Introduction<br><br>There were 5 of us on this trip: Me (Louis), my wife Elise, my sons Alex & Sean, and a friend of the family Diana. We booked the trip in November 2002 with The Moorings after finding frequent flier tickets into St. Thomas. This was the 11th trip for my wife and me, 7th for Alex, 5th for Sean, and 1st for Diana.<br><br>When I couldn’t find San Juan tickets on Delta and decided to go through St. Thomas, we decided to book a few days at a hotel / resort on St. Thomas which we have never done before. I read several recommendations for Secret Harbour (
http://www.secretharbourvi.com), so decided to book a beachfront suite for 3 nights. The suite has 2 bedrooms, sofa bed, kitchen and a balcony or patio.<br><br>Tuesday July 8<br><br>Up at 3:30am to catch our 7:20 flight to Atlanta, connecting to the Delta flight to St. Thomas. Flight was crowded, movie was lousy, food was mediocre — all in all a typical Delta flight to the Caribbean. Kids watched a movie on my laptop on the way down.<br><br>Arrived at St. Thomas a bit early and made my way to the Avis counter to get the van we had reserved. Getting the car was one of the most trouble-free car rentals I have ever had. I highly recommend Avis. My plan was to return the car to the Avis counter at the Renaissance hotel which also went very smoothly.<br><br>After a 30 minute or so drive through downtown Charlotte Amalie we arrived at Secret Harbour, and what a beautiful place. Nice beach with plenty of shade, smooth water for swimming, snorkeling was good from the shore (the bay is a protected marine reserve), good restaurant and bar on the beach. It was going to be tough to leave on Friday to go to Tortola for the sailing.<br><br>Made it in time for the manager’s welcome party held every Tuesday evening. Manger sang (I use that term loosely) a version of Yellow Bird, introduced the staff, called up the newlyweds and had them dance, all in all a fun time. Sean won a door prize, two coffee cups, and made a new friend with a boy from Connecticut whose family was staying at SH for an entire month.<br><br>Wednesday July 9<br><br>The plan for today was basically to swim and relax at SH and perhaps take a drive to the tramway in Charlotte Amalie that evening. As the day wore on, the thought of driving all that way in traffic became less and less appealing. However Alex really wanted to ride the tram so he finally convinced us to take the trip.<br><br>The view from the tramway was nice but there was a general haze over the island which made it much less spectacular than it would have been on a clear day. Arrived there right at the start of happy hour so the ride was free. <br><br>Came down from the tram and decided to eat at Pizzeria Amore based on a recommendation by Nutmeg. The inside of the restaurant was already closed but they were still cooking pizzas which could be eaten outside. Pizza was great but we ordered way too much. Boxed up the rest for lunch the next day.<br><br>Thursday July 10<br><br>Today we were planning to spend a good bit of time at Coral World. This was a great stop for both us and the kids. Got to feed the sting rays, tour the aquariums, and spent about 3-4 hours there. Took lots of fish pictures which hopefully will turn out better than pictures taken on previous snorkel trips which more often than not, turned out to be pictures of blue rocks.<br><br>We had thought about eating at Red Hook that evening but we were pretty tired, the crowds at Red Hook seemed large, parking seemed scarce, and gosh the Blue Moon Café is a pretty darn good place to eat. So we went back to SH and had dinner. We also ran a bunch of laundry loads so we would be heading to the Moorings with clean clothes.
