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57 King Street, Christiansted, St. Croix, 00820, Caribbean
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11 Opinions
Loudspeakers for the music
Street side
Is it the yellow building in front of the steeple?
End of stairway and Gazebo
Hi,
If anyone has stayed at either of these properties I would love to hear from you. So far from what I can find on the web the Hotel on the Cay is on it's own little island with a beach, but there are comments about the rooms not being all that great and it's a time share property. Hotel Caravelle I've found no complaints about the rooms but they don't have a beach. Please respond with any comments good or bad on either property.
Thanks, Lori
I stayed at the Hotel on the Cay about 10 years ago, so my information is anything but fresh. I can , however, tell you that although the island on which the hotel is located is near the harbor, the water is clear and the snorkeling good. The island is quite small and when I was there the hotel was the only property on it. It operated, back then, both as a time share and a hotel. The rooms were small, but adequately equipped and comfortable. The restaurant was ok, but not particularly great, but a large assortment of restaurants, bars, shops. and a quite good dive shop were a short free ferry ride away. When I was there the hotel had a very good entertainment director who was also a good blues guitarist.
The island is located on the same latitude as Acapulco and Hawaii, below the Tropic of Cancer. All beaches on St. Croix are open to the public and provide endless opportunities for swimming. Snorkeling is easy, for abundant sea life and coral reefs are close to shore. There are two towns on the islands: Christiansted and Frederiksted.
One of the five buildings on the National Park Service Historic Site in Christensted is the West Indies & Guinea Company Warehouse. Apparently this building is on Company Street and is the current U.S. Post Office and Customs House. Slave auctions used to be held in the courtyard here.
I had trouble getting pictures quickly enough when the buildings were so close to the van, but the building beside the red van says Post Office on it.
On the other hand, it may be the building across from the Steeple building in photos 2 and 3.
The island's western district contains a dense, 15-acre forest called the "Rain Forest. The area is thick with mahogany trees, kapok (silk-cotton) trees, turpentine (red-birch) trees, samaan (rain) trees, and all kinds of ferns and vines. Sweet limes, mangoes, hog plums, and breadfruit trees, all of which have grown in the wild since the days of the plantations, are also interspersed among the larger trees. Crested hummingbirds, pearly eyed thrashers, green-throated caribs, yellow warblers, and perky but drably camouflaged bananaquits nest in the trees. The 150-foot-high Creque Dam is the major man-made sight in the area.
The Rain Forest is private property, but the owner lets visitors go inside to explore. To experience its charm, some visitors opt to drive along Mahogany Road, stopping beside the footpaths that meander off on either side of the highway into dry riverbeds and glens. It's advisable to stick to the best-worn of the footpaths. You can also hike along some of the little-traveled four-wheel-drive roads in the area.
St. Croix's history spans the rule of seven nations, each influencing the customs and architecture of the island. Columbus disovered the island in 1493 and called it Santa Cruz (Saint Croix). Subsequently, the island was under Dutch, British, French and Maltese rule. In 1733, the French Government sold St. Croix to the Danish West India & Guinea Co. for $150,000. The Danes allowed foreign immigrants to move in. The result was rapid development as everyone from the Spanish Jews to the Huguenots purchased plantations. The English dominated the populations and English became the language spoken on the streets. It was under Danish rule that the sugar plantations flourished. The markets in Europe were huge, and sugar cane could only be grown in tropical zones. For over two centuries, sugar was king! To this day, the sugar plantations scattered around the island are visible.
When around 1829 sugar beet became an alternative source of manufacturing sugar throughout Europe, the local economy went down leading to slaves riots. In 1878 the slaves burned much of Frederiksted and many plantations around the island. The last sugar harvest took place in 1966. Since then, the economy has become dependent upon tourism as a revenue source. Denmark sold the Virgin Islands to the U.S. in 1917 for $25 million.
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