Regal Princess Cruise - Day 4: St. Thomas Day and Coki Beach

No scuba excursion offered by the ship as it was all booked up.  The part I was most peeved about was that I had to go to the excursion desk to ask whether it was on or not in person the day before, when I submitted the form 2 days before.  No confirmation or message that it was actually not booked.  To add salt to the wound, when I asked I was actually talked over and yelled at by the staff.  Combined with the incident where lil friend was yelled at by the Assistant Manager of the Spa for dropping her key into the laundry basket along with the robe, and the seemingly forgetful staff who made me order two cokes to get one because they seem to always forget the first time, we decided to dock their 'standard' gratuity, and instead, give gratuity on a performance based system.

Anyhow, having arrived at St. Thomas, we still went to Coki Beach, as we heard that was a beach that we could do snorkeling.  Arriving there it was pretty busy (lots of people), but the beach was still pretty beautiful.  White sand, turquoise and blue water.  It was stunning.  As we walked down the beach, we spotted a shop that was doing scuba, and we were able to get in on it.  The dive itself wasn't super great, but did see an irubaja!.. Mmm…. To the excursion services staff who told me I would not find any local scuba shop to take us, if I can somehow state that you should not get any part of my 'standard' gratuity, I would.

A thought:

To this day, the dives and snorkeling I've been on in terms of clarity and beauty still doesn't compare to the very first dive and snorkeling I did back in the West Caribbean.  I am starting to wonder whether that was just my imagination given it was my first ever dive.  At this point, I should have been to numerous dive sites with a lot more sea life, but other than the sea turtle dive in Hawaii (which we weren't looking for coral reefs), I don't remember a better and cooler dive.

In terms of snorkeling, I still remember that first cruise where one of those days I went snorkeling and I was swimming with fishes and felt them prick me.  Ahhh the memories.