Sunday, March 29, 2026
Our first full day on St. Thomas!
Seeing as it kind of rained during our only “resort time” on Saturday, and we woke up to beautiful blue skies and sunshine on Sunday, it seemed the consensus was: pool and beach day.
View from main balcony- the pool looked so inviting.
Did the usual morning tea and relaxation time, and then Ivan cooked up some scrambled eggs with Serrano peppers and French bread and butter for breakfast.
The pool area did not look busy at all, surprisingly, which was awesome! But we sent Ethan down to grab a table/umbrella with some shady chairs to guarantee spots in case it got busy later (it didn’t, yay!)
The boys wanted to play some tennis, so they headed to the courts.
I went down to the hot tub first, and then after the boys finished and came to the pool, spent most of the rest of the day alternating between the pool and beach.
I went out snorkeling for long while – first by myself to check it out, and then I took Iván out with me once I saw it was great! And right from our beach!
It was awesome. We found the most alive looking reef (a really big one ) I’ve seen yet, with lots of new looking growth. TONS of beautiful fish. It was so fun! And again, we ran into only one other snorkeler.
Then, back to the pool/hot tub and I spent a long time reading my book.
The late afternoon plans got a little wonky. The boys, Ivan and I had a night kayak tour booked for 8 pm, about 20-25 minutes away. We had been a little unsure exactly what my parents would do while we did that- come with us? Stay on site for dinner alone?
In hindsight we probably should have made firmer plans in advance, but we were kind of just winging the afternoon. We finally sort of decided that they would come along and get a drink at the Westin (where the kayak tour left from) and wait for us.
We all headed upstairs to get ready, thinking we’d stop for dinner on the way. Well, the boys had had later snacks and said, Why don’t we just eat after the kayak tour?
I ended up seeing that I could get a dinner reservation at a nice restaurant after the kayak tour right at the Westin, which would be convenient. (We didn’t really have time to get there and eat before by this point and anyway there were no open tables for before at this late notice.). So I booked a 9:15 table (late time slot, I know, but we do this sort of thing …haha).
However, this meant we now were all cleaned up/out of the pool and had a bit too much time to kill before the 8 pm kayak tour!! (Like I said, I thought we would go eat first, but it could have been tight timing wise to just walk in somewhere… plus we had a long-ish drive.)
So, we ended up with about an hour and a half to just relax at the condo, which no one was sad about. The boys went to play some more tennis, I had a snack, read my book on the balcony, so did my parents, and I think Ivan watched part of a movie.
We left at about 7 pm for the kayak tour, on Frenchman’s Bay. Got a parking pass and situated, then dropped my parents at this AWESOME “lobby bar” at the Westin.
The rest of us then headed down to check in for our tour.
They got us set up with glow necklaces and glow paint and we listened to the instructions from the guides.
The boys heading out:
Pre-kayak selfie!
The boys partnered up and Iván and I partnered up.
It looked super cool from the water! We had clear bottomed kayaks equipped with lights underneath plus our glow lights.
Honestly, we didn’t see a lot. We did see a handful of BIG fish. Plus a stingray! But when I booked this, I guess I was envisioning floating over a reef with fish everywhere, like in an aquarium. Ha. That was not the case. We mostly saw a lot of sand and clear water…
One of the guides got this great group shot 🙂
We kayaked for about 45 minutes. During the last 5-10 minutes, it suddenly started to RAIN, pretty hard – which caught us by surprise because when we started the moon was out bright. It ended up just being a passing cloud but we definitely got wet. Ivan thought it added to the experience; I could have lived without it. 😉
My parents got some cool pics of us from the bar up above:
All in all, the verdict on the night kayak was it was just okay. I mean, it was fun! I don’t regret doing it. It made for a unique experience on the water at night and the views were cool. But we really didn’t see much, and it cost $300 for really only 45 min of actual kayaking. (It was an hour or so total with the photos and instructions.) I do not think $75/ person is out of line for what I know excursions cost in touristy places- that’s on the cheaper end, actually- but it just didn’t really feel worth $300. Oh well! It was cool.
We got back to the dock at 9, and then things fell slightly apart. It took a few minutes to get out and turn our gear back in. I also had failed to realize that the dock is not really located right AT the Westin. Also, we were wet. (I HAD planned for this and we had packed dry clothes and left it with my mom.)
But like I mentioned, we had a 9:15 dinner reservation. The shuttle from the dock was taking a long time to come, so we ended up walking up a (very) steep hill to get back up more quickly.
We still ended up being late- which given the late hour, wasn’t exactly a problem in terms of space at the restaurant- but the restaurant technically closed at 10.
My dad had gone ahead to let them know we may be a bit late, but by the time we got changed and wiped the paint off our faces etc, it was after 9:30. The restaurant was a nicer type place, and I didn’t really feel like sitting and eating a nice meal being either rushed because they wanted to close OR just being in a kinda emptying out restaurant which always feels weird.
We ended up deciding to forgo our reservation, which was a bummer because we were famished by this point (and also because I thought the restaurant looked good!) and just driving back to Red Hook.
On the way, I searched for anywhere that served late! (Many places on the island close up earlier.)
We landed on Island Time Pub, a lively waterfront place open til midnight.
Got a high top in the bar and ordered 2 (delicious) pizzas and some wings for Asher. It worked! It was actually really good and a fun place.
Got back pretty late and crashed! I was tired from my busy day of mostly relaxing (plus some swimming and kayaking, I guess!).
GRATEFUL KAE 