It is hard to believe our friends would be heading home in one more day. We didn’t make any real plans for their last whole day. We hadn’t done much shopping so we decide to do our K-Mart booze run and then head down to Havensight and over to Charlotte Amalie. We definitely loaded up on the liquor. We should have enough to get us through until the next trip. (FYI I wrapped all of my liquor in large ziplock bags, bubble wrap, put them back in the box and then in our suitcases. Only one person had a broken bottle and their bottles were not in a box. They had just wrapped it in a towel and put it in their suitcase). It wasn’t busy, only 2 cruise ships were in. Everyone found some good bargains in Havensight. We headed over to the Greenhouse for lunch. All the girls did a little more shopping and we headed back to Villa Jamie for some sun by the pool.

View from the Greenhouse.

One couple decided they wanted to check out Magens Bay. I was curious to see what they would think of it. We were staying out on Peterborg . We drove by Magen’s Bay everyday, but it was different from all the other beach experiences we had had so far. They did enjoy it, but said it was no where near as beautiful as the other beaches they had visited on this trip. I think we can say we were getting a little spoiled.

We felt we should go out to dinner on their last night in St. Thomas, so we headed over to North Drop Inn. We didn’t have a reservation. Make a reservation if you plan to eat there. When we walked in there were about 3 tables of people. The hostess/waitress gal wasn’t real happy that we hadn’t made a reservation. Even though they had a ton of tables available. She did managed to find us a table out on the patio where we watched a terrific sunset. The food was good, the waitress/hostess gal was not! Other than the sunset, we all voted that if we had to do it over again we would have been happier just eating something at the villa. I had some very good shrimp and a couple others had some very tasty Caribbean lobster. We headed back to Villa Jamie for some card playing, drinks, and one last night with our friends.

Sunset at North Drop Inn

We stopped at Drake's Seat for some photos.

Wow I can hardly believe it was Wednesday. Our morning started just as every other one had. Snorkel Girl was up swimming in the pool while a few others gathered outside for their morning coffee. I think we could have spent the next few weeks living like this without any complaints. It was such an easy routine. One that we will all cherish when we return to our crazy, hectic lives. I had decided I would start packing when our friends did. Then I would be able to spend the rest of that day and the next morning enjoying my last days on this beautiful island in the most phenomenal villa. As I was getting things gathered up I just had this feeling of not wanting this dream to come to an end. It was like having a great dream and you wake up before it is over and you never know how it ends. So I told my hubby I just wasn’t ready to leave. Most of the time he would give me the old we’ll be back again soon story. Not this time. He said do you want to see if we can stay another night? I think I was on the phone with McLaughlin Anderson in about 10 seconds. I was so excited I could have done back flips down the street. As luck would have it the villa was available. We called and changed our plane tickets and extended our rental car. We flew down using our frequent flyer miles and were able to change the tickets for free. We kept the rental car for another day at no cost because we were still in our weekly rental time. This just made for the best day ever. I was sad to see our friends leave, but knowing I had a bonus day made everything better.

Who could get tired of this??

Our friends loaded up and headed to the airport around 1:00. We spent the next couple of hours chillin’ by the pool. Unfortunately for our friends they were traveling on the day when United had all of their computer problems. They called to let us know they might be coming back. Their flights were all messed up and they would not be able to make their connection in Charlotte. They said they’d call us back and let us know for sure. We were pretty excited. United then told them they would put them up at a hotel in Charlotte and get them back to Chicago in the early morning hours on Thurs. They still had a 3 hour drive home and one of them was supposed to be at work on Thursday morning. That wasn’t happening, I guess they decide they would have a better shot of getting home if they could get back to Charlotte. So they decided not to return to the villa for another night. United told them their flight would leave STT by 6 PM. Which we later found out didn’t leave until after 9 PM. When they arrived in Charlotte, NC they had to wait in line for hotel vouchers and United never told them they wouldn’t be able to get their luggage. After all of that messing around they got to the hotel at 1AM and had to get up at 4 AM to catch their flight. They should have come back to the villa.

While our friends were having a terrible time at the airport we went to Havensight for a little jewelry shopping. I bought my hubby a new everyday type wedding band. I love it! We actually found 3 lucky pennies while we were walking from Havensight over to Yacht Haven. Oh we were feeling so lucky!

We had some drinks and dinner at Fat Turtle. We were pleased with our meal. I had a huge burger and my hubby had a Philly steak sandwich. We were entertained by an iguana who wanted to order dinner at Fat Turtle too. The waitress was great and she was just as terrified by that ugly thing as I was. I am not much of an iguana lover especially when it wants to take a seat at my dinner table.

View from Fat Turtle

We decided to head back to the villa (with a slight detour to Mountaintop) to enjoy what was originally supposed to be our last night. Thank god we had an extra bonus day. Never did find my way to Mountaintop. I’ll just have to wait until the next trip.

We spent our last day just lounging around the pool at the villa. It was a relaxing day. We decided we would make one last trek to Red Hook and get some drinks and grab a pizza at Island Time Pub. I thought the pizza was very good. Had some the next day for breakfast too!

Last view from Island Time Pub

Friday was here before we knew it. We headed out to the airport around 9 AM. We had a long day ahead of us. We were flying from STT to San Juan. Then San Juan to Chicago and then we didn’t know if we would be able to get on our flight out of Chicago home. We were told the airport could give us tickets for that leg of our journey on the day of the flight if there were seats available. Worse case scenario we would have to take the early morning flight out of Chicago on Saturday. So we didn’t know where we were going to end up on Friday night. We could be home or in Chicago. I had a rental car on hold just in case we wanted to make the 3 hour drive home rather than waiting to fly home the next day. I knew it was going to be a crazy day. We went to the airport with 2 things in mind, get a flight home from Chicago and try to get an upgrade to 1st class like we had on the way down. We walked up to the gal at American and explain what we would like. She had good news for us. There was an earlier flight leaving from STT to San Juan and she could get us on our flight home from Chicago. Bad news is our flight out of San Juan to Chicago was canceled. Of all the luck our vacation is getting extended another day. So American Airlines pays for us to stay at the San Juan airport hotel (same hotel we had stayed at on our way down), gives us food vouchers for lunch and dinner, breakfast was included at the hotel, and bumps us to 1st class for all of our trouble! WHOA! So we spent the day in the sun at the San Juan Airport Hotel. It wasn’t Villa Jamie, but it was still vacation and I was loving it! Just so you know we did finally make it home 2 days later than originally planned, well rested, and had the best vacation ever!