Grand Africa Cruise - San Juan, Puerto Rico

Cruise Day 69

 Saturday, December 17, 2022

“Travel opens your heart, broadens your mind, and fills your life with stories to tell.”  -- Paula Bendfelt

Some of these daily travel related sayings I have been using hit the mark better than others and I have to say, today’s really does score a bullseye for Val and I, it is so very true.

Today we are in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the last port of the voyage before we return to Fort Lauderdale.  From Google, here is a description of Puerto Rico:  "Puerto Rico is a Caribbean island and unincorporated U.S. territory with a landscape of mountains, waterfalls and the El Yunque tropical rainforest. In San Juan, the capital and largest city, the Isla Verde area is known for its hotel strip, beach bars and casinos. Its Old San Juan neighborhood features colorful Spanish colonial buildings and El Morro and La Fortaleza, massive, centuries-old fortresses." .

The island of Puerto Rico in the Caribbean.

This is the part of San Juan we are docked at (the red starred marker).  The long peninsula where we are docked is the Old Town San Juan area.

Today will be a busy day for all of us, including the crew.  First off, because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, we are officially entering back into the United States and all passengers and crew will have to get off the ship and go through customs.  The crew will do this a little differently than us passengers and for us it means that no one will be allowed back on the ship until everyone goes through customs.

The other things complicating today are a ship health inspection, a customs inspection of the ship and a Coast Guard inspection of the ship all in preparation for finishing the cruise in Fort Lauderdale.  The Coast Guard inspection is quite intensive, and includes crew training and drills.  None of this affects the passengers, but the drills will be going on all morning.

Because there are ship excursions scheduled for various times as well as independent tours, the ship has planned for different groups to get off at different times to make the process more efficient.  Unfortunately, it didn’t go quite as planned, at least for us.

We had a ship excursion booked that left at 9:45 so we were to meet in the showroom and then wait for the OK to get off the ship, go through customs and then join our tour.  Just after we had gotten the OK, there was an announcement that anyone who hadn’t yet been through customs to do so right now.  By the time we had gotten down to the gangway there was a huge line of people moving very slowly getting off the ship.

It seemed like it took forever to get off the ship, but we finally made it just after 9:00.  One thing I forgot to mention earlier was that it was raining this morning.  It had let up some so it was just a drizzle as we made our way from the ship to the terminal building, but we did get a little wet.  We had brought our rain jackets but hadn’t put them on yet.

Going through customs turned out to be the fastest thing that happened this morning as we were through in minutes.  We made our way out to the buses only to be told that our tour had left several minutes ago.  We had left the showroom at the same time as everyone else, but evidently, they had taken the elevator all the way down and were able to cut into the line.

The person in charge of the tours said they would call the bus back and we could join our tour that way.  We weren’t looking forward to this as we were sure the rest of the people wouldn’t be too happy with having to come back to get us, but it turned out all right; they knew what the lines were like.  

Our tour today was “Old San Juan Fortresses and Shopping”.  San Juan has two very old forts that were used to defend the island and we would be touring them.  There are two parts of San Juan; there is the new, modern city and the Old Town area.  We would be spending our time in Old Town San Juan.  Another quote from Google, this time describing San Juan: "San Juan, Puerto Rico's capital and largest city, sits on the island's Atlantic coast. Its widest beach fronts the Isla Verde resort strip, known for its bars, nightclubs and casinos. Cobblestoned Old San Juan features colorful Spanish colonial buildings and 16th-century landmarks including El Morro and La Fortaleza, massive fortresses with sweeping ocean views, as well as the Paseo de la Princesa bayside promenade." .

The map above is the San Juan Old Town area.  The fort located on the far left point of land is Fort San Felipe del Morro, the second fort we visited today.  The first fort we visited was Fort San Cristobal that is the green area in the upper middle area on the map.  When you look down from that you can see a large pier which is the primary and best cruise docking area.  Unfortunately there was already a ship docked there so we were docked at the less desirable pier further to the left.  It didn't really matter as there was a shuttle that ran all day to the center of Old Town. 

Our first stop was Fort San Cristobal and since it was still raining, we donned our rain gear and started exploring.  These fortresses are national parks, so our guide led us in and paid our way and after some introductory information, gave us an hour to explore on our own.  It was quite interesting, and we spent a lot of time walking and exploring.  The good news was that the rain stopped, and we were seeing some blue sky, so we were able to take our rain jackets off.  It was quite humid, but the cloud cover was keeping the temperature down, so it was pretty comfortable.

The entrance to the fort.

This is the main plaza, the lowest level of the fort.  It's a little damp out.

 

There are three levels to the fort.  The ramp in the picture leads up to the highest level that is an observation level.  The middle of the three rounded openings under the ramp is a ramp up to the second level that is the main firing battery level.

This led under the second level to the cells where prisoners were kept.

This is one of the cells, not very hospitable looking.

Some graffiti from the colonial days.

This is on the main plaza level looking towards the entrance.

A closer look at the ramp heading up to the second level, we are heading there next.

Looking back down the tunnel to the lower level.

This is the main firing battery level.

One of the turrets looking out over the harbor.

I'm checking out the view.

One of the views from the turret, you can see Fort San Felipe del Morro off in the distance.

We moved on to the upper level where we had the best views of the surrounding area and the fort below.

You can see the other cruise ship that was in San Juan today.  Our ship is docked further down.

Looking down at the main plaza area.

Before leaving I took some pictures from the parking area.

