Cruise Day 4, Wednesday November 4th-San Juan Puerto Rico

I had a rough night. I was woken up in the middle of the night with awful reflux. That hasn’t happen in a long time. I didn’t have many snacks in the cabin. Usually trying to eat something with carbs helps with the reflux. I found some rice krispies, so I munched on a little bit of that. I ended up sitting in bed for quite some time reading until it settled down a bit.

Once we got to breakfast, I ate a bagel & cream cheese in hopes it would help as I still wasn’t feeling well. I also took some meds and got a little bit of relief briefly.

Everyone took off to their usual places after breakfast and I sat on the balcony for a little to read. When Sarah & the littles came back from their walk, she said she thought about taking them up on deck to possibly watch the movie that was playing. So I changed into my swim suit and headed up to join them. We had nice seats on a tiered deck and could see all over the pool deck. The movie was over though and the dance leader was leading a class on learning the moves to thriller so we watched that for a bit. It was pretty windy out at this so you really had to watch your stuff didn’t blow away.

My littles sunbathing!

The girls played for a little bit in the splash area then decided they were ready to head back to the room. I wasn’t up for eating lunch and the older 4 kids had gone and eaten on their own so Kevin decided to just make up a plate of food to bring back to the room for them. He was going to meet our friends to play tv trivia and I said I would feed the girls and get them down for a nap as we were planning to walk around San Juan for a little bit before dinner.

As the girls got up from their naps, we could see land from our balcony and knew we would soon be pulling into port. In fact, since we knew we had cell service in San Juan, we turned on our phones and saw we already had coverage so we sent some messages back home to let a few people know we were doing well.

We wanted to snap some photos of Castillo San Felipe del Morro as we sailed by so we headed to the opposite side of the ship. We actually got to tour this fort on our last trip here as we had arrived earlier in the afternoon. It was really cool to see and I'd recommended it to anyone who has a chance to tour it to go. You can take the free trolley there, it's very inexpensive (I think we paid $4 a person and kids were free).

 Then we headed back to our room to watch the ship dock as the dock would be on our side of the ship. It was neat to see how they threw out the lines to the people waiting on the dock. We also got to watch how they prepare the dock for people to disembark. Things we never would’ve known about if we hadn’t had a balcony to watch from.

People were allowed to get off the ship around 4pm so it was fun sitting on the balcony watching everyone leave. We even recognized several people we knew. Since we had an odd arrival time, there really wasn’t much to do in town as many things closed around dinner time. We had been here twice before, once riding around on the free trolley and another time touring a fort so we just decided we’d get off and walk around a little bit. We waited until the crowds had gotten off then we left the ship around 5.

Our view of the port and passengers heading into San Juan from our balcony.

 We walked around a bit, taking photos of the scenery and checking out some of the stands local artisans had set up. This was our 3rd time to this island and we've done quite a bit of exploring so we kept it low key this time

 We hit a CVS as I thought maybe picking up some Tums may help combat my reflux a bit. We also looked around to make sure there was nothing we were forgetting from home. It was kind of funny to use my extra care card in Puerto Rico! I got coupons that printed out on my receipt which will still be good when we get home. I said it would be kind of funny to redeem them at home and watch their reaction to Spanish coupons!

Cobblestone streets

 We got back on the ship around 6pm and decided to go to dinner in the Windjammer. None of us were overly hungry anyway so it was nice just to grab whatever looked good to eat. After getting some broth, chicken & mashed potatoes down, I was finally starting to feel a bit better. Later on while getting the littles ready for bed, I knew I was still a bit hungry so I ended up going down to the café and getting a sandwich before bed and sat out on the balcony to eat it and people watch.

 After a while, Susan and I noticed a vehicle pulling away from our ship on the dock. As I looked closer, I realized it was a hearst.  2 days prior, we had heard an alpha call (equivalent of 911 on a ship). To be honest, the demographics of this sailing is mainly those 60 and older so it isn’t surprising when you have over 3,500 people that that would happen. Susan later heard from her club leader that an 82yr old man had passed away from a heart attack.

View of the Carnival ship at the neighboring dock.

 We finished our evening by watching the carnival ship that was docked across from us, sail away complete with a dance party that we could hear quite loudly. We headed to bed around 10:45 and shortly after could hear the noise of the ropes being reeled in right off our side of the ship, right before we set sail ourselves.

Pre-Cruise Report
Cruise Day 1
Cruise Day 2
Cruise Day 3

Want to book your own land or sea vacation? Feel free to contact me!!