Hotel & Airfare - Your Opinion/Expertise Please!

DH and I have booked a cruise on AOS out of San Juan for December 2013. The price was great and I was able to snag a primo D1 cabin! However, my concern is that the airfare out of Tulsa to SJU is PRICEY to say the least. We are looking at about $1000+. Is this a somewhat normal fare to fly to San Juan?

I also did a search on this board for hotels. Someone had listed about 6 of the most popular. One of them, the rooms were about $300! El Cabrito? I think was the name of it.

So my question is - when flying out of San Juan - did you find your airfare and hotel costs higher than when flying out of say Miami or Fort Lauderdale? We got a great price on the cruise, but if the airfare and hotel is going to be astronomical - we may want to just cancel this cruise and book one on Oasis &/or Allure!

Opinions?

p.s. We have never done the southern carribean

DH and I have booked a cruise on AOS out of San Juan for December 2013. The price was great and I was able to snag a primo D1 cabin! However, my concern is that the airfare out of Tulsa to SJU is PRICEY to say the least. We are looking at about $1000+. Is this a somewhat normal fare to fly to San Juan?

 

I also did a search on this board for hotels. Someone had listed about 6 of the most popular. One of them, the rooms were about $300! El Cabrito? I think was the name of it.

 

So my question is - when flying out of San Juan - did you find your airfare and hotel costs higher than when flying out of say Miami or Fort Lauderdale? We got a great price on the cruise, but if the airfare and hotel is going to be astronomical - we may want to just cancel this cruise and book one on Oasis &/or Allure!

 

Opinions?

p.s. We have never done the southern carribean

I can only speak for our experience flying out of St. Louis, but the airfare to SJU has gone up considerably in the last few years. What we might have paid around $350pp a few years ago is now typically $500pp to $600pp. The hotels have also been pricey, though people report getting decent deals using sites like Priceline. It's not unusual to see nice hotels go for $200 to $300 per night, using the hotel's website.

Yes, airfare has gone up, but you're looking way too far in advance to book anything for Dec 2013. Many airlines only allow booking 12 months in advance, so you really won't know what the price will be for next Dec.

Highly recommend you hang out on the PR board..... lots of useful info here.

Oh I realize that booking out this far in advance in a moot point - just getting a feel of things really.

Heck, EVERYTHING has gone up!

We always stay at the Embassy Suites in Isla Verde. it's a 5 minute walk to the beach. It's near the airport and there is a bus stop nearby to get downtown. We recommend the Metropol a few blocks away for lunch or dinner. ES is usually $150-200 per night but includes free happy hour and breakfast. San Juan is a great place to extend a vacation by staying before or after one's cruise. Bon Voyage!

A popular and relatively inexpensive hotel choice in old San Juan is the hotel Milano. The opposite is the El Convento, which is one of the best and quite pricey. I just checked rates at the Milano for this year and they ranged from $95 to $145. They get 4 stars on Trip Advisor.

http://www.hotelmilanopr.com/

Bottom line is: Go to Kayak.com put in your dates and see what shows up in ascending price order, then, check out the hotel's reviews on Trip Advisor.

As to air fares, no surprises there. Up, up and away!;)

After watching air fare, we got a direct flight for about $50pp more than we paid 2 years ago. I felt good about it but believe me, I was nervous watching the flights bounce around.

We got our hotel from last minute travel, but last time we used priceline. Got pretty good deals. Last trip we were at the Marriot Stelaris Casino. This time we'll be at the Sheraton Convention Center. All we really needed was a clean place to sleep before our cruise!

I've done some homework about SJU and have friends sailing from there in January...hopefully I'll do a southern from there at some point but have found a gameplan if it does happen lol

Airfare is typically much higher SJU for us so one of the options I found was to fly to FLL/MIA, stay a day or two there pre-cruise (MUCH cheaper hotels) then get a JetBlue flight to SJU - I've seen them for $69-99 occasionally and no luggage fees!