After finishing our visit to Fort San Cristobal, it was back on the bus and off to the next fortress, Fort San Felipe del Morro.  There was no easy access for the bus to get close, so we had a long walk to get to it.  Unfortunately, the rain had started again so the rain jackets went back on as we started our walk.  There was a farmer’s market going, but there wasn’t much business because of the weather.  The rain started coming down harder and harder and at that point, several people including Val decided they were heading back to the bus.

The rest of us plodded on in the rain and I started to get quite wet, my pants and shoes weren’t protected so they soaked through.  Because of the humidity, it felt like I was as wet under my rain jacket as the outside was.  Several people had not brought any rain protection and they really got soaked.

We finally made it to the fort and as luck would have it, it stopped raining again and we were happy to see a little sun.  Once again, we were given an hour to explore before having to be back on the bus.  I looked around quite a bit and then headed back to the bus and as I neared it a light rain began to fall again.

The walk up to Fort San Felipe del Morro.  It was about here that the skies really opened up and it poured.  Some people weren't prepared and they really got soaked, but I got pretty wet myself even wearing a rain jacked and hood.

The entrance to Fort San Felipe del Morro.

This is the main plaza level.  I didn't spend much time at this level.

There were more levels here than the other fort, but I believe this is level 4, the main firing battery.

Looking out to sea, it was a nasty looking day.

This looking back at the way we came in.  If you look at the upper middle left of the picture there is a building with a kind of pink color.  If you look down from that, there is a mini-bus parked just below the grassy area.  That is our bus and that's where Val and about half of the others on this tour are sitting nice and dry while the rest of us are getting soaked.

This is one of the prison cells.

This fort is quite old and as some of the newer layers peel off you can see the early construction.

Looking down into the main plaza level.

The rain had tapered off, but I was wet and headed back to the bus.

This is a little better picture of where our mini-bus was parked.  It is the only bus in the upper right part of the picture.

Before getting back on the bus, there was a cemetery nearby, so I walked down to take a look.

One last look at Fort San Felipe del Morro.

The final part of this tour was to be the Plaza de Colon where there were historical buildings, shops, bars and restaurants.  We were only given thirty minutes, but since there was a ship shuttle that also went there, we were given the option of leaving the tour and spending as much time as we wanted and then returning via the ship shuttle.

By this time, it had started raining quite hard again and more than half of the tour group (including us) said they just wanted to go back to the ship.  Because we were close to the port, our guide said they could take us to the ship and then go back and get anyone who wanted to take the tour bus back.

We were driven back near the terminal and, with the customs agents and crowds gone, we were quickly back through the security check and back on the ship.  I had to change all of my clothes as I was soaked through to the skin.  I wasn’t nearly as wet as I had been in Athens back in 2017 when there was a torrential rainstorm as we visited the Acropolis, but I was still uncomfortably damp.  Here is a link to what I wrote about the very wet day.

It was getting near 1:30 and the Lido closed for lunch at 2:00 so after getting on dry clothes, we were off to lunch.  After lunch, the rain had let up and Val and I decided to take the shuttle back into Old Town and do some exploring and shopping.

This was taken from our balcony, not a bad view.  Although the clouds still looked ominous, it was brighter and there were patches of blue sky, so we decided to go back into town.

We quickly made our way off the ship and through the terminal to the shuttle pickup point.  We got right on but had to wait a while as the shuttle leaves every half hour.  It was about a ten-minute drive to Plaza de Colon in the old town area.

Val wanted to look at the shops as this would be the last chance to shop before returning home.  Old Town San Juan is a nice area to walk through and we found a few things to buy before heading back to the shuttle.  The Plaza de Colon was all decorated for Christmas and looked very nice.  We didn’t take any pictures as we decided to travel light and that included not bringing our cameras.

There was a line of people waiting for the shuttle as it was getting late in the afternoon, but once the bus showed up everyone got on without a problem.  After returning to the ship, we spent the rest of the afternoon resting and relaxing.  Just before dinner it started raining very heavily, and the water was even pooling up on our balcony.

The ship doesn’t leave tonight until 11:00 so there are still lots of people in town enjoying dinner and / or drinks; I wonder if they came prepared for rain.  The hard rain continued through dinner that put a damper on some of the evening’s ship activities.  The Lido Buffet was having what they called an All American dinner in honor of being back in the US.  We didn’t go, but the menu sounded good with a lot of typical American comfort food that we have missed since leaving home.

It was a nice sunset and it didn't look too threatening, but it wasn't long before the skies opened up again and ruined some evening plans.

Dinner wasn’t affected by the rain, but the event afterward was I would guess.  It was called a Barn Dance and was a country music themed event with line dancing and country music.  It was to be held out on the Lido Pool Deck and I think it would have been quite wet out there as the rain hadn’t let up.  It may have been moved to the indoor pool area, but we don’t know as neither one of us was interested in attending.

After dinner there was no casino as we are still in port so we returned to the room.  I decided to write the blog for the day and Val read until it was time to go to bed.  Right after I went to bed, I heard some popping going on outside and when I checked, there were fireworks going off in the distance, probably the San Juan Old Town area.  I watched for a while and then it seemed to end, but a little later it started up again.  I don’t know what it was for, maybe some special occasion or maybe they do it every Saturday night during the tourist season.

I wanted to watch the sail away as I think the fortresses in Old Town would be lit up, but we didn’t leave at the scheduled 11:00 PM time so I called it a night.  Tomorrow is the first of our last two days at sea before we arrive back in Fort Lauderdale and the end of our cruise.