Day 1: Saturday, June 6, 2009

After all our craziness of packing, unpacking, repacking, weighing, new bag, repack... finally Saturday morning arrived, Chad (bless his heart!) picked us up a bit after 6am and we were off to the Tampa airport.  Praise the Lord, our baggage was checked with no overweight or oversize fees, so all the repacking was worth it! Our flight from Tampa to Ft. Lauderdale was uneventful, but we then had a 2.5-hour layover in Ft. Lauderdale.  We couldn't leave the terminal, so holed up in a corner after mercifully two seats became available, and watched a movie on Adam's laptop.  I had everything we needed for traveling stowed in my purse... all the cash I had withdrawn, all our credit cards, driver's license, passport, etc.  I was a bit paranoid about it, so I tucked it way back behind my chair, in the corner by the wall so it was out of site... and then I actually managed to truly forget about it – boarded the plane and left it in the airport!!  Thankfully, I realized it before take-off as I reached down to turn off my cell phone and there was no cell phone to turn off!  After freaking out and being told by the stewardess that I couldn't re-board the plane if I got off, another stewardess took pity and volunteered to go look for it.  I gave her detailed instructions as to where we were sitting and where I stashed it, crossed my fingers and said a prayer it was still there.  Several (long) minutes later, she stepped back on the plane... holding my purse!  The plane applauded, I burst into grateful tears, and sorted through to make sure it was all still there.  It was.  Whew!  So then, I made the plane miss our scheduled position and we fell back to 6th in line.  As we sat on the runway, it began to sprinkle, then rain, then we heard the thunder... sure enough, the captain came over and told us we'd have to sit a bit longer to wait out the storm.  Um, a few heads turned to look at me as I sank into my seat.  45 minutes later, we took off, and the pilot did make up time, as we touched down in St. Thomas only about 40 minutes late.

Our condo rental included free airport pickup and dropoff, so I called Sam, who was to pick us up, and he had been to the airport and gone.  The airline had told him our plane was landing at 5:10; it was 4:30 when I called.  Said he'd be there in 15 minutes.  By 5:15 and still no Sam, I called again, and he said he was a few minutes away.  I guess it was time to get used to "Island Time"!  Around 5:30 Sam pulled in and we were finally on our way to the condo, but first with a stop at the grocery store in Charlotte Amalie, the city on St. Thomas.  Our first experience with the sticker shock of food prices on the island!  We paid $6 for a half gallon of milk and $8 for a carton of ice cream, just to give you an idea!  Wow, was I grateful I had read up on this online and packed an entire bag of food I had bought at home, including a cooler of frozen meat, creamer, condiments, etc.  yikes!

That first night we took some time to walk around our resort, The Sapphire Beach Resort & Marina.  It was actually very lovely; I was a little surprised because I had read a lot of online reviews of the place and had set my expectations kind of low.  We decided ahead of time to save money on the condo rental so we could spend a little extra on activities, dining and souvenirs instead of spending a lot on accommodations.  There are a ton of really nice resorts on St. Thomas, and it's obvious that Sapphire at one time was a five-star one.  It's in the best location - a stunning view of St. John and the British Virgin Islands, a great beach (with awesome snorkeling, more on that later), close to the "happening" area of the island and all that.  But rumor has it that the owners are all fighting amongst themselves and lawsuits are happening.  Due to that, it's fallen a bit in its upkeep.  But, it was still very nice.  The pool area was beautiful, on a rockly little peninsula/point that jutted out into the bay, every condo has a great view, it was clean and is adjoining two other resorts as well.  Our condo was a bit dated in furnishings and such, but it was clean and everything worked.  (Well, except the toaster for some reason!)  We really just wanted something nice, but not too fancy, a comfortable bed, shower and a working kitchen.  We got all that and more.  Sapphire was beautiful, with the view, the pool and beach, the marina right beside us and we even had satellite TV, a DVD player, and free wi-fi (not that we used it!).  But we did get to watch ESPN every day to stay updated on our Rays games!

I reserved the rental car to pick up in the morning, so I had planned to use Sapphire's free shuttle service over to Point Pleasant, a neighboring resort with two great restaurants.  Unfortuantely, the shuttle was broken down that night, and we just couldn't bring ourselves to pay for an expensive cab trip when we were paying for a week-long car rental in the morning, so we were at a bit of a loss as to what to do for dinner.  Adam saw a sign in the lobby for the Grapevine Grill and we asked the desk clerk about it.  That is the restaurant at Sapphire Village, the resort on the hill behind us, and we could walk to it.  It actually was connected to our resort, so it was a short, easy walk uphill (great view!) to the poolside restaurant.  The pool was pretty lit up at night, and we finally got to eat!  Conch fritters, Adam got a hamburger, me a chicken sandwich... and we had our 2nd sticker shock.  $13 for a hamburger!  Lucky for us, (I said it was a birthday present the waiter didn't know he was giving me) he forgot the conch fritters on the tab.  We did the dishonest thing and didn't correct him... but we did tip well.  :)

We debated leaving the balcony doors open during the night. There's a nice cool tradewinds that blows right in off the beach, and I loved hearing the ocean crash. But Adam was too warm to sleep comfortably, so closed the door and turned on the A/C.  I was OUT and slept awesome... to awaken Sunday morning to turning 30 years old in St. Thomas!  But that's the next blog!