Our next stop was St Thomas and we docked at about 8am. We’d moved our breakfast back to our usual 9am time so settled in on our balcony with our tea and pastries. As we munched on a croissant, all of a sudden another Cruise ship sailed right past to dock in front of us. It was the Carnival Glory. Shortly after this we also saw RCL’s Freedom of the Seas arrive, so after being the only ship in port at St Martin we figured St Thomas could be busy with 3 big ships in.
We got off the ship at about 11:30 am in the end. The dock was busy and the weather was scorching. It was very humid heat as well and not particularly comfortable. We had tickets for the Skyride cable cars but decided to take a trip downtown first. We boarded a taxi (these are open sided minibus type vehicles that hold 12 to 18 passengers) and went into town. The heat was exhausting so we went into shops to get a blast of the aircon (not that I minded at all of course). My first purchase was a silver bangle with a star fish on it. We bartered a little and got a good price. All this usual shops were there which is predominantly jewellery. I did get a colour change nail varnish from Del Sol and then we went into Diamonds International. I had looked at some earrings the previous day that are changeable from cluster studs to drops and I really liked the style and concept. I looked at them again and this was the last pair in store. Paul didn’t think they we that good value for money and at an offer price there was no bartering to be done. Paul did acknowledge though that I would not get the change concept elsewhere so I splashed out. They are only a quarter carat (tcw for both) but they do sparkle and look really nice.
After this we decided to leave town and head to the Skyride. We got in a taxi but were the first aboard so being a 12 seater and a per person charge he naturally wanted to fill up. The traffic was again heaving and getting about in a vehicle was slow. We did ask the driver to drop us directly at Skyride which he did so that worked out well.
We had seen a queue at Skyride as we passed on the way to town but thankfully this had all gone now so we only had to wait a minute or so before the next set of cable cars came around. They were not that big but took 8 people, although we had 6 adults and a stroller in ours. The journey up took about 5 minutes and you could see down the hillside to the port and beyond. When we got off we went up the stairs to the highest point. The view from here was partially obscured though by the cable car system. We headed back down and to the cafe area where the views were much better. We took the obligatory photos, had a quick look around before deciding the make our way back down. There is really only a cafe up there and since our food is all free on board we figured we’d eat back on the boat. We walked back to the boat which took about 10 minutes and was blisteringly hot. We went straight up to deck 11 and got some food. Paul tried the burger whilst I had tuna and chicken caesar wraps.
We had a DVC members meeting at 4:30pm and given that this would take us up to dinner, we went to our state room and quickly got changed before making our way to the Tube lounge for our meeting. I took a Pina Colada with me to help me along. The freebies were the same as we had already been given but we grabbed another A4 folio as they are really quite nice. The main point of the meeting was to sell add on points but they also got us into teams for a bit of a challenge. We didn’t do too well as the challenges were about how many Disney watches your team had or how many memberships cards (and as you didn’t need to show them we didn’t take them). The final question, which relied on ability, was to work out the points needed for an Animal Kingdom Concierge room. Our team worked it our correctly in seconds but we then waited whilst all other teams got is wrong repeatedly and were given an eternity until they did get it right. As a result, they won given they had Disney watches in the previous round. Needless to say we were less than impressed. Apparently though, Animal Kingdom lodge has been voted best resort in North America. That’s pretty neat given its our home resort. I do want to stay there next year.
We came out and looked at our photos in Shutters before dinner. We liked the pirate one but not the others and oddly had a completely strange family pic in our folio. We had been told to head to Animator’s Palette earlier so we did. We saw our table mates outside and waited with them. Telling us all to be early was ridiculous as it created a huge crowd and queue and yet they didn’t open the doors any earlier! We took our seats then the first thing we had to do was draw a character. There is a paper with an outline on it ( ie head, torso, legs, arms) and we each got a marker felt tip. We set about our creations, remembering the rules of no writing or letters at all. We added our name to our work and handed it in to our waiter. During dinner there were clips of Disney movies playing on the screens with accompanying music. We started with an entree sampler (the only thing to have) which was prawns, tuna and melon with ham. After this there was a popcorn soup. It sounded odd so we all had to try it but sadly the verdict was not good. Our whole table hated it so we told our waiter to let the chef know! Mains for us were lamb and sirloin (Paul’s staple diet here!). The dessert choice was also very limited to either banana bread pudding or a sampler of chocolate mousse, cheesecake and tiramisu. Paul had the sampler and I had the bread pudding, which turned out to be a tiny portion. It was really nice all the same, so good that Hayley had seconds. As soon as we had finished it was time for the grand feature we had been waiting for. All of our characters come on screen and are animated. They dance along the screen and even interact with Disney characters on screen; Paul’s creation danced with Pinocchio for some time. It was awesome. Very clever tech and really well produced. We got a few pics of our characters dancing too. At the end of the show all our names are listed in the credits on screen as well and we got our drawings returned to us with an official Animator’s stamp on them. Now surely everyone reading this is thinking how awesome a Disney cruise is??!!
After dinner we went to the lounges at the back. The show was a hypnotist and neither of us were really fussed about watching it. Instead we went to Ooh La La and had some champagne cocktails. We chatted to the bar staff (who were and Essex girl and an Irish girl) and also spoke with a very glamorous American couple from California. Paul also had a cocktail made for him but the Essex girl called a cake. It’s got Amaretto, cherry liqueur and coke in it which makes it taste like a cherry bakewell. He loved it but we ere surprised that none of the Americans knew what bakewell tart was.
At 10:30 we wanted over to O’Gills pub for the pub quiz. Another cocktail was ordered to help us along although we scored pretty poorly it has to be said. By this time we were both weary so headed back to bed. We didn’t bed down til midnight and Paul set his alarm for 3am as he was going to get up and take photos of a deserted ship. I heard it go off and him leave (now there’s dedication to your art) so I spread out and slept some more.