TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums US VI and Puerto Rico St Croix land based

We will be land based in St. Croix starting this weekend, provided whatever that thing out there in the Caribbean doesn't ky-bosh our flight out of Miami. We will be staying near Christianstead. We've never stayed there before, only visiting on a cruise, so we're real newbies. Any land based hints, shopping or restaurant recommendations? I hear that there are some unusual jewelry options there. Thanks for any help.

Wow Carol , do enjoy and the only thing that I really know and love about that Island , is their local Am Radio station 970.

OK, thanks!

And I just remember Armstrong Ice Cream is the very best Ice Cream in the area . Try it for the local saying "its good for the soul " lol.

OK, thanks for that! Always good to know some local brands.

Yes and you will love it , enjoy and will await your pictures.

Definitely will post pictures here at some point.

They have a signature bracelet that is sold everywhere. It is kinda a “ hey you been to St Croix” kind of thing.

The rainforest is fun to drive through. They have the Domino Club bar which is cool and you can see the beer drinking pigs.

We did the Cruzan Rum tour that was good. Not sure how it is now, I think Cruzan was sold and rum is made elsewhere.

We did a snorkel trip to Buck Island. Even if you don’t get in the water the cruise is nice and the cookout on the beach was good.

Granted we were there in 2014 it was still a place we would return and thought about retiring to.

TravelHat--Yes, I have heard of the 'hook' bracelet. We are here. Very different than anywhere we have been.

The Landing @Cane Bay is a restaurant that is in a spot that we frequented. It was called sometime else. The views are really good and the reviews on the Landing are pretty strong. Nice beach there and this might be a good place to eat.

TravelHat--We are just kind of still settling in here. Cane Bay is supposedly really pretty.

Any updates, was looking forward to hearing about your experiences.

We're back home, as of late last night. Interesting trip. St Croix is much different from SXM, that's for sure. Not touristy at all. I guess the thing that surprised me the most was how long it took to get from one place to another. There is zero traffic, but we would routinely spend 30-40 minutes or so, getting to this area or that.

I will do some reports next week hopefully.

Sounds good.

Carol,

We are traveling by boat to St. Croix in a couple weeks. Would love to hear what you liked/didn't like about the island. I haven’t been since I was a kid.

St Croix is very NON touristy. To me, Point Udall wasn't worth the trip. Most people go to Buck Island for a snorkelling trip, although we did not. Not sure whether you can access it from your boat or not, as it is NPS area. Most beaches are without services. There are long areas where you just pull your car to the side of the road and walk through the mangrove bushes onto the beach. If you like that kind of stuff, you'll be in heaven. We loved the Landings at Cane Bay and Rhythms at Rainbow Beach. Both had good food and drinks at reasonable prices. The Landings has $10 burgers on Mondays. Napoleons Pizza has a shop in C'stead and in Frederickstead. We went to the one in C'stead. It is basically a carry out place, but they do have a couple of tables and it is air conditioned. Their pizzas are HUGE, taste great and a good price. They also have fabulous looking desserts, although we didn't try any. You can walk the Boardwalk in C'stead, and get a burger at Shoops on the Boardwalk, while you watch for the occasional ferry or seaplane. There are very few restaurants with a sunset view. We went to the beach restaurant at Sand Castles on the Beach. We thought it was way overpriced, but the food was decent.

There is very little shopping, just a couple of jewelry stores in Christianstead, and they basically have only the St Croix hook bracelets. There is one huge souvenir shop, called Purple Papaya, in C'stead. If you want souvenirs, they have pretty much everything, although I thought some stuff was a little pricy. To get around on the island, you really need to rent a car. It takes a surprisingly long time to get from one area of the island to another and some of the roads are really in bad shape. You really need a GPS to get around. We are spoiled by the restaurants in St. Maarten/St. Martin, so we weren't impressed with the 'fine dining' on island. We went to Duggan's Reef and spent $100 a person. It was OK.