The Virginia Blogs: Old San Juan, and Sailing Away

We were up and at up bright and early the next day!

Ok, I’m a liar. We rolled out of bed somewhere around 8, ate breakfast, went back to the room and took a nap. We went out to the pool for a quick dip and it was WAY too cold for any form of dipping. So we walked out to the little public beach outside the gate and took a dip in the ocean. That was much more enjoyable.*

We headed back in and took some quick showers, packed up our stuff and checked out with about a minute to spare. Since this was a pretty swanky hotel, they were more than happy to store our luggage while we went exploring San Juan.

Now, Tom is infamous for his dislike and distrust of public transportation, but that’s probably because he only ever dealt with what passed for mass transit in northern Jersey. Which isn’t much, and isn’t very reliable. But I insisted that we try the bus system, which was simple and straightforward. It took about ½ an hour for the bus to show up, but it was $.50** and took us to the Old San Juan Casino, which was where we stayed last time and knew exactly where we were.

We headed up for El Morro, the fort at the bay entrance to San Juan Bay. Even though we had been here before, I naturally picked up back alley to walk down where we were both convinced that knocking on any of the doors would have gotten us just about anything we wanted. Homegrown. We quickly got off that street and found another that lead us up to the top of the hill that San Juan is on, and to the Plaza Las Americas. Or I think that what it was.



Now, I would like you to notice the sky in that picture. It had been sunny all morning, until we emerged on to this plaza. It looked, from what we had seen on the Weather Channel in the hotel, all the storms were going to go south of the city, or dissipate before it hit the city. So, we shrugged it off.

We headed up for the castle in El Morro.



Yeah, the thing that’s under construction.*** Note the clouds.

We hiked up the hill. The surf was really high and breaking in beautiful surfing waves, and I would have been tempted if the entire coast hadn’t be completely covered in rocks. We were rewarded after walking with one of the most famous sights in all of the Caribbean:



This is one of the guard turrets from El Morro. This is on every brochure for Puerto Rico and Caribbean cruises that has ever existed. And it’s OLD. One of the oldest European fortifications in the North America. Somewhere around 1610, 1625.



We walked up to the gate to see if we could go in to the castle (that was under construction).



Naturally, being administered by the US Dept. of the Interior, there was a $10 charge to go in. Um, no thanks. So we started to head back to the Casino where we could catch the bus and go back to the hotel to retrieve our bags.



Now, look at the mountains across the bay. What mountains, you say, everything is blurred by rain.

Precisely.

By the time we got back to the shopping district from El Morro, it had started to drizzle. About 6 blocks later, as we were heading down a cobblestone street****, it was pouring. By the time we were about a block from the casino, it was tropical torrential downpour… the kind even your underwear isn’t safe from. We hid out by the post office for a moment, but I knew that it wasn’t really worth it; we were already drenched.

It was nearly 3 p.m. and I knew that Tom wanted to get on the boat as soon as possible. Now that I was drenched and disgusted by it, I was anxious to get on there too. We were heading back to the bus stop we originally got off at, when I looked over to my right. There, lo and behold, was a covered bus terminal. Since it was still pouring, I dragged Tom over and we sat down waiting for our bus.

I am completely convinced that the Puerto Ricans are descended from penguins; the bus, which you expect to be poorly temperature controlled, was freezing. Now, instead of being just miserably wet, we were miserably wet and cold. Yeay.

We got off the bus a stop too early, which thankfully was only a block from the stop we actually needed. We headed back to the hotel, and collected our things. They were nice enough to call us a taxi and I ran to the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and decided that it was hopeless; I would embrace my drowned rat appearance.

We hopped into the taxi, and it was only a 10 minute ride to the PanAmerican Pier. It might have only been about 4 minutes, except for this construction zone we had to go through. I think that the construction has been there for a long time, because I remember it from 7 years ago.

