Written by Kim
We’ve been to Old San Juan several times and our normal routine is get off the ship and meander around having some mojitos and a snack. A friend of ours got this great video of our arrival. For those who don’t sail, a pilot boat with local officials meets each cruise ship when you arrive in port. The pilot doesn’t always board the ship but often boards to provide local knowledge to navigate the ship into port. They climb up a rope ladder to get onboard – a pretty dangerous career! Thanks Pat Kelly for this great video !
We got off the ship around 9:00 to do a self guided walking tour on VoiceMap. It was drizzling and light rain on and off which wasn’t the most pleasant. The tour was a bit boring since it was about buildings and narrated by grammar school kids. We weren’t really enjoying it and were sