St. Thomas

Excuse me, I find your posting offensive. No we do not hunt down white people or dislike them. I am sorry you got robbed (I did once), or happened to run into rude people, but do not blame that on us. Also, the "parts that are behind armed guards and fences" do not allow you to fully enjoy the island. I can't believe you mock "island time" like that. No it does not mean a dislike of white people or plain lazy. I am a Virgin Islander who goes to Brown University in Rhode Island. Would I really go to RHODE ISLAND if I didn't like white people, and why would I be at an Ivy-League school if I'm lazy?

Congratulations Guys!!! We convinced another one not to come!!

Shame he had such a bad experience. I guess it happens. I've run into some rude islanders and I've run into some of the most incredibly sweet islanders who would go out of your way to help you. But I guess in New Orleans and everywhere else EVERYONE must be sweet. I guess it all in the attitude you approach them with. Kill them with kindness and they will do anything for you. I'm guessing this poster probably didn't have the best attitude after the week he had so it probably seemed worse than it was.

People seem to have this nirvana image of St Thomas that everyone has a free pina coloda in their hand waiting for you. This is just like any other place. People work to make a living, its not a constant vacation. There is crime in some parts, and there are parts where you leave your keys in the car at night (not behind locked gates).

Enjoy New Orleans and the pickpotters. I love New Orleans for 3 days and thats about enough for me. Too many illiterate drunks, oh wait that was me....

Wow, that sucks. If all that happened to me, I too would probably find it hard to have even a positive perspective on the people or this gorgeous island. Your bad experiences and bad luck have left you with the inaccurate notion that everything associated with the VI is negative. It is obvious that you will not be convinced otherwise, and I will not waste your time or mine attempting to do so.
I ask, however, that when discussing the VI with your friends and family...do so honestly. If my friends that were mugged in the Quarter spent their energies trashing all that NOLA had to offer, it would not be fair. Those of us who love STT or call it home merely ask for the same consideration.
Thanks and good luck with your future home.

By the way Daniel, I just read the paper, what kind of fun and relaxation were you anticipating on a Saturday morning with a stranger?

He was a stranger to me not to my coworker, my coworker had meet him on several different occasions. I was not trying to be offinsive or negative, I thought this board was dedicated to people that are moving to the Virgin Islands. My experience bad or not deserves to be heard. Never did the thought enter my head that I would be sipping Pina Colada's on the beach all day. I worked for a surveying company and was in just about every area of St. Thomas during my stay. No harm meant by my post, and it is all the truth. I did however forget to post that I seemed to run into Christmas Bush and currently have a rash covering my arms. I know my experience was unlike many others before me but it happened and it is my right to inform. Everyone have an nice day and enjoy your island. Daniel
P.S. New Orleans pick pockets........seriously St. Thomas has no problem with that also........PLEASE.....

Daniel,
You are correct, it is your right to inform. However, by not telling the whole truth (at least according to the police report), you are deliberately misinforming people and that is where you are wrong.
You were not rubbed at gunpoint at Havensight merely strolling about on a Saturday morning.
No, you were robbed at gunpoint after taking a hitchhiker up on their offer to show you a place where you can have some "fun" and "relax"--whatever that means. You then drove this hitchhiker, according to their directions, to Paul Pearson Housing project for your fun and relaxation, and was robbed at gunpoint by the hitchhiker and two accomplices.

very different story indeed.
although it does sound like he had a massive string of bad luck in general here.
good thing he came here first before up and moving, yikes. although my first couple weeks here were fabulous and perfect-- it's the next couple of weeks that tried me! so i guess it just goes to show that some people aren't meant to be here and some people are. and it also goes to show that moving to a new culture anywhere is never easy!

