Smith Bay, St. Thomas

Staying in Smith Bay

Choosing where to stay on St. Thomas usually means choosing between the St. John ferry and the airport, and Smith Bay splits the difference better than its neighbors. By our measurement from the middle of the area, the Red Hook ferry terminal is 12 minutes by car, Charlotte Amalie 18 and Cyril E. King Airport 33. Of the areas within 12 minutes of the ferry, none is closer to the airport or to town. The houses sit along Route 38 and on the slopes above it, facing the Atlantic side of the island rather than St. John.

What sets this stretch apart is the end of Coki Point Road. Coral World Ocean Park is open 9 am to 4 pm, with the ticket booth closing at 3 pm, per its own site as of October 2026, and it posts closed days month by month, so a family morning there is planned around its calendar. Coki Beach, beside the park, is a public beach run by the Department of Sports, Parks and Recreation with no entrance fee. The reef fish start a short swim off the sand, which makes it a first snorkel for a child, and the vendors rent masks and fins. The turn is at the Coral World sign above Louie's Market, about 400 feet past the Wyndham Margaritaville entrance by the park's directions.

Smith Bay Park, the beach most people call Lindquist, is the quieter alternative and belongs to the Magens Bay Authority: $7 a person for visitors, children under 12 free and $2 to park, per the Authority as of October 2026, with chairs, cabanas, kayaks and paddle boats to rent and no food sold. Sargassum has kept its gate shut since July 9, 2026, by the Authority's notice reported in the St. Thomas Source, and its own page showed no reopening when we checked on October 9, 2026. From the middle of the area, Coki Beach and Lindquist Beach are 3 minutes each by car, Sapphire Beach 6, Secret Harbour Beach and Vessup Beach 10, and Magens Bay 18.

Rent a car. The ground here measures rolling, gentler than the hillsides above Red Hook. St. John is an easy day: the passenger ferry from Red Hook takes 20 minutes at $8.15 an adult, and the last boat back is 10 pm from Cruz Bay per the Department of Public Works as of September 2026. A taxi from the airport is $20 to $23 for one person and $15 to $17 each for two or more, the low end for Smith Bay itself and the high end for the Margaritaville and Sugar Bay resorts and for Red Hook, on the Virgin Islands Taxicab Commission's tariff in force since October 2022, plus $3 a bag.

The tradeoff is that the two beaches on the doorstep are the busy one and the shut one. Coki draws the taxis from the cruise piers, its lot is small and charges for a space, and Smith Bay Park has been closed since July. Until it reopens, the nearest other sand is Sapphire Beach, 6 minutes away, or Magens Bay at $7 a person per the Magens Bay Authority as of October 2026. Before you plan a morning at Coral World, read its closed days for the month.

Suits a family with children who want the St. John ferry, a snorkeling beach and the airport all within easy reach.

Getting around

Smith Bay needs a car: the roads roll rather than climb, the beach is on foot and Charlotte Amalie is 18 minutes by road.

Parts of Estate Smith Bay still have no public water: in January 2026 the Water and Power Authority told the Legislature it supports a line to the unserved stretches but had no money to build it, so houses there rely on cisterns and bought water in the dry season. Phones work along Smith Bay Road, by our read, and the owner can say whether the house has a generator.

Beaches near Smith Bay

• Coki Beachabout 3 min
• Lindquist Beachabout 3 min
• Sapphire Beachabout 6 min