We spent our honeymoon in the US Virgin Islands. Financially, we couldn’t afford a weeklong trip, so we flew there the Monday after our wedding and came home that Friday. (Just in time to spend the 4th of July with friends on Lake Anna). Neither one of us had been to the islands before, so we were both very excited and nervous about being in an unfamiliar place. Fortunately for Jonathan, he has a wife who does A LOT of research before doing most things. I knew the popular places that I wanted us to go to and a few restaurants that I wanted us to try. So leading up to leaving I had, for the most part, a game plan.
We flew out of Richmond before the sun even rose. And were very lucky that my mom was taking us to the airport. We were supposed to be at her house 30 minutes before needing to be at the airport. When she realized we were running late getting to her house, she called us. Thank goodness she did, because we were both still asleep!! If it wasn’t for her, we would’ve miss our flight and I would have been devastated. So once waking us up, she got us to the airport in the nick of time to get through security and board the plane.
We had a short flight from Richmond to Charlotte, NC where we had a fairly long layover. After a few hours in Charlotte which included a very hectic lock down of the airport and terminals do to a breach of some sort, we finally boarded our plane for St. Thomas. This flight was a bit longer and fortunately, we were both able to doze in and out of sleep a little.
After landing, you exit the plane onto the tarmac and walk practically all the way around the small airport to an entrance where you are immediately served shots of flavored rum made on the USVI of St. Croix. Talk about starting our Honeymoon right!! Haha!
Now Jonathan is not a drinker, like at all. Maybe a single beer once in a blue moon. (One of the reasons I feel so lucky to call him mine). But he is a tobacco smoker, a habit I gave up over a year ago and wish he would decide to do the same. So once in the airport, there is a tobacco store where he bought a carton for about $20.00! This is crazy because here in Virginia, the tobacco state (Phillip Morris), you will pay about $50.00 for a carton. Something else that we found was pretty cool was that the cigarettes he bought in St. Thomas were made and packaged right here in Richmond, VA. Pretty neat!
Once we exited the airport building, the humidity smacks you in the face! And the sun’s rays seem about 50x stronger! I guess that comes with being much closer to the equator. There are many people right by the door asking if you need a ride and fortunately we did not, because the car rental place would come pick us up. I called them to let them know we had landed; they ask what you’re wearing and tell you to stand on the curb. Our ride picked us up and took us not far to the car rental agency,
Discount Car Rentals. They were friendly and got the paperwork done and in our brand new Jeep Wrangler in no time. We both LOVED the Jeep!
Thankfully they also drew us a map to get to the resort we were staying at, which was on the other side of the island. Our phones were having a hard time getting service for the first couple of hours we were there. (We found out we needed to change the roaming data in settings, which fixed the problem). Jonathan was responsible for driving, because you still drove in the same seat of the vehicle, but on the opposite side of the road, which made me nervous. When we got to
Point Pleasant Resort, we got our parking pass and made it to our condo.
OMG the view from our balcony was too die for!!
Absolutely stunning!
The condo was very nicely decorated and set up in a way that you could still see the view from the King size bed. The owner had champagne and a sweet note waiting for us upon arrival. I would’ve preferred a bottle of Rum and some diet coke, but no biggie.
Since it was later in the day we figured we would stay on the resort for dinner. We made our way down (very steep steps) to the Shoreline Bar and Grille where we were right on the water, the music was perfect and the drinks were even better. I ordered a drink called Sunburn, and followed it up with another. Boy was I feeling good! We ate dinner and watched the sunset. Then for the treacherous walk back up to our hilltop condo! About halfway up we were both huffing and puffing and didn’t think we would make it. We are glad that we are both younger and in fairly decent shape. I would not recommend a person of age try to make this hike.
That night we slept like babies after travelling all day. We woke up the next morning and headed to the grocery store to buy a few things for breakfast/lunch/snacks. Everything was very expensive, especially anything that was good for you. Where bad things, such as liquor and cigarettes were cheap. For example, one gallon of milk $7.00! Crazy! And one bottle of Rum was only… also $7.00.
After shopping, we decided to get our bathing suits on and head down to our resorts Sugar Beach. It was a very small, but clean beach with a couple daybeds. We were lucky enough to snag one of them.
We did some snorkeling and relaxed for a while. Then decided it was time to eat and decided to just go to the Shoreline again since it was convenient. There was a younger married couple who worked there, and I will be honest were probably the friendliest people we interacted with the whole time we were there. (Most of the locals did not seem to like tourists very much.) We made it there in time to miss the rain and to visit with a cute little duck and a rather large iguana.
