I don't understand this at all?

billd

Yea, me either. I waited awhile, thought maybe it was me..

You have to have read The Avis to get it, and I read it. My question to STXCarl is, what are they going to do about the negative tour reviews? Somebody needs to create an island tour that's interesting and affordable. Has anyone hired a shopper to shop the tours to see what improvements are needed, and to monitor tourists' comments?

Tourism needs to do more than just market the destination. There needs to be some private/public partnership that can help develop interesting itineraries/excursions for the visitors. You can't trust your tourism product soley to taxi drivers.

OK, but what is The Avis and where can it be had. I thought he was talking about the Car Rental Co.

The Avis is St. Croix's newspaper. It is in print only. The article was about complaints from cruise passengers on the Disney ship which recently visited St. Croix for the first time in regard to some shore excursions/tours.

--Islander

Islander, Thanks alot..

As far as availability of the Avis it's sold pretty much everywhere where you find the Daily News - supermarkets, grocery stores, etc. I buy both every day to get different perspectives on what's going on. The Avis is printed on STX but, like the Daily News, carries island and national news. Good editorials, too!

I now understand, a little, this post. I needed to go an add that I don't have to understand what they said. Then I needed to guess why you were ticked.

But I will tell you it is still a little mystery.

But be ticked!

Billd

Billd: The front page article in The Avis was about the Disney ship coming into STX after several years when the cruise ships bypassed STX for a variety of reasons. Heralded, of course, as a major infusion into the island's economy, it transpired that the ship refunded some $13K back to passengers who went on tours and were very dissatisfied with the trips offered. Complaints ranged from tour taxi operators rushing through the itinerary and not offering passengers any comfortable relaxing time in any one spot (a "whistle stop" I suppose!) to rudeness encountered by passengers from taxi drivers and store owners, along with a complaint that several stores weren't even open for the ship's visit.

Obviously this is NOT a good thing for STX's economy and has to be addressed. Yes, I'm well aware that some residents on STX would prefer that the cruise ships NOT come but the sometimes petulant expressions from that small group are far outweighed by the necessity of STX gaining financially from a tourist-based economy, in which case the locals must learn HOW to deal with tourists and how to not only attract them but also make it such a nice visit that those folks decide to return for an extended visit . Biting the hand that feeds you just isn't a brilliant idea.

Yes, tourists can be idiots. Many of them reach the USVI without even knowing where they are and in what country they're in. We get ticked off when they get demanding and don't bid us "Good Day" before hurling a question at us . We get ticked off when they walk off the ship and through town wearing beach attire, go topless on our beaches, walk on coral and do a whole bunch of other rude things which offend us because they don't take the time to learn to where they are coming and what our local mores are.

By the same token, being immediately rude in response to THEIR rudeness/ignorance is self-defeating. I can't say that I've always had a positive response when nicely correcting visitors about any, all and more of the above but at least I try and if my little bit of nicely-offered information doesn't work then, well, you win some and you lose some and you just walk away knowing that at least you tried.

As we have local idiots catering to tourists on STT and STJ, so we have similarly local idiots also on STX. Training and education go a long way and I believe that our present Tourism Commissioner is on the ball where this latest nonsense is concerned and will do everything in her power to minimize the impact that this event brought to light. Cheers!

I’m torn about this. While I really want STX to succeed and I want more people to visit and appreciate it as a great destination, I am not sure that I am crazy about it becoming a cruise stop. We are planning our third trip this April and selfishly, we like the island the way it is right now.

Hubs and I took one cruise and knew on day one that cruising was just not for us. Our fellow cruisers were all about the cruise, not about the destinations. Our best day on the cruise was the last day when we had a long stop in STT where we spent the day enjoying our STT favorite, Sapphire Beach, while our fellow cruisers were packing themselves onto Magen’s and Coki and shopping till they dropped in Charlotte Amalie. We had decided to try the cruise because it was something different and we got such a good deal for a winter cruise, rather than doing our usual stay on STT or STJ. While we were enjoying the beach at Sapphire, Hubs turned to me and asked me to tell him again how much money we had saved taking the cruise over spending the week in a villa. After I told him, he replied that it wasn’t worth it. (I think an even better day for him was when we docked in San Juan and he could get off what he referred to as that @#!%^ boat.) I know, different strokes…

That night we listened to our fellow cruisers go on about what was wrong with STT and STJ, just like they had gone on mostly negatively about every island stop we had made – Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, Antigua, Martinique. I didn’t hear one person say that they had really loved a stop and would think about returning for a land-based vacation. The cruise was the thing. Some expressed that cruising was, really, the only safe way to visit the Caribbean these days. OK.

There must be tourism studies on this that show a percentage of visitors who return or who cruise and then return to one or more destinations to spend some time. I think those results would be interesting.

Something else that bothered me on the cruise was the markup of shore excursions and the shopping “seminars”. Having been to some of the cruise stop islands previously we had a pretty good idea of what things cost and also some of the places to shop but it seemed like the ship’s people wanted to steer passengers only to certain vendors, sometimes using fear of other areaa to do so. I suspected that the ships were realizing some markups and fees from the tour operators and larger shops. We were actually advised to hold off on most of our shopping until we reached STT as there we would get the best deals in the “chain” stores. Actually, we purchased a Lladro in a small shop on St. Lucia that we then saw for about 20% more in a “chain” store in Havensight on STT. I’m sure there are exceptions but there was good shopping in every port – why advise folks to hold off until St. Thomas unless there was something in it for the ship line?

On STX, we haven’t had to check on what days the ships are in to plan a trip to C’Sted to have lunch or shop or plan a trip to a certain beach to try to avoid the crowds. We've enjoyed the shops and have always felt welcomed and treated well. That’s been really nice. Like I said, it’s selfish. But, if the ships are going to direct folks to other islands to shop and take excursions and not promote STX, I guess I don’t see a big upside for STX to change the way they have done business since the cruise ships stopped coming.

Margy Z wrote:
That night we listened to our fellow cruisers go on about what was wrong with STT and STJ, just like they had gone on mostly negatively about every island stop we had made – Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, Antigua, Martinique. I didn’t hear one person say that they had really loved a stop and would think about returning for a land-based vacation. The cruise was the thing. Some expressed that cruising was, really, the only safe way to visit the Caribbean these days. OK.

I think this pretty much sums up the average US of A tourist. People are just so vacuous these days, and can or will not stop to smell the flowers. I pretty much avoided tourists when I lived on STT, for this very reason.