Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Caribbean Princess in San Juan, Puerto Rico


Hello from San Juan! You know it's going to be a good day when the ship's bridge cam view looks like this all day.
We love San Juan. It's probably one of our favorite non-cruise places in the world. In fact, in all our visits to San Juan this is the first time we've arrived by cruise ship. Usually we just fly here and spend a few days eating, drinking, and relaxing. We know this town. And we are so happy to be back.

It's our first visit post-hurricane. When the hurricane hit and pictures and stories started coming back to the mainland from Puerto Rico, we were heartbroken. We still carry sadness in our hearts over the US government's response. While there isn't anything we can personally do, we can spend our tourist dollars here.

When we stay here we always avoid the cruise port (and cruise passengers) so we can have a more authentic Puerto Rican experience. But with hubby still not feeling sprightly, we couldn't veer too far from port. We bought him a t-shirt to replace his old San Juan one at home that has long since been faded and stretched out. We sat in the shade drinking fresh squeezed lemonade and watched the goings on around the food trucks.

Since the hurricane our go-to spot for breakfast, lunch, and dinner is closed on Wednesdays. So instead we stopped at Tijuana's. It's tucked away down by the water near the cruise port. You'd miss it if you weren't looking for it. Those are the kinds of places we like.
 We shared a delicious plate of beef fajita enchiladas with rice and beans.

It was a great day. I would have liked to do more, but with hubby it's just not possible to get too far from the ship right now. I have plenty of San Juan photos from previous visits, but here is one my all time favorites I took as we were getting ready to land at the airport.
How can you not love a city this beautiful?

Some other things from today:
*I went up to talk to our old cabin steward about his towel animal video I posted on YouTube yesterday. His family back home were so excited to see him making towel animals on the internet. His six year old son couldn't believe his dad knew how to do it! His wife has been sharing it with family and friends and posting it to Facebook. I am happy I was able to be part of him feeling like a movie star today.
*The gals in International Cafe saw the picture I posted of them yesterday and the thank you I wrote. They were surprised to see how important they really are in a passenger's life. One gal is sharing with her mom what we wrote. Her parents should be proud. 

We have the Most Traveled Guest Party tonight up in Skywalkers. Again, if I take food pics I'll post them when we get back.

Medallion™ Update:
To make the progression of the roll-out more clear I've grouped the posts by week. You can find today's post here.

Want to see how we got here? I started on Caribbean Princess back on August 18. 
Check it out:Sept 1-8 updates can be found here.
August 25-Sept 1 updates can found here.
August 18-25 updates can be found here.

Encouraging Words Money Pocket Drop Off:
Left on Deck 5. You can pretty much guess where.