Magens Bay
Red Hook
Secret Harbour
Brewers Bay
Lindbergh Bay
Ride the Skyride to Paradise Point
Explore Blackbeard’s Castle and the 99 Steps
Snorkel Coki Beach and Coral World
Dive Cow and Calf Rocks
Stop at Drake’s Seat for the island panorama
Charlotte Amalie
Red Hook
Frenchtown
Havensight
Coki Point
December through April offers the driest weather and the busiest cruise-ship calendar in Charlotte Amalie, so guests wanting quieter streets and anchorages often prefer May or November instead. Hurricane season runs June through November, with the highest risk in August and September, a real consideration given the direct hits St Thomas took from Irma and Maria within two weeks of each other in September 2017. Trade winds blow steadily most of the year, making for reliable sailing between anchorages.
Cyril E King Airport (STT), just west of Charlotte Amalie, is the main gateway to the US Virgin Islands, with direct flights from numerous US cities as well as San Juan and other Caribbean hubs. It’s considerably busier than the airports on neighbouring St Croix, reflecting St Thomas’s role as the territory’s commercial and cruise centre. From the airport it’s a short taxi ride to Charlotte Amalie or on to Red Hook for a ferry to St John.
Christmas Cove, off Great St James Island near the island’s east end, is one of the most popular overnight anchorages, sheltered and close to good snorkelling. Secret Harbour and Red Hook both offer easy access ashore for dinner and provisioning, while Magens Bay, though beautiful by day, is better suited to a daytime stop given its distance from town and limited facilities after dark. Charlotte Amalie’s own harbour suits a short stay for guests wanting to walk the old town.
One to two nights suit most itineraries, enough time to walk Charlotte Amalie’s Main Street, swim at Magens Bay and take in the view from Drake’s Seat or Paradise Point. As the busiest and most developed of the US Virgin Islands, St Thomas works well as a provisioning stop, a crew-change point, or a lively bookend to a quieter route through St John and the British Virgin Islands rather than a week-long base on its own.
St Thomas has held duty-free status since 1764, when the Danish crown declared Charlotte Amalie a free port to attract trade, and the US kept that status after purchasing the islands in 1917. American visitors can bring back up to sixteen hundred dollars in goods duty-free, twice the allowance from most other Caribbean destinations, which has made Main Street’s jewellery, watch and liquor shops a fixture of any stop here. The harbour’s cruise-ship traffic, among the heaviest in the Caribbean, keeps that trade busy year-round.
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