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GAPearl Goes Solo on the Splendor! 11/1/14 SJU-MIA Repo Cruise Review.


gapearl
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In my most southern girl, country, Paula Deen voice, I'm yelling HEY Y'ALL! Welcome to a new Georgia Pearl review!

 

I'm just back from the beautiful Carnival Splendor. She's a nice ship and you'll get to real all about her.

 

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Many of you here know me from my previous reviews, but I'll still reintroduce myself. My name is Kimberly and I'm 34 years old from Atlanta. I sailed with my three favorite travel partners- me, myself, and I. This was my 12th cruise (all on Carnival plus one Royal Caribbean) and my 7th time cruising solo. How about my vacation nails!

 

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It was a slow cruise year for me and this was the only cruise I took in 2014, but I still had a busy travel year. After taking four cruises last year, I decided I wanted to focus more on land trips this year. That led to a week long trip to Colombia, a week long trip to Guatemala, a weekend trip to Puerto Rico, and a four day birthday trip to Las Vegas.

 

While I'm on the topic of land trips, I suggest that everyone travel to another country and immerse yourself in another culture at least once in your life. And by that, I don't mean flying to your favorite cruise port and saying at a resort for a week. Go some place totally new, book a family owned bed & breakfast or guest house, and have them teach you some words in their language. Skip McDonald's and eat at the little hole in the walls. Go to a few museums, order a snack from a food cart, and sit in the local square for some people watching. Participate in a festival. Have a drink with a local and learn about their way of life. I never would have been able to exprience events such as Carnaval de Barranquilla or Semana Santa (Google it) if I only did cruises. Also, because so many Americans are afraid of Colombia and because my review will reach so many thousands of people, let me say that my week in Cartagena was the best trip I have ever taken on land or sea! It's an amazing city full of friendly people and rich culture. Don't pass up a cruise with a stop there, or even better if you're looking for an interesting place for a land trip, consider Cartagena. I'd love to see Carnival add Cartagena as a regular stop on the southern Caribbean Aruba/Curacao route in the future.

 

Ok, getting back on track. Just before Christmas, I learned here on Cruise Critic that the Splendor was repositioning and had a couple of really unique itineraries. Well Santa must have thought I was a really good girl last year (he clearly doen't know me very well :p) because he left me a very generous gift that allowed me to book December 26. I just couldn't resist this fabulous itinerary! The first half of Splendor's repositioning was from New York to San Juan. Check out Jamman54's review of that one.

 

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This will be LONG and very picture heavy. Good crew, good ship, good bye is not my writing style. You will be reliving my trip from beginning to end. Reviews take a long time to put together and are done around every day responsibilities, so please be patient with me between posts. I love comments and respond to them all. Also to those of you who have the inside scoop on my cruise, either through my personal social media page or if you were on the ship with me, please don't mention anything specific before I have the chance cover it. I promise, NOTHING will be left out. This review will be full of humor, adventure, and ladies some really cute shoes, so enjoy!

 

Ok so let's get to it! I had a painfully long wait after booking. I thought this cruise would never get here. :eek:

 

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Wednesday, October 29

Puerto Rico Day 1

 

I had a really exciting day ahead of me today. I was up early and leaving my house at 7:45 am to head up the road to the world's busiest airport, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International. My flight wasn't until later in the morning but I had to get to the airport early to take care of a few things:

 

1- Check my two big, heavy bags. No judgment here please. You will never hear me say pack and light in the same sentence.

 

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2- Change some dollars to euros for Martinique. (more on that later)

 

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3- Enjoy a mimosa as my first vacation drink of the trip.

 

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We had a couple of very active roll calls (as in plural, read between the lines, can't outright say it). A lot of people from there were on my flight and it was nice to finally meet some of the people I've been chatting with for the last year. I downloaded The Purge Anarchy on my ipad to watch on the flight but didn't get too far into the movie because there was too much cruise talk happening.

 

Airplane meet and greet. LOL

 

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When flying into San Juan, you'll get the best views on the left side of the plane. You'll pass right by Old San Juan and can easily spot El Morro, The Capitol Building, and the cruise ship terminal.

 

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I love landing in San Juan. The local Puerto Rican passengers always go into a round of applause at touch down. After baggage claim, I made my way to the rental car center and the Alamo counter to pick up my car. I had a small economy car booked for $10 a day but upgraded for $30 more total when I realized that my car would be a hatchback. I had way too much stuff and needed to have a real trunk. The total for my rental with insurance for 3 days was $157. If you're renting a car in San Juan, you absolutely need to get the insurance. Out of all the places I've traveled to, I have to say the drivers here are more dangerous than any other place I've seen. I alternated between calling on the name of Jesus and using bad four letter words on the road constantly! :eek:

 

Once I found some good reggaeton on the radio, I headed to Caguas to meet up with an old friend, Luis. He and I met 3 years ago when I was just starting to learn Spanish. He was my waiter at a restaurant and after four too many sangrias, I started flirting with him en espanol and we've been friends ever since. LOL Surprisingly there was no traffic and I made it in 20 minutes, much sooner than either of us expected. He took me to a local bar for a couple drinks and appetizers and we caught up, since it had been a while since we last saw each other. He had to run and I had some more driving to do, so we said our goodbyes around 5 pm and made plans to hang out again Friday.

 

Doble Seis Bar.

 

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First vacation drink in Puerto Rico, a mojito.

 

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I've been to San Juan many times, both on vacation and for work, so this trip I decided to see a different part of the island. From Caguas, I made my way to the southern part of the island where my destination was the historical city of Ponce. It was a little over an hour drive, and I was lucky enough again to not run into any traffic. There was some rain earlier in the day and that led to some flooding along a few streets. The drive through the mountains was very scenic.

 

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Edited by gapearl
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Thanks to some good Trip Advisor reviews, I booked a king room at the Hotel Belgica for two nights. It was downtown in the middle of everything and only $90 a night. A 50% deposit was required at booking. My room was very spacious and had a large balcony and a mini fridge. There's no elevator and I had to drag all my heavy crap up the stairs. It was about 7 pm when I was finally settled into my room.

 

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After relaxing a bit I headed out to see if anything was going on. The first bar I came to was a bust. Ten minutes after waiting for my drink and watching the bartender leave, I left too. There was a hotel casino a few doors down with some $2 roulette, but I resisted the urge to play. Then I discovered this lively bar that had a good Wednesday night crowd and a DJ playing some decent music. Get this- they had Don Q rum drinks for only $1.45! The bartender was like you can get drunk for five bucks! :D They also had these dessert-like shots popular around Puerto Rico called chichaitos. Don't let them fool you cause they pack a serious punch.

 

The bar where I hung out. There was a ton of people outside when I left.

 

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DJ and a small dance floor.

 

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I wasn't hungry and only had the one drink and chichaito. I chilled on one of the couches and sat back for some people watching. Being here reminded me of a bar I went to in Old San Juan before my Valor cruise last year. The crowd was very young and I'm more positive than a Duggar pregnancy test that there was not a soul in there older than me. It was all good though. There wasn't anything else happening and I wanted to get out of the room for a while. I headed back to my hotel around 11 pm for a shower and some sleep after a long, exciting day.

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YAY! Welcome back Kim! Been looking forward to this review. You and Jamman at the same time. I am NEVER going to get anything done! "More positive than a Duggar pregnancy test" LMAO...:D:D Oh, that made my day! Great start and looking forward to more and anxious to hear your thoughts about the Splendor. :)

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Thursday, October 30

Puerto Rico Day 2

 

I had to wake up with the chickens, early before 8 am so I could add some money to my parking meter. Good thing I did that because lots of cars had parking tickets. Hotel Belgica doesn't have a parking lot of it's own so you get it wherever you can find it, aaannnnndddd good luck with that (especially if you're like me and can't parallel park). There's a parking lot 3 blocks away, but I never used it. There was a small continental breakfast offered, just some doughnuts, toast with nutella, coffee, and I think some fruit. I grabbed a doughnut (ok, two) and headed out the door. Time for some exploring!

 

Morning view from my balcony.

 

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Plenty of taxis right across the street.

 

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Hashtag selfie.

 

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Sitting area, computer and exercise bike at hotel.

 

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Hotel Belgica lobby.

 

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Edited by gapearl
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A few shots around Plaza Las Delicias.

 

The lion is the symbol of Ponce and there are tons of these colorfully painted animals around the plaza.

 

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I can't believe I didn't have not one single Gasolina the whole time I was here! Good thing I've got two boxes at home. A ella le gusta la gasolina!

 

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Next up was a visit to the Tibes Indigenous Ceremonial Center. Boy did I ever get lost trying to find this place. There's no physical address and I was going by a map and bad directions given to me, like turn right at the Walgreens and turn left at the gas station (never saw either). Finally after 45 minutes I just put the name in my GPS, and would you believe I found it with no problem after that? :rolleyes:

 

I finally made it.

 

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You pay the $3 entrance fee when you come into park. There was a small museum I looked around for about 10 minutes. A tour guide found me and said he'd be starting a tour shortly and at the moment, I was the only one. A group of about 30 really loud teenage school kids came in. Gracias a Dios they would not be on the tour with me. Before the tour a short documentary about the taino and Indian history was played. It was slightly boring and I was looking at the back of my eyelids about as much as I was looking at the tv.

 

Around the museum.

 

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