Mostly Ritzy St. Thomas

Backstory
By George Davis - Upon “deplaning” at the Cyril E. King International Airport in St. Thomas, I savored the warm, humid embrace, familiar to anyone who has abandoned the dry chill of winter for the tropics. I shrugged off my blazer as we walked across the pavement to the terminal. Good bye, New York. Hello, St. Thomas.

We were six adults and two children. Eight enthusiastic Caribbean worshippers already daydreaming about how to spend the next ten days of leisure. The golfers fantasized about sub-par-ing dramatic ocean front holes. The four and six year olds asked for the umpteenth time about the pools, the kiddy program, the submarine ride. Our minds drifted to effervescent music, exotic meals and pampering massages. And I, invariably drawn to water like a moth to light, previewed my swimming and boating options…

Our reveries dwindled as we were swept up in the current of bodies being disgorged from the airplanes into a sort of hanger that serves as the baggage claim area. It was a little surprising to arrive in a relatively small airport, mid-afternoon on a Thursday, and yet be overwhelmed by the throngs of people. Too many bodies to navigate easily or to locate our greeter and driver from the Ritz Carlton, so we divided.

Everyone else arranged themselves along the luggage conveyor, and I set out to find someone from the resort. I revisited the half dozen or so greeters with placards standing along the stream of tourists flowing from the airplanes. No Ritz Carlton. I asked a couple of greeters it they had seen anyone from the Ritz, but they shrugged. No, nobody had seen anyone from the resort.

I headed out to the parking lot. At last I found a blue Excursion with the Lion Crest proudly emblazoned on the door, but the vehicle was unmanned, so I returned to my quest. After about ten minutes of circulating and questioning anyone who looked remotely like a chauffeur or resort representative, I asked at a concession for local tours and the man offered to go look for our greeter. At long last, after we collected all of our luggage and helped a porter load it onto a cart, we located a somewhat distracted young woman in a blue Ritz Carlton uniform who acknowledged that she was our driver, instructed me to follow her and then promptly dashed off into the crowd. We wove through the forest of tourists, our cart loaded high with suitcases, trying to keep up with the representative before she disappeared.

In due course we managed to reconnect with the elusive driver, who, in the meantime, had summoned two more Ritz Carlton vehicles. Amidst a honking backlog of traffic, prompting one of our group to quip that we must still be in New York, our bodies and baggage were divided between the three SUVs and our motorcade pulled away from the airport. I realized that we had been joined by an impeccably dressed young woman who sat in the front passenger seat. Whether Ritz Carlton guest or staff remained unclear, but we honored her reserve as best we could and resisted the temptation to ask explicitly or grumble about the airport reception. Some thirty five or forty minutes later, after winding through a maze of small streets thronged with cars and people, we arrived at The Ritz Carlton.

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