Don't Back Down

Having no familiarity with St. Thomas at all (not even geography), we went online looking for a place to stay. We did find a nice list of hotels - which I can't find now - and after reviewing several of them online, there seemed to be a pretty distinct breakdown. There were a couple of fairly high-end spa-type places, and we were going to be running about and that just made no sense, so those were out. There were some places downtown, which isn't bad, but gave no place to really pull back and relax, so we put those into a "hold" status.

Then there was the Best Western Emerald Beach, which looks nice. As it turns out, it's also really close to the airport. I mean close. This isn't as bad as you might think, as the airport doesn't run much during the night, and if you're out all day, you won't hear that many flights. There is a nice, easily-sloping beach, a pool and an an unimpressive restaurant. The staff was not helpful in any way. So do your research before you go.

As a base of operations, it works well. The price is right. But if you want hand-holding, you're looking at the wrong place. I will say, however, that the staff that was there on Monday (we left on Monday) was vastly superior to the staff that was there on the other days that we were there. Also, Monday was a holiday. It's possible that these are the weekday folks, and they are generally better than the weekend staff. It's possible that these are the bottom-of-the-barrel who get stuck with holiday shifts. I don't know. I just know that even if you need directions to a relatively popular destination, you should get them before you arrive. Just in case.