Carnival Splendor Journeys Review: Day 7 – San Juanfeatured
If you asked me to list my favorite Caribbean ports, San Juan would be towards the top. To be fair, I’d probably have more than a few at the top, but San Juan would be up there.
There’s so much that I love: I love that every building is a different color and I love the way the colored buildings are punctuated by cobblestone streets. I love the immense pride Puerto Ricans take in their country and their culture. I love San Juan. I love the coffee. I love love love the language. I can’t speak Spanish as well as I used to, but anytime I’m in a Spanish speaking country, it just comes back, rolling off my tongue the way it did when I was still in school.
When the hurricane hit Puerto Rico in September, every news report was like a bee sting to my heart. The vibrant island I’ve fallen in love with over the past ten years was so damaged and we didn’t really know what the reality of the situation was. When I visited Cuba in September, the Cuban people we met and conversed with had mentioned they were frustrated at how the damage to their island was misrepresented in the American media and how worried they were it would hurt tourism. And the same goes for Puerto Rico – we didn’t know if (and how much) progress had been made towards recovery. We didn’t know if the state of San Juan was as bad as the rest of the island. But what we did know was that in order for the country to recover, it needed to reopen to tourists as soon as possible.
It was raining when we pulled into San Juan, and we took our time getting ready to leave the ship with no real rush: our only plans for the day were to walk around Old San Juan, maybe pick up the trolley to El Morro or Castillo de San Cristobal. We had a nice pre-cruise stay in San Juan a few years ago, and I spent a long weekend on the island with one of my friends last year, so there isn’t much in San Juan I haven’t done, seen or taken a picture of. As we were getting ready, Stephanie saw a picture on Instagram of a rainbow on the other side of the island. This day also marked the sixth anniversary of our grandma’s passing, and we knew the rainbow was a sign that she was with us. Two years ago, the last time we cruised on this day, the exact same thing happened as we docked in Bonaire: a short rain shower followed by intense sunlight and a rainbow on the opposite side of the island. I like to believe that there are signs that our loved ones are looking out for us after they leave us, and this was our little sign that she was still cruising with us.
We missed breakfast in the dining room, so we had a quick one up on Lido deck before we stepped to the outside deck to survey the island. If we didn’t know a hurricane tore through the island three months prior, we would have never known: San Juan is up and running, and aside from the replanted palm trees, from the cruise ship, everything looked as we had left it.
As we left the ship and began our walk, the damage became a little more obvious, in the form of crumbling facades and blown out windows that hadn’t yet been replaced. But San Juan is fully functional, with power restored and running water.
It was a scorcher outside, with temperatures in the upper 80s, so as we left the ship, we ducked into a nearby Walgreens to grab some coconut water to hydrate with before we continued on our walk through Old San Juan.
A short walk from the Walgreens was Cuatro Sombras, a highly rated coffee shop not far from the pier. We stopped in for some coffee and a sandwich and it was packed, but lucky for us, we followed the signs through the courtyard to a coffee lab in the back of the building, where there were plenty of tables, no lines and a charming view of the colorful building across the narrow cobblestone street.
Hydrated and caffeinated, we set out to walk around and explore as many of the side streets as we could. I’m obsessed with the streets in Old San Juan. The colors, the narrow streets, the way every building is different and unique. I can’t get enough. This was my fourth visit to San Juan and I still walk around with my jaw dropped to the ground. Every corner we turned brought something new into view, and the longer we looked, the finer the details were. We spent an entire morning just walking around.
Our time in port was short – we docked around 8:00 AM and our back onboard was at 2:30 PM – so by noon, we were ready to start our walk back to the ship. As we were walking, we spotted a Starbucks and I just had to make one more stop. The Puerto Rico Starbucks locations have a pastry called Quesito con Nutella, which is like a flaky Danish filled with Nutella. It’s delicious and it’s not a proper visit to San Juan until I have one.
