In October, we spent three nights at the Ritz Carlton on the island of St. Thomas after spending 4 nights on the nearby island of St. John. The main airport is located on St. Thomas so it’s much easier to coordinate your departure if you spend your last night or two on that island. Otherwise, you’ll have a much earlier morning trying to depart, catch a ferry, and take a long cab ride to get to the airport on your departure day from any of the other nearby islands.

We used some free upgrades we had to get access to the hotel’s club level, which was still really wonderful, despite all the Covid restrictions. It was pretty much the same except only the staff could serve you food or drinks rather than getting them on your own like before. However, we found the quality of the food to be quite good. Also, the staff here was so friendly. I think they actually missed having guests and were very chatty and friendly with everyone.

We stayed in a basic level King room but got upgraded to an ocean view b/c of our points and the club level access. Overall, it was a very nice and comfortable hotel room with a large balcony and a huge bathroom but nothing over the top, IMO. They were doing extra cleanings and everyone here followed Covid guidelines with masks worn when not seated at a table eating/drinking or in the pool or at you lounger. There were plenty of hand sanitizers everywhere as well.

We have visited St. Thomas multiple times so we decided to just relax and stick to the hotel. We ate most of our meals at the club level but we did try their upscale Italian restaurant and really enjoyed a nice bottle of red wine and some “gourmet” pizza.

Our second day we decided to splurge and rented a private pool cabana for the day. I highly recommend this! It was really comfortable – we had a shaded cabana overlooking the main pool and ocean. It came with a built in couch for seating and two large chaise lounges with area for shade or sun. We also had a ceiling fan, flat screen TV and mini fridge that was stocked with waters, sodas, fresh fruit and a bottle of prosecco. The staff also brings cabana dwellers treats throughout the day, including frozen fruit on a stick, fruit smoothies (with or w/o alcohol), and fresh made cookies. We stayed here all day just relaxing, reading, napping and had lunch brought over as well.

We spent our last day lounging on the beach. After spending a few days on St. John, I can tell you that the beach here doesn’t really hold a candle to the beaches over there. It was a little rocky and not as crystal clear as what you’ll find on St. John but it’s certainly better than just about anything you’ll find in the U.S. Club level rooms have their own dedicated area with servers so that was a nice touch.

They have all kinds of watersports here, including SUPs, Hobie Cats, snorkel gear, etc…and the hotel has its own private catamaran for snorkeling day trips and sunset sails. We were lazy and just lounged around and soaked up the last few days of our vacation.

Overall, I get the hotel high marks and would definitely stay again at the end of one of our USVI trips. Personally, having been to St. Thomas before, I’d probably only do 2 days here and spend an extra day on St. John. The pool cabana day was a real treat and I wouldn’t want to miss that but you just can’t beat the beaches and views on St. John.