myself and a private tour for my parents that specializes in taking those with limited mobility around St. Thomas............too bad about cancelling your October 2, 2004 cruise You are like our own Google directory with all of your great info

It looks like in Antigua we can do one of DCL excursions, shore trips or do it on our own by taking a taxi to Dickinson's Bay and have a beach day.

Shore trips seems to offer excursions that will be accessible to my Mom in both ports

Thanks

 

[jrabbit]

Hey Lloyd, I'm assuming that "WICO" is the dock near the havensight mall and that "CBNS" is the inner anchorage. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
Thanks,
JRA

 

[Lloyd Dobler]

jrabbit,

WICO stands for West Indies Company and is the Havensight pier. CBNS refers to the Crown Bay dock (I think NS refers to which side of the CB cruise ship pier, but not sure about that. Crown Bay is a smaller marina to the west of downtown that has a cruise ship pier that can accomodate smaller ships. I've never seen or heard of the Magic docking there, but I think it could fit. Something like Grand Princess (109,000 grt) or one of RCCL's Explorer-class ships (140,000) couldn't get in there. If a ship is at anchorage, it's usually referred to as "CA", for Charlotte Amalie harbor.

 

[kellib36]

This past Jan, we were scheduled to tender in, but we docked. According to our Snuba instructor, they try to dock the Magic as much as possible, because of the number of children onboard. NOt sure how true it is, maybe we were just lucky.

 

[jrabbit]

Thanks Lloyd, I'll be watching the web site for our next cruise and I'll know what I'm looking at.