That is not what happened at all. The so called hitchhiker new the person that I worked with. We did not ask him to go have "fun and Relax" we were on our way to a party in Frenchmans Bay. We gave the guy a ride and were robbed in HAVENSIGHT where we dropped him off. We told the police that we were not sure if he had anything to do with it but we thought he must have. The so called housing project is right in the middle of havensight right before you get to Wendy's and Shipwreck. I was also under the impression much like my coworker that people in St. Thomas hitchhiked all the time and being that he new the fella he thought it would be OK. We stopped the car he got out and less than 1 minute later we had guns in our face. When we were finally able to get to the police station they did NOTHING!!!! They said they drove around and could not find anyone......How could they? they did not know who they were looking for. I guess I should have gone into more detail with the description of my experience but that is exactly what happened. I also love how they write a story in the paper when the police actually talked to us about the incident for a grand total of mabye 5 minutes. Who knows mabye he new the guy from the story right before ours that heard screaming and shots fired in frenchmans bay about 3 hours before anything happened to us.

oh and by the way when did I say I was merely strolling around Saturday morning?

Daniel,

Either way the story goes, it seems to us that you didn't take proper precautions and didn't follow common sense rules on being in a new place. There are dollar taxis that people can take if they need a ride. After being here a while you will get in the routine of who needs a ride and who thinks you are a person who is an easy target. It is hard to get to a place or party without someone who knows the way. In all instances that we needed to find a place we FOLLOWED them. Never give a stranger a ride.

To new people coming here. The best advice is to be wise and be aware. Use common sense. I have never carried all my cash around. I hardly carry any cash. There are safes in many of the hotels and you can always check that before you come. Don't do anything that you wouldn't do in any other major city.

Teresa

Daniel:
Given your claims that the police got your initial report of the incident horribly wrong and your friend actually knows one of the possible suspects, I would suggest you call the police and ensure that they record the correct information and identification so that the suspects may be apprehended and brought to justice.
Below is the URL for the article recounting the incident, the telephone number of the Investigations Bureau is included in the article.
http://www.virginislandsdailynews.com/index.pl/article_home?id=7359325

Daniel,

I think a lot of people were a little sensative to your post because, well, we've found our experiences on STT or the other Virgin Islands to be quite rewarding and for me, personally, loving every single minute of it. After reading your first post, it did seem as though you were bashing our island ("And Oh yea everything there is a production-aggravation and 75% of the island looks like the innercity of New Orleans (Murder capital of the country, where I am from) P.S.S. Island Time = I dislike white people (not everyone) or plain lazy" or only "25% of the island is nice"). A lot of us have made a home here. I do not see my home as 25% nice, or production-aggravation. And being an avid visitor of New Orleans, I've seen nothing of the likes of New Orleans here, except the occasional "hurricane". You're absolutely right that the island is not for everyone. It was important for me to remind myself that this is not paradise when I took my first pre-move visit. If I thought, wow, it's going to be amazing all the time, I knew I would be disappointed. And I know you stated that you weren't expecting it to be perfect, but I do think you have to admit that your run of bad luck can't all be contributed to the island. Tropical storms are not exclusive to St. Thomas alone. If you have the desire to live in the Caribbean, this is something you have to deal with. You've been warned about picking up hitchhikers since you were a boy, I'm sure, or at least, you should have been. And wearing your seat belt is the law you know, it is posted on signs to let people know, and posted in just about every rental car. How did you know the cop was looking for only white people to ticket? Did he mention this to you when he informed you that you were breaking the law by not buckling up? Sounds like a lot of your bad luck was caused by careless and reckless behavior, which could happen anywhere.

I'm sorry if you are feeling jumped by some of the people on this board. You do have the right to tell your experiences, just make sure you point the blame at the right person, not island. The best advice anyone can give on here to to do a pre-move visit. It's when I fell in love with this island and knew it was for me. Others have come to this board and decided Sweden was for them. How they chose the snow over the sand is beyond me, but I wish them well. And I wish you well too - it sounds like with the bad luck cloud that follows you around, you're going to need it! =)

Take care,

Janelle

Good point Janelle so far Daniel had 2 flat tires, nobody's fault, ticket - his own fault for breaking the law, and mugging at 7am in a housing project on his way to a party.

I'm sorry, but I don't care where you live. If you are a white tourist in a predominantly black housing project at 7am on a way to a "party", its CLEARLY a drug deal and trouble is 100% guaranteed to happen. C'mon man PLEASE use your head. I don't care if you knew him or not.

