Sun 9 Sep 2007
Watches of the Caribbean Part 2 – St. Thomas
Posted by The Breitling Source under General Posts , Watches in Travel[5] Comments
This is the second stop in the Watches of the Carribean series, and buying watches from St. Thomas is different than St. Maarten. Since St. Thomas is a US Virgin Island, US/American visitors import allowances are higher than in other countries. I am not sure about the allowances… you may want to google for more information.
St. Thomas definately had much more to see and choose from than St. Maarten. The most notable of the watch dealers was Azura/Jewels. I spent most of my time there and at Princess World Jewelers, which carried Roger Dubuis, Ulysse Nardin, Hublot and also had a really nice Breitling Cockpit, solid gold bezel with diamonds, Mother of Pearl dial, for more than 50% off!! That location is not a Breitling dealership, however, they had that one, in the back… I really wanted to buy it!!
I spent a lot of time at Azura/Jewels. This first location, which is just called Jewels, carried Chopard, Jaeger LeCoultre, and many others:
I looked around at the JLC stuff, really nice, but still not my style, though the Grand Reverso was kinda cool:
The Jewels by Azura location is the one that has the massive 6 display sized Breitling booth. Check it out:
I tried on one of the small Breitling SuperOcean Heritages, and the new Bentley Mark VI Complications. The guy there, Tom, was really into the newer stuff.. I almost bought a White dialed Chrono Avenger there.. if it weren’t for the fact that the Tour was late and took forever and just took us back to the ship I may have just had to buy it! They also had one of those 8 Days alarm clocks like the Aviation ones for 40% off retail.. but retail is like $1200.
Some more pics:
I thought that the mesh bracelet for the SuperOcean heritage was pretty cool, since its mesh but still uses the Breitling styled clasps, giving it an updated mesh look. The new Ocean Racer rubber strap is nice as well.
A couple of the other booths in the Azura location include Patek Phillipe, Rolex and Omega. I took some pictures of the Omega and Patek booths, which no one was at, the Rolex booth was busy as usual… with the rep being able to rattle off the retail prices by heart. I’m not sure how much they offered for discounts off Rolex… and didn’t even bother asking to try on any Pateks… can’t afford ’em! 😉
St.Thomas has some pretty sweet shops, and I could have spent a full day alone in Jewels/Azura and Princess World Jewellers, but I refrained! Its far too easy to spend your money there… not to mention they have some pretty expensive Cognac there, I saw a bottle of Hennessy Ellipse for $5500US! I’ll take that Breitling instead, thank you very much. Anyway, that concludes the trip to the Caribbean, hope you guys enjoyed the articles, and its back to your regularly scheduled watch programming after this!
Here’s a quick video pass-through of St. Thomas’ Main Street. Not a whole lot to show but it gives you an idea of the amount of watch dealers they have!
April 15th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Currently, I am having a major problem with Azura/Jewels in St Thomas. Ibought a Breitling Legende during thr 30 minutes of my visit and had to rush to return to the ship. Yey promised to mail my box and papers to me–that was 6 moths ago. I have made numerous telephone calls — no results! I even returned to St Thomas with an appointment to retreive my property. When I arrive non one in the store could help as the sale person was off and could not be contacted. I am starting to get angry and intend to pursue the matter aggresively. DON’T BUY AT AZURA
April 28th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I am happy to update this comment and let allknow that Azura has correted the problem and the missing items arrived at my home today. I have spoken with the sales person-I will not name the person and I have not named them on any forum in the past. I am certain that this entire incident has been a series of misundestanding and poor communications. I will purchase from Azura again and I look forward to working with the sales person in the future.
November 10th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Azura Jewelery on the water front pulled a bate and switch on diamond earrings. I wanted gold studs replaced with white. When they brought them back I did not check them. When I arrive at the ship I found out they had replaced the diamonds with the cheapest possible when I had chosen upper middle quality. Ship was getting ready to sail. I am a widow & had saved three years to purchase them. I was crushed to think someone could be so cruel. It needs to stop.
March 31st, 2009 at 2:29 am
Can anyone supply an email address for Azura in Main Street, St Thomas? I bought a watch which has gone wrong after 3 weeks and I am having difficulty contacting them. The receipts etc which were being sent have not arrived – possibly gone astray. I wish to get it repaired. I was on the Caribbean Princess.
March 31st, 2009 at 8:07 am
I would phone them rather than email. You should be able to find a phone number.. did you not get a card?