We hopped in the Jeep and did some exploring around the island. There were wild chickens everywhere! We were going to do some shopping but were confused because all the stores were closed up and it was only 5pm. We did stop and speak with a very friendly woman who lived on the island and she gave us a lot of information and tips. She said that it was off season and when the cruise ships aren’t there, the stores close early. She also informed us of a bit of unpleasant news about why the locals weren’t friendly (I won’t go into detail because talking about “hate” just makes it spread. And I am not about spreading something such as that.) But she gave us a few examples that cleared up the murkiness for us. She also told us to stay on main roads because it not safe elsewhere. Of course anywhere you go will have good areas and bad areas, but she pointed out the slums to us which was directly across the street, and said “you don’t wanna be caught in the slums.” There were other horror stories she told us which made Jonathan and I both uneasy… dinner that night was again, at the Shoreline Grill on the resort. Painkillers (the drink) and Salmon for dinner.
Wednesday we woke up early with plans on riding the barge over to St. John for the day. When we got in the long line to board the barge a man was going car to car and informed us they were doing inspections and it would be at least 4 hours before we would be able to board. I was disappointed, but Jonathan was able to brighten my day by taking me shopping!! I bought a couple t-shirts and a few souvenirs/gifts for others. Unfortunately, from the time we left Virginia until even after we came home, I had a stiff neck that I could not turn my head. It also was a dull constant pain the entire time, except when I had some alcohol running through my blood. It was really starting to get to me that day and Jonathan was trying his best to make sure I was okay and enjoying myself. Next, we decided to try to make it to
Mountain Top. Which was one of the places I had found in my research. Most people take a taxi because it is such a treacherous drive. Jonathan was nervous about it but he followed my directions through several twists and turns going up to the top of the mountain. I know it was very stressful for him but I was so grateful that he was doing it for me. I kept telling him that the view will be worth it. And it so was! The store is huge and they serve the world famous Banana Daiquiri! I ordered the largest one they had and it was absolutely delicious and my neck pain melted away. We went out on the overlook, and
it was breathtaking. There was a bit of smog but it was so nice to see all of the distant islands past Magens Bay.
We bought more souvenirs, and I was enjoying the music just walking around looking at everything. I could’ve stayed in there all day drinking the daiquiris and listening to the music, but Jonathan knows me well enough to know I had a REALLY good buzz going and it was only
noon. We got out of there and headed to get lunch at
Duffy’s Love Shack, which was a good recommendation from a friend of his. We had lunch and I had another Painkiller. Back to our condo we went, where I cracked open my bottle of rum… not the best idea because I was already highly intoxicated. But we enjoyed each other’s company for the rest of the evening.
The next morning, we woke up to watch the sunrise. It was absolutely beautiful… but my drunkenness from the night before was getting the best of me. I embarrassingly enough spent the entire morning back and forth from the bed to hugging the toilet and back to the bed. This went on until about 12. I felt so bad because it was our last full day in St. Thomas and it was my fault that it was being wasted away in our room. I finally pulled myself together, got some food and water in me and got going. Since we hadn’t gotten to go to St. John the day before, we headed to the barge to make it there. St. John was very beautiful, but the roads were very winding and you had to be careful because of the wild goats that would just hang out in the road. We went to another restaurant I wanted to try.
Skinny Legs Bar and Grill. I’ll be honest, it was cool because they had a lot of items for sale. But it was hot, the water was self-serve, and the food was nothing to write home about. I think me being hung over made the heat even more unbearable. And the water had a weird flavor to it.
After eating, we finally headed to the top destination on my wish list. Honeymoon beach! I so wanted to go there since we were on our honeymoon. The sand was pearly white, and the water was so clear. We had a sting ray swim up right beside us, which scared me half to death. I just about climbed up Jonathan to get away from it. Since we had such a late start, we didn’t have a lot of time to spend there because the last barge left St. John to go back to St. Thomas at 6. We had a long wait to get on but were able to enjoy the sunset on the ride back. Our last night in St. Thomas was a little bitter sweet. We both were ready to go home, but sad to leave paradise to go back to reality at the same time. The next morning we woke, packed, dumped out the rest of the bottle of rum that made me so ill and loaded up the Jeep. Once we dropped it off, they gave us a ride back to the airport, which was hot and crowded. We spent a few hours there waiting for our plane which was delayed getting to us.
We finally made it back to Richmond around midnight and my mom and her boyfriend were there to pick us up. They were so sweet and took care of our 2 dogs and 2 cats while we were gone… they even cleaned our house for us. I loved being just him and I on our Honeymoon, but we were so glad to be home with our fur babies, sleeping in our own bed. But looking back at pictures now I cannot wait to go back!! Or at least somewhere else tropical! Maybe Hawaii, or the Florida Keys!! One day we will definitely do some more travelling. I just have to convince Jonathan to get back on a plane since he’s not the biggest fan of flying.
One day we will. I’m sure of it!