Obviously a hot button. And what I meant by mentioning pick pocketers in New Orleans was that EVERY city has crime, well I heard of one place in Montana that has never had any crime, but that's it everyplace else does. So use your common sense to avoid it.

7am in a housing project "on your way to a party". Maybe a cocaine induced party. ROFLMAO...... What a moron.

Who here thinks he wasn't hammered and wasn't looking to buy drugs? Yeah I thought so.

So much has to do with attitude, luck, and how you approach life. i lived in harlem for 3 yrs and in Bed Stuy Brooklyn for a couple years-- as a white woman in my early 20s and never had a problem. i was definitely the only white person in my buildings and i was certainly seen as an outsider by the people who had been living there their whole lives. i was always friendly to the people in the neighborhood, yet i kept to myself and avoided eye contact on the streets (like a proper NYer) and was smart about taking cabs after midnight and using common sense judgement when i was walking around the neighborhoods. i use the same common sense logic here in STT, despite "tropical paradise" being about as different from NYC as you can get.

i heard many times before i arrived that this is a gorgeous little island with big-city crime, so i've been trying to be alert and smart about living here. it is very impoverished and the discrepancies between the rich white people and the poor west indians are tragic. most places where there is such a huge gap between the rich and poor have crime problems, so it makes sense that STT would too.

there are certain areas of the island that i can sense are unsafe for me to be in, so i don't go there. there are certain people who i see hitchhiking who i feel badly for as a drive by with an empty seat in my car, but i do not pick them up (not even women) because it's just not safe. with that said, it's important to remember that getting robbed at gunpoint is never your fault (have had friends who were robbed in NYC and Wash DC and i know it is terrifying), so it is a little unfair that people are jumping down Daniel's throat about that. i think it's more that he took a lot of bad, unlucky experiences (like weather, getting flat tires, getting the rash...) and assumed that all of living here deal with that on a daily basis and that we're stupid to live in "that kind of place". that said, had i been mugged and had such bad luck when i was here, i may have taken it as a sign that perhaps this place wasn't for me. so i think Daniel is smart to back off-- its a sign to live elsewhere i guess.

and yes, things happen slowly here sometimes, but the pace of life is just different. it's offensive to judge another culture (another COUNTRY) and the way they go about things because you don't understand it. it's like getting mad that the people in spain speak spanish and not english or getting upset that you have to eat thai food for breakfast, lunch and dinner when in thailand. the virgin islands is NOT the usa-- it's a different country, with different values and approaches to life. take it for what it is.

First of all I do not use drugs, second of all we were not robbed at 7am that is when we got all the paper work done at the police station, third of all I am sorry I ever posted my experinces on this board. Stu you do not know me so don't act like it. MORON.. And what happened to the couple that was robbed right before me that night in Frenchmans Bay getting out of there car with chinese food. Were they on drugs? Just thought I would help people understand that St. Thomas is a normal place just like many other cities. Being naive is no way to go through life. I wish all of you the best of luck and hope none of you have to go through what I did. Daniel

You know, I'm glad Daniel posted his opinions, because it reminds me what this site is really about. Which, unfortunately Daniel did not recognize.

This site is, as Daniel stated, for information - good or bad. But what he failed to realize (or read) is that a lot of the posts here are simply information, not subjective opinions. Sure, we may have posted our opinions when asked, or prefaced them with "in my humble opinion," but I've personally never read a rude, subjective opinion like, "Island time = I dislike white people (not everyone) or plain lazy." And what if Daniel really meant no harm? Unfortunately for him, he chose the wrong words to express his experience. Everybody reads "words" differently; they're powerful tools.

So Daniel, if you read this, know that it's okay to express your feelings and share your experiences on this site. I don't doubt you're telling the truth, and your true and honest feelings are welcome, but please remember to share them with a little more kindness.

Daniel, I have never been to the Virgin Islands but I am thinking about moving there in 2005 or 2006. However there is one thing that you wrote that concerns me about your life. You wrote, " I went with a great attitude expecting the worst. Too Bad the worst is what I got.