The taxi driver dropped us off and before we walked in to check-in for the cruise, I grabbed a dry shirt for both of us and shoved that in our carry-ons. We dropped off the luggage and headed into the building. They had vastly improved their check-in techniques since we had last checked in. We were in, on the line, checked in and onto the gang way within about 20 minutes. Last time, it took nearly two hours to even get on the right line.*****

As we approached the first check point on the way into the ship, we were halted by photographers. I knew they were coming, I was hoping to get by without getting my Drowned Rat Status documented, but they were somewhat unrelenting, and I knew that I wasn't going to buy the photo anyway. We did it quickly and got onto the ship.

We headed up to our stateroom and once we were there, I quickly got out of the soaking wet clothes. We headed up to the Windjammer Café and grabbed a very large, very late lunch. A foolish idea, really. Dinner was going to be at 8:45, and here we were packing it in at 5:30.

We just wandered around the ship for about two hours and checked the place out. We then headed back to our cabin for the muster drill and discovered that if the ship was sinking, we’d be some of the last people off. Hooray? We were in a very fancy dining room in the interior of the ship for our muster station. If we were going down fast, I don’t think we’d made the boat. But the likelihood that we would be hitting an iceberg were slim.

We headed off for dinner, and enjoyed ourselves a bit too much. During the dinner, we pulled away from the dock and we were given no warning. We just started feeling sick until we realized we were moving. Then we felt better.

After that, we were tired and worn out and knew we had an early excursion the next morning. We checked out the Schooner Bar for a quick drink, then headed back to the room.


Adios, San Juan.



_______________________
*except for my watch. It was supposed to be water resistant to 50 meters. I looked at about an hour after this and the crystal was fogged. I was pissed. By the end of the cruise it had stopped working. I’m looking for the paper work for it; that thing was under a year old and it shouldn’t have taken on water or stopped working.
**A wonderful thing about Puerto Rico. 80% of the population speaks English (despite what you might think!) and they use the US dollar. No exchange rate! Woo hoo!
***If it’s famous, and I’m vacationing there, it’s under construction!
****Cobblestone is SLIPPERY when wet, and I’m not talking about a Bon Jovi album here.
*****That was with NCL, and it was a complete disaster. It took a total of 3 hours to board, which closed two hours after it was supposed and we were so held up on the line that we missed the muster drill. That was just the beginning of it, too. It went downhill from there.

The Virginia Blogs: Puerto Rico, You Lovely Island…

There is nothing in the world like trying to sleep before you have to get on a plane at 6 a.m., at an airport that is an hour away from your house and you have to be there an hour and half before boarding. Do the Math.*

In other words, there wasn’t much sleep at all. But we cranked our butts out of bed, closed up, wished the kitties well, and were out the door on time. Thanks to packing the night before.

Richmond Airport is small. I’m not used to these tiny little airports—their wheels aren’t as greased as Newark or Atlanta. Things tend to move a little less smoothly. And the TSA agents don’t seem to read their own regulations. I really don’t like TSA agents in the small airports; I hate to say it dude, but the terrorists would hardly hijack a PiperCub from Norfolk to fulfill a suicide mission, so chill out.

If you couldn’t tell, I’m a little miffed about security. I have always carefully read the regulations and know exactly what I can and can’t bring on board the plane, what I have to check and all of that. Right. Well, I’ve had my pocket knife since I was 19. It’s the MacGyver model, with the corkscrew. I bought one for me and one for my friend R. I have carried it through 8 or more European countries and who knows how many Caribbean islands. I had this thing in my purse when I boarded a plane on Dec. 12, 2001 when the security was off the chart.

Mr. Important TSA Agent pulls me aside and starts going through the purse. He pokes down into the purse where the knife resides (coated with purse detrius), “Mm. Hm. Ah. Hmm. Yup.” And he pulls out the knife like it was freakin’ black asp ready to bite. “That’s what I thought it was. You can’t take this on the plane.”

“That’s a 3 inch blade,” I respond. “It falls under the guidelines.”

“No ma’am, this is not allowed,” he nodded superiorly at me.

“I’ve never ever had it questioned before,” I said.

“Then someone wasn’t paying attention,” he said.

