Here's my Secret Sands beach review:
Secret Sands at St. Thomas
The buses were the same as those on Tortola. The roads were wider and not as winding as on Tortola, again felt very safe on the drive. As soon as we got off the bus, our host, Kareem greeted us and told us where everything was at. He had drinks, all kinds of sodas and alcoholic drinks. I think he also had different things to eat like potato chips, but there was no cooked food or merchandise tents with things for sale. We didn't get any food or drinks(brought own water bottles and had just ate) There was no set price, he just asked for a tip because that's how he
got paid. He had masks and snorkels that were $10. We didn't rent any, but I did see others who did. I talked to him and he said that they were set up for no more than one ship at a time and no more than 75 people. We had less than that on our excursion. The beach area that our chairs were at was slightly smaller than at CC, but there was a lot more area of the beach with no on it that you could walk along. They had beach chairs but no umbrellas. Our chairs were next to some kind of trees that gave us some shade. We also had a lot of clouds while there, so we really didn't need to have umbrellas. They had covered picnic tables right where the buses let us off, could walk to them in 1-2 minutes. so if you need to get shade, you could. I never saw anyone going up there and we had many people with toddlers and seniors on the excursion. The sand had some small shells, but I didn't need to wear my
water shoes, similar to CC. The water was clear and very calm, again like at CC. While I was relaxing in my chair a lady carrying some chairs stopped by me and we started to talk. She was waiting for her dh. They were renting house on the island. She said they had gone to 2 other beaches earlier that morning and they were really crowded. A local told her to come to Secret Sands, it's where most of the locals go. There were 6 other ships in St.Thomas while we were there and we had this area pretty much to our selves. I only notice her, and maybe a few while we were there. They all went further down the beach from us. We could see other islands in the distance. The bathrooms were nice and clean. They had an area to wash sand off your feet plus separate showers for women and men. Each shower had it's own little area with a small bench to place your stuff while you rinsed off, it was private so you could change if you wanted to. There was a lady and a man working there. I saw the lady checking the lady's restroom to make sure it had toilet paper and she was also sweeping up the sand. The restrooms very clean and well kept. Kareem came along and told us when we had 15-20 mins left. Again it was a very nice relaxing day. On the drive back to the port we stopped and got off the bus at an overlook where we had a great view of the port area below where we were able to see the Fantasy. They had some tables selling typical merchandise like jewelry and t-shirts. I didn't get any, so don't know the prices. Spent about 10 mins just looking at the lovely view.
This was my first time to go to Tortola, so I don't know what the other beaches are like. I was at St. Thomas nearly 20 yrs ago, but we didn't go to a beach then. We enjoyed both places and would go back to them if we do another EC.
Edit to add both beaches also had pool noodles that were included in the price that you could use, saw many people using them.
Last edited: Jan 20, 2019