Daniel you bring about what you think about. If you think the worst is going to happen it will.

I am legally blind and I have a better attitude than you. So think positive and more positive things will eventually happen in your life. Think negative and more negative things will happen in your life.

As for your experience with the police, I know that police always slant there reports and I am also convinced after reading the papers they are not on the same level of professionalism as here in the USA. As for you other people you write the crime is like a normal big city. I do disagree as the population of STT is only 125,000 people if I am not mistaken. Well, we only had two murders last year. So when people say it is like a normal big city it is not. You are not comparing apples to apples you need to compare STT to smaller cities of the same size.

Nevertheless I love this site and people all seem very nice. Thank you everyone at this site.

Daniel-

Sorry to hear about your bad experience in STT. The only thing I can tell you is that even though stuff happens, you shouldn't have put yourself in a position to be victimized, i.e. getting ticketed for not wearing a seatbelt, picking up a hitchhiker, hanging around housing projects...bad stuff is bound to happened when you committ carelessness like that. 🙁 Also. you mentioned being aggravated by Jeanne. Perhaps you shouldn't have traveled to the VI if you knew a trop. storm was headed that way. Again, this is another way you could have prevented being victimized.

There are good people and bad everywhere in the world; you need to use common sense in all situations. My experiences on STT and STJ were positive, partly b/c I let common sense be my guide, partly b/c I came there with a positive attitude.

The VI affords the majority of us ex-pats a better quality of life than we can find on the mainland. It's a truly magical place, and though I'm sorry to hear you weren't happy there, please try to remember that we love the VI because it is mostly good.

-Celeste

Hey all..... bad experiences, good experiences....these things happen to all of us. Those of us here that love this place love it, good or bad. personal pref. St Thomas is like no place i have ever been. i am female, 25 , working in the food industry and here alone. I am enjoying every person i run into. I don't live in the "best" area but what does that mean anyway? I have become great friends with some of the people in the area i live and I'll tell you what....these people i have become friends with watch over me better than my parents! I think alot has to do with the vibe you put out there!

Actually STT's population is around 55,000.. give or take...

Thanks DL. Well, then I am sorry but that furthers my point. People here should not be comparing an Island with a population of only 55,000 to big cities like New Orleans or any other big cities here in the USA mainland. You should only be comparing the St. Thomas crime rate with only cities here with a population of only 55,000 people. If you do you will find that STT has a very unusually high crime rate. No place is perfect.

To Love it here... I enjoyed reading your post. You can tell just by reading it you really like your life.

I WENT TO ST THOMAS THIS SUMMER WITH MY EIGHT YEAR OLD DAUGHTER AND WE HAD A WONDERFUL TIME.THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE WERE GREAT. BUT LIKE EVERYWHERE, SOME WERE NOT. I AM FROM HARLEM, NY AND I USED MY CITY SMARTS WHETHER I AM IN NEW YORK OR OUTSIDE OF NEW YORK. IT IS UNFORTUNATE THAT YOU HAD SUCH A HORRIBLE TIME, BUT I MUST SAY YOU DIDNT USE COMMON SENSE. IT MAKES ME SAD THAT THERE IS SO MUCH CRIME ON THE ST THOMAS, BUT THAT IS A REALITY. BUT LIKE NEW YORK THINGS MAY CHANGE WHEN PEOPLE ARE TIRED OF CRIME. I DONT THINK ALL VIRGIN ISLANDERS DISLIKE WHITE PEOPLE, YOU ARE BEING TOO SENSITIVE. JUST LIKE I DONT THINK THAT ALL WHITE PEOPLE IN NEW YORK DISLIKE BLACK PEOPLE. BUT YOU MAY SENSE A GROWING FRUSTRATION WITH AMERICANS BUYING UP THE ISLAND. MAKING IT HARD FOR NATIVE VIRGIN ISLANDERS TO OWN PROPERTY ON THEIR OWN ISLAND. THIS IS HAPPENING ON ST JOHN. SOMETIMES PEOPLE FORGET THAT THEY ARE GUEST.

I agree, but hey.. can you hit the Caps Lock key there? Just kidding...