Report from San Juan, Boarding Celebrity Summit on Nov 11

Here is a report from San Juan on Nov 11. I am writing this from my cabin on Summit at 4:45 p.m. We are docked at the Pan American Pier.

 

The short story is, there was nothing unusual about our arrival in San Juan and our taxi ride to the ship. If you didn't know there had been a hurricane, you might not notice anything unusual.

 

More detail.

 

We were off the American flight from Miami at 2:26 p.m. The gate area was very crowded with lots of people waiting for their departing flights.

 

The airport looks completely normal, except for a few water-stained ceiling tiles. All the business are open. The lights are all on and the AC is working.

 

Cell phones work normally: T-mobile (Google Fi) and Verizon. They have free wifi, but I didn't try it since my smartphone was already working.

 

It was 30 minutes from the time we got off the airplane until we had our checked luggage.

 

Celebrity is offering free transfers if you want. It is not advertised. Just go to the "Pre-Paid Transfers" kiosk in baggage claim and ask. We took a taxi - I didn't want to wait.

 

The taxi queue is right outside the baggage claim. There is a desk and a person who asks where you are going and fills out a slip of paper showing what you pay. Our charge was $26: $19 fare, $2 energy surcharge, $1 airport fee, and $4 for luggage, for a total of $26. The wait for a taxi was about two minutes, which is quite impressive given the number of flights that were arriving.

 

The taxi ride to the ship took extra long because of the torrential rain. One of the underpasses was flooded, causing quite a backup. I paid the driver $30.

 

The cruise terminal check-in had no lines. We were done with check-in at 3:50 p.m. and in our room by 4:00.

 

I am writing this in my cabin at the Pan American Pier. Verizon data on my smartphone is excruciatingly slow - Speedtest will not even run. Data on T-Mobile is still slow, but usable. "Speedtest" shows 0.6 Mbps download, and 9.67 Mbps upload.

 

In summary, we experienced no problems or hassles arriving in San Juan for our cruise.

That’s very encouraging! Thanks very much for the report.

Thank you so much! Excellent information.

Thank you for sharing. I was leaving as you were arriving. My report would be similar to yours. I did have a line at check in at the terminal, but it was relatively short. My cell phone network was Sprint, and that was in and out near the pier, but worked great at the airport.

We are back in San Juan. We are on back to back cruises. Our adult kids are joining us on Summit for the Nov 18 cruise. We will see if their arrival and embarkation go as smooth as ours did.

 

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Celebrity is offering free transfers if you want. It is not advertised. Just go to the "Pre-Paid Transfers" kiosk in baggage claim and ask. We took a taxi - I didn't want to wait.

 

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Thanks for this info. I have read that RCCL provides this, good to know X does too.

The 2 ships are probably sharing a bus...

 

You are back at sea, but if you read this, do you have any idea how early the free transfers start? Perhaps you saw a sign or heard people talking about it.

I board the Summit on Dec. 2, but unfortunately, my flight arrives around 10AM.

I'm not person who waits with any patience either.

I do not know when the transfers start.

 

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Thanks for sharing this.

 

Keith

Disembarkation Day

 

Sadly, our back-to-back cruises are over. I am writing this from the Avianca Global Lounge in the San Juan airport. We got access through a Priority Pass membership that I have through a Citi credit card. The lounge has good AC, Internet, WC, snacks, and drinks (soft and alcohol).

 

We disembarked from Celebrity Summit today at 7:45 a.m. We were luggage tag group 4, scheduled for 8:00 a.m. disembarkation. Celebrity is pretty flexible with the luggage tags. If you don't like the ones provided, go down to Guest Services and ask for the ones you want.

 

Once off the ship, I found a porter to help with our bags. I learned this tip off another CC thread. The porters have their own fast line through passport control. If you don't want to wait in line, use a porter. I tipped the porter $7 for 6 bags. We were through passport control and in our taxi by 8:00 a.m., arriving at the airport around 8:15.

 

There were minimal lines at the mandatory agricultural inspection station, located in the Southwest checkin area. (The inspection station by JetBlue is closed.)

 

The checkin area at Jetblue was almost deserted. I think we arrived before the crowds. I had checked in on line, but we needed to use the kiosk to print luggage tags and then go to the bag drop. The bag drop lines were empty.

 

The TSA Precheck line was empty. We went through security in just a few minutes. We were seated in the Global Lounge by 9:00 a.m.

 

Summary - From the time we disembarked (7:45 am) until the time we were seated at the departure gates (9:00 am) was 75 minutes. This was as easy of a disembarkation to airport trip as I have ever seen. I think part of the reason it was so fast is that it's early in the day and the airport is not crowded yet.

Disembarkation Day

 

 

 

 

Summary - From the time we disembarked (7:45 am) until the time we were seated at the departure gates (9:00 am) was 75 minutes. This was as easy of a disembarkation to airport trip as I have ever seen. I think part of the reason it was so fast is that it's early in the day and the airport is not crowded yet.

 

 

 

Thanks. I have an 11:50 flight so good to know that won’t be an issue. Did you happen to notice if the Global Lounge can be accessed after going thru security from the gates used by Southwest?

 

 

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Thanks. I have an 11:50 flight so good to know that won’t be an issue. Did you happen to notice if the Global Lounge can be accessed after going thru security from the gates used by Southwest?

 

 

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Yes it can. We checked in for JetBlue. Our daughter checked in for Southwest. We all met up at the Global Lounge. There is an airside connector corridor between the two check in areas. The Global Lounge is closest to gate C2, which was being used by Southwest today.

 

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Yes it can. We checked in for JetBlue. Our daughter checked in for Southwest. We all met up at the Global Lounge. There is an airside connector corridor between the two check in areas. The Global Lounge is closest to gate C2, which was being used by Southwest today.

 

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Thank you! I have Priority Pass so I will head there.

Thank you for the report!