With the obligatory Quesito con Nutella checked off the list, we made one more stop at the Walgreens to stock up on Diet Coke (for Mom and Stephanie), coconut water (for me) and snacks for the airplane ride home. A Holland America ship was docked with us (with a Royal Caribbean and a Celebrity ship at a pier across from Old San Juan), and Walgreens was packed with hundreds of ship workers and tourists stocking up on the essentials. Walgreens also had a large selection of souvenirs, but there are also plenty of booths along the pier where you can pick up t-shirts, beach towels, magnets and all kinds of jewelry.
We dropped our bags back at the room and headed up to the Lido deck for lunch. I was still stuffed from the delicious PBJ sandwich I had at Cuatro Sombras (…and the Quesito from Starbucks) so I picked at a plate of hacked nachos we put together with chips from the burrito bar and chili, cheese and pico from the grill. Lido hacks are fun, aren’t they? On a ship without the 2.0 upgrades, the nachos were just about as good as it got.
Instead of hitting the pool deck, we lounged out on our balcony, where we left port a little later than scheduled. The views of El Morro and La Perla as we sailed out towards open waters were spectacular. Sailing out of San Juan, the best views are from pure aft, with second best being the starboard side of the ship.
This evening was our second formal night, the throwback formal night, and plenty of old school Carnival events on the Fun Times as part of our Journeys itinerary. First up was the Captain’s Cocktail Party. Ten years ago, the line to get in was dozens of people deep 20 minutes before the doors even opened and it was just about impossible to get a drink. This time, the attendance was thin — either because it was the first of the evening (the first cocktail party was at 5:00 PM, with the second at 7:00 PM) or because many of our fellow cruisers had Blue and Red cards and may not know that the Captain’s Cocktail Party meant 45 minutes of free drinks. It worked in our favor, though: we had as much champagne as we could drink and plenty of mini quiches and meatballs replenished on our plates.
The dinner menu was a throwback, as well, with the old Captain’s Gala menus. Entrée options included lobster, beef tenderloin and, my favorite, Vegetables Princess. And Baked Alaska for dessert (not on parade, but just as delicious). We each ordered the beef tenderloin and split a Vegetables Princess and it was just as tasty as I remembered it to be the last time I had it – more than ten years ago.
Bread Basket
Italian Wedding Soup
Chilled Strawberry Bisque
Grilled Portobello Mushrooms
Caesar Salad
Tossed Salad with Iceberg, Tomatoes, Cucumbers
Tournedos of Beef Tenderloin
Baked Vegetables Princess
Baked Alaska
And, for funsies, here’s a throwback picture of the last time Vegetables Princess was on the menu — onboard the Pride in 2006! Needless to say, the throwback dinner menu was a big hit in our family!
There was no Playlist show tonight, so after dinner, we sat out near the casino, where there was a singer doing a live acoustic set. The evening movie was an encore presentation of Dirty Dancing, so we stayed in the room, where TBS was running a Cameron Diaz marathon.
When midnight struck, we headed down to deck three for our final formal night throwback activity: the Grand Gala Buffet. The line wrapped all the way around the lobby and the doors opened late, which, at midnight, meant plenty of people trying to creatively cut the line and plenty of people grumpy about people cutting the line.
Carnival stopped doing these buffets years ago. I think John Heald said at one point it was because so much food was going to waste and given how much food they put out, I imagine that’s very true. The spread was incredibly creative and expansive, with tropical fruits, all kinds of breads and salads, fruit and ice carvings, a variety of aspics and seafood, sliced duck and various pates and the dessert spread to end all dessert spreads. And if all of that wasn’t enough, there was a separate hot bar, with sandwiches, chicken breasts and beef filets. It was midnight, and they were serving filet mignon on a buffet line. Beyond the sheer manpower it takes to pull off this kind of event, I can’t even begin to fathom the expense. It was truly extravagant. We didn’t eat much – a bunch of grapes, a slice of cake and a parfait between the two of us (plus a slice of cheesecake we took back to Mom) – but the experience of walking through it and marveling at the presentation and variety…I missed that. And I didn’t realize how much I missed “old cruising” until we were reminded of the things we no longer have (like the Captain’s Party and this grand buffet).
We settled back in the room with a Sex and the City marathon, too awake to sleep. The next day would bring our final port of call in Grand Turk, and as slow as the start of this cruise felt, the end was coming up far too fast.
