Noordam cruise to Carib. from NY

[torontomale26]

Just wondering who has taken this, and is it a typo or do they only go to San Juan for 5 hours? that seems like no time to do anything. thanks to all that reply

[barante]

Yes, that's a good question. If it is only five hours -- and clearance by the U.S. immigration authorities is needed, as it is -- how long is the actual, doable port time? Three hours?
Past PAX, please enlighten us.

[RuthC]

My 10-day Noordam cruise docked in San Juan at 7:00 with a 1:00 sail-away; all-aboard was 12:30. It takes that long to return to NYC.
We didn't need to clear US Immigration in San Juan because we had cleared it the day before in St. Thomas. Didn't need to clear it in NYC, either! :) It's required to clear US Immigration when entering the US and there was a foreign port immediately prior.

[ekerr19]

Yes, it is only a few hours, if it is a Sunday, not much will be open at all.

Years ago on the Maasdam, we did not go to St. Thomas first and had immigration (on board) in San Juan - no fun. I'm glad they've changed it for most of the Eastern Caribbean sailings now.

[canoeny]

We did the port of San Juan last year on the Maasdam out of Norfolk. Immigration was checked on board earlier so the stop over didn't require that bit. We took one of the tours and had to leave the ship at 8AM; waited in lines for a short time to board buses and had a great tour with a very entertaining and informative driver. While we didn't really feel rushed, the driver did remind us at each stop that he would leave someone behind if they weren't back in time as he had an obbligation to get us back to the ship by 12:30PM. As it was, we were boarding the ship at 12:30PM as the whistle was sounding. It was far too short a time for such an interesting port but the tours were structured to fit in the most possible in that short time. We are looking forward to a different itinerary but ending with that same port stop in San Jaun this November on the Noordam. Not sure if I will take a taxi on my own or just hand off the time issue and go with a HAL tour at this point.