Today we arrived in St. Thomas. Our shore excursion wasn't until 1PM so we decided to walk around a bit which really wasn't the most fun we've ever had. The area surrounding the ship is, understandably, very touristy. That means overpriced not so good food. We should have had lunch on the cruise ship but eventually you just want to eat somewhere else. There goes another $30 down the drain. Oh well.

For our excursion we did a kayak and snorkel trip. I should backtrack by saying that our awesome deck 2 cabin is right under a restaraunt. You'd think it would be nice and quiet most of the time but unfortionately it's not. For some reason the staff starts banging around at 3AM and they don't stop until 9AM. For the last two days we've been up at 3AM. We went to complain twice to see if they could stop making so much noise because the quickest way to ruin a vacation is to get only 3 hours of sleep each night. I even tried earplugs but it didn't matter because the banging was so loud. Anmyway, they moved us to a new cabin this morning which sucks but also ensures that we will hopefully get some sleep. We're now on deck 6 and our deck 2 balcony was way cooler! Deck 2 you're so close to the water, it's awesome. You can't get that close to the water on any of the public decks. On deck 6 our balcony overlooks the jogging track. Now we get to see guys in speedos sunbathing. Oh well, at least we got to enjoy deck 2 while it lasted. We've decided that a balcony room is not worth the extra money.

Anyway, we started todays exscursion exhausted beyond belief. We kayaked for about 30-40 minutes, walked for about 10, and snorkeled. The snorkeling here is not so good, definitely not as nice as when I was in Cozumel, Mexico. Still, it was awesome to be somewhere I'd never been and to swim in the nice warm water.

St. Thomas is an interesting place. There's a large divide in the classes here. There's a lot of poverty and a lot of extreme wealth, we really didn't see any kind of middle ground. And the driving here! Mexico has nothing on St. Thomas! The ride to the kayaking place was terrifying. There are steep hills, narrow roads, blind corners, drivers going way too fast...all the things necessary to turn a simple drive into the kind of thrill seeking activity my insurance asked me about when I filled out forms.

Overall, while it was great to see a new place, St. Thomas is not somewhere we're interested in returning to. It just doesn't have the beauty or charm of somewhere you would expect to see on a Caribbean cruise.