Oasis of the Seas

Next Tuesday, Dec 8th, there will be lots of activity and lots of traffic in St. Thomas. The Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship ever built, will be pulling into St. Thomas on it's inaugural cruise. At full capacity the ship holds 5,400 passengers and over 2,000 crew. On the same day, Carnival's newest and biggest cruise ship will also be in port along with three other ships. They are expecting over 15,000 passengers to be on island that day. St. Thomas has been busy cleaning up the streets, finishing up the sidewalk project, making new signage and just generally gearing up for the big day. Traffic will be absolutely crazy and they are asking locals to avoid going to Sub Base, Havensight and downtown to help alleviate congestion, good luck with that.

If you are coming to St. Thomas on vacation and just happen to be arriving or departing on Dec 8th, I would definitely allow some extra time to get to your destination. Besides the traffic issues, every taxi on island will be running cruise ship passengers around so there may be issues trying to find one available. I know I won't be traveling much that day.....go to work, then to Frenchtown and hang out until everything settles down. :-)

Here's the article in St. Thomas Source.