I was going to put up a fight, but I stopped. I recalled reading an article in a magazine not so long ago where the gentleman carried a corkscrew with a foil cutter—a knife that was perhaps an inch long and tried to put up a fight about it and failed. Despite the fact that he too had checked the TSA website and fell under the guidelines. What I wanted to scream at him was something about the 12” knitting needles that were now allowed and that he had to be kidding me. Instead I just stared at him.

“Would you like to go put this in your car?”

Well, hell, why would I want to do that? I would ADORE throwing out my 14 year old pocket knife that has never been questioned before. I reached for it and he pulled back teasingly. “No ma’am, you’ll have to step outside the screening area and I’ll hand it back to you.”

Jackass. Fine. I didn’t say another thing. I pulled my shoes back on, and headed for the exit area and he finally gave me my pocket knife back. I marched out the car mumbling swear words that questioned the agent’s parentage, and left the knife in the cup holder.

Then I had to go through security again. Grr.

So, I finally get out to the plane and we board fairly soon after we get out there. It was a pretty quick boarding, and before we knew it we were already out on the runway, ready to take off. I was hoping for a little nap, but the flight wasn’t really long enough. We landed in Atlanta in about an hour and 10 minutes.

And then we got to sit in Jackson Hartsfield Int’l Airport for 3 hours. But it wasn’t really sitting. We were assigned to gate C9. We walked over to C9** and sat down.(1) About an hour later, the speaker overhead pings, and announces that our flight will now be leaving from D5. Crap.

We grab our things and walk back to Terminal D. Now, mind you, Atlanta is the busy airport in the US. Perhaps in the world. There are two planes taking off and two planes landing every two minutes. There are five terminals with 40 gates, plus the main terminal. Going from C9 to D5 meant walk back to 2/3rds of the way down the terminal, going down the escalator, walking through the tunnel, going back up the escalator, and walking back down the terminal to D5. Did I mention that our original plane landed at D4? Yeah.

We sit down, settle in, and about ½ an hour later, the speaker pings again, and now the plane is at D9. We, and the other 100 people waiting for this plane, get up and migrate down to D9. We sit down, and fifteen minutes later we’re told that the plane will be leaving from D5 again. Everyone is getting angry, so this time, they at least offer the explanation that that walkway is not working.

Despite all that the plane was at the gate on time and we were actually able to pull away from the gate on time. Up, up and away, and off to Puerto Rico.

The flight to San Juan was 3 and half hours, and we both managed to grab a few winks before we gave up on that. And at 4:00 AST, we touched down in Luis Munoz Marin International Airport, San Juan, Puerto Rico!

Tom goes out for a cigarette and almost couldn’t get back in because I had his boarding pass. Lesson 1: Never leave an airport without your boarding pass—there was no way I was going to be able to handle 6 pieces of luggage. No, I didn’t over pack, thankyouverymuch. We were able to get a taxi right outside the door. Taxi Turistico, if you ever happen to find yourself in San Juan. Authorized by the Tourism board, guaranteed rates, no negotiation. Best way to go.

Our taxi takes us to one of the hotels just inside Old San Juan on the Condado. If you want to stay in San Juan, you want to stay on the Condado or in Isla Verde. It’s gorgeous and the hotels are fantastic. We stayed in the Normandie Hotel, an art deco hotel designed to look like a cruise ship which was gutted and rebuilt in 2005.



The coolest thing were these fish tanks:



When you got in to the elevators on the first floor, you could see them. There were some cool fish in them, too.

The window in our room was fogged up because it was so humid, but when you opened the window, you had the most wonderful view.


Ft. Geronimo, the end of the fortifications of Old San Juan.

The pool was freezing, the ocean was much warmer. The problem was that the room we were in was apparently had it’s AC programmed by visiting Eskimos. I looked at the thermostat and it was 60 degrees. SIXTY. I don’t even keep my AC at home in the middle of Virginia summer lower than 73. So I cranked the temp up to about 70 and it was still freezing in there.

This was the best way to sleep in there:


We settled in and decided to just go to dinner and relax. We were just too tired from being up for about 24 hours (with a few naps) to try to do anything. Tomorrow was time to get on the ship!