The extra flight prices still ends up cheaper than the flights for me to go right to SJU

Sent from my Speak & Spell using Tapatalk

I wouldn't look at cancelling just yet. Wait 'til at least the New Year and then see where prices go. Airfare has gone way up recently. Fares to SJU from the East Coast used to be in the $500-600 range a year or two ago and as you see have gone up significantly. I'm running into the same dilemma for my Med cruise next October. The cruise itself was under $1000 but airfares right now are starting around $1,100. Go figure! I'm just going to keep watch on them and hopefully they will go down somewhat. If not, I'll just have to bite the bullet and pay the extra dollars since I have no other transportation options to get there. :)

What are the dates in December you're looking at? If its the beginning of the month you can be pretty much guaranteed the prices will drop a bit for the cruise - the 1st wk is one of the cheapest weeks of the year for travel... If you're looking at Dec 15th onwards... Good luck! Lol

Sent from my Speak & Spell using Tapatalk

Someone had listed about 6 of the most popular. One of them, the rooms were about $300!

I've cruised out of San Juan twice and will be again this Dec. I'm a bargain shopper and would never pay $300 for a room! There are many options for $100/night. I'm staying at Hotel Miramar. It's not a 4-star but I've stayed there before and it's comfortable and I know I can walk to dinner. I'm cruising alone so I can't justify an expensive hotel for just me. I'd rather spend my money on excursions and drinks ;)

I rely on the TripAdvisor ratings for travel all over the place and so far it's always been right on. So once you find something you are interested in, then go find it on TripAdvisor and read the traveler reviews.

Flights are always more than flying to Miami, coming from Minnesota, Puerto Rico is farther away, it makes sense. I paid $425 this year, $408 last year. It was less than my flight to Costa Rica this year, but that's because it's farther away still.

To me the southern caribbean is the best and worth the $$.

We did the same thing - booked 1688 on the Adventure for 12/8/13 and decided to worry about airfare/hotel later. I did check airfare for the same time this year. We can drive to FLL or MIA in two hours, and airfare for this year would have been $200-$300, so I think we will not have to cancel. I'm glad you started the thread, as the info about San Juan hotels is really helpful.

Zoey Victoria - we are on the same sailing!!! We have 1690 aft! WOW!

500 +/- to San Juan from the states isn't unusual, but the past three years we ended up paying 350-400 from Michigan after shopping around for a couple months. We bought San Juan tickets for March 2013 for 350.00 last spring. That said airfare prices are definitely up lately:(

If you can do it, San Juan is a great place to visit for a couple nights before or after the cruise. In March we're doing 3 nights before and three nights after:D Yes hotels aren't cheap either, 2-300.00/night in the winter isn't unusual.

The southern cruise ports are great:)

Good luck, hope you're able to enjoy Puerto Rico and the Southern Caribbean!

We were on the Adventure out of SJ in 2011. Here's what we did to cut costs a little on air and hotel:

We signed up for Spirit Airlines credit card and got the $9 fare club deal for baggage fees, and also got one person's air for free one way.

But, the best deal I've used is Chase Sapphire Visa. They give you 40,000 bonus points, and we got a card each and combined our points into one account.

My son did the same thing with a Delta credit card deal, and flew to New York from CA for free.

We stayed at the San Juan Park hotel. It's a boutique hotel and the price was really good. Our sons did a pre-cruise stay and got a 4th night free for booking 3 nights. The room cost was $87 per night, and the hotel / rooms were upgraded and very nice. Small rooms and bathroom, but we saved a bundle. We booked through Orbitz.

At this point, there really isn't much you can do aside from arbitrarily look at dates that are nowhere close to your actual dates, seeing as tickets are only open until about mid-September 2013, which is a completely different season (both literally and price-wise) than December. Take a look in January when December 2013 opens up, and even then...I wouldn't necesarilly jump on the first tickets you find, because often those are not the cheapest, despite what many people may think.

This is why I could never be a truly good cruiser, I guess...I'm very hesitant to plan a vacation unless I have a full budget in front of me with actual costs to look at and decide on.

Zoey Victoria - we are on the same sailing!!! We have 1690 aft! WOW!

That is really odd! I have never "met" my neighbors in advance, especially fourteen months in advance. There is an existing roll call for this cruise, but I haven't checked it out since shortly after we booked in June. I have never booked eighteen months in advance before, but couldn't believe my luck in finding this cabin available.

I had a really hard time finding this thread now that it is buried under "Cruise Air" :(

Oh I realize that booking out this far in advance in a moot point - just getting a feel of things really.

 

Heck, EVERYTHING has gone up!

But whatever dates you're seeing $1000 airfare for are irrelevant for YOUR travel dates. Are you looking at THIS December? That's less than 2 months away, flights may at full thus prices high. That means nothing as far as Dec 2013.