arcticcatmatt

Thought I would post my experience to help people leaving out of San Juan (Did Oct 27 sailing).. My lady and I both felt that only bringing carry on's really helped us out in a ton of ways. San Juan airport is operational but wayyyyy overpacked. We did not wait in the line of hundreds to get our luggage to the ship in the various trucks. When we got off ship we didn't have to deal with the lines of people trying to get luggage to the ship or them being separated from their luggage with unknown truck numbers in the chaos. We didn't have to deal with the 3 lines with 100+ people in each checking bags. Food in San Juan airport is 3x the price you would expect to pay (we waited in line 30 mins for land shark restaurant and got out of line when we found out a simple burger was $18). There are 30 seats to wait in for a plane that holds 200 people. Spotted tons of damage in San Juan but nobody seemed to be in fix up mode. Small sessnas still sitting on fences, billboards down still sitting in streets. Many places appeared to be in rough shape prior to hurricane. Wifi in airport didn't work for anyone. It won't let me attach photos. Planes on fences.. etc..

The below doesn't pertain to san juan directly

Favorite stop for us was Martinique. Book Thomas of Taxi Norden Vincent for a little island tour.. he is SO nice and his email was so informative even with a map of what you are doing.. We hit rainforest, waterfall, free rum spot, black sand volcanic beach with floating pumice and more. Just a heck of a nice tour and very nice man. Bonus was no hassling at the port from locals. The workers on the ship said Martinique didn't take USD, didn't speak english, and other bad stuff. All false. Best stop we had! Even finished it with a beer out of a locals cooler on the pier for a couple bucks. 2nd favorite for local stop was Barry Taxi tour in Antigua. Great deal and beautiful beach stop, they really treated us like a non-tourist and showed us what they love. Tied with 2nd was Barbados. We walked to carlisle bay and snorkled the ship wrecks and tossed in a stop at the carribean cigar company to see cigars get hand made and we purchased. Least favorite was St Kitts - lame snorkling at cockleshell beach and rip off rental pricing.. not to mention the hassling and monkey guys all over. Liz was great (we jumped on her taxi to the beach). The beach wasn't nice, water wasnt' clear, $30 to rent 2 snorkle masks, $35 for 15 mins on a jet ski and the riot act read to us with a $200 penalty if we tipped it over in the water, drinks took forever to get at reggae beach but the wifi worked. I have great pictures to accompany this but no idea how to add them.

Also, 3 in our group got sick. Dayquil is $18 in the gift shop. Day 4 and we are still sick. Bring some with you

I was on this same cruise.

Are you assigned a time or can you pick which one to go to? Hope you are feeling better. Maybe you will run into my friends, Steve and Barb Schoonerman:cool:

I'm new friends with them :) Great people!

Hi!

I'm curious about Martinique. Did you see any taxis or tour companies waiting for people to walk off the ship and hire them for the day? We don't have anything booked there for our December stop. I prefer to use local guides, but I've been concerned about the language barrier. I've also read that there aren't a lot of people waiting at the pier who can be hired on the spot for a day tour.

Thanks!

Please see my quick review below.. Contact Thomas and tell him I sent you. We are looking at flights back there right now. We want to go and spend a week!!

Thought I would post my experience to help people leaving out of San Juan.. My lady and I both felt that only bringing carry on's really helped us out in a ton of ways. San Juan airport is operational but wayyyyy overpacked. We did not wait in the line of hundreds to get our luggage to the ship in the various trucks. When we got off ship we didn't have to deal with the lines of people trying to get luggage to the ship or them being separated from their luggage with unknown truck numbers in the chaos. We didn't have to deal with the 3 lines with 100+ people in each checking bags. Food in San Juan airport is 3x the price you would expect to pay (we waited in line 30 mins for land shark restaurant and got out of line when we found out a simple burger was $18). There are 30 seats to wait in for a plane that holds 200 people. Spotted tons of damage in San Juan but nobody seemed to be in fix up mode. Small sessnas still sitting on fences, billboards down still sitting in streets. Many places appeared to be in rough shape prior to hurricane.

Favorite stop for us was Martinique. Book Thomas of Taxi Norden Vincent for a little island tour.. he is SO nice and his email was so informative even with a map of what you are doing.. We hit rainforest, waterfall, free rum spot, black sand volcanic beach with floating pumice and more. Just a heck of a nice tour and very nice man. Bonus was no hassling at the port from locals. The workers on the ship said Martinique didn't take USD, didn't speak english, and other bad stuff. All false. Best stop we had! Even finished it with a beer out of a locals cooler on the pier for a couple bucks. 2nd favorite for local stop was Barry Taxi tour in Antigua. Great deal and beautiful beach stop, they really treated us like a non-tourist and showed us what they love. Tied with 2nd was Barbados. We walked to carlisle bay and snorkled the ship wrecks and tossed in a stop at the carribean cigar company to see cigars get hand made and we purchased. Least favorite was St Kitts - lame snorkling at cockleshell beach and rip off rental pricing.. not to mention the hassling and monkey guys all over. Liz was great (we jumped on her taxi to the beach). The beach wasn't nice, water wasnt' clear, $30 to rent 2 snorkle masks, $35 for 15 mins on a jet ski and the riot act read to us with a $200 penalty if we tipped it over in the water, drinks took forever to get at reggae beach but the wifi worked. I have great pictures to accompany this but no idea how to add them.

Also, 3 in our group got sick. Dayquil is $18 in the gift shop. Day 4 and we are still sick. Bring some with you :)

beef on weck is a Western NY thing. I'm 37 and have eaten it my whole life having grown up in Western NY (Gerry). Some external places really mess it up.

My first post in this thread. We're on Oct 28th adventure of seas cruise. Booked it 6 months ago. We had 3 days in hotel booked and flights. Our return flight (Nov 4) via United was cancelled with nobody telling us. Same with our hotel. We just spent days getting a return flight on american airlines of course being charged more money. We are now flying in the day of the cruise (noon) and must get on ship by 7. So now we fly american airlines in from Rochester NY and back (fight 772). We are sad we can't stay in San Juan for 3 days prior as that was going to be the highlight of the trip. We were even looking into volunteering time on the island somewhere to help out but with the hotel/flight issues that can't happen unfortunately. We have not booked any excursions but we are thinking of booking every one of them tonight (some thru ship, some not). We're very worried about losing money on this. Already well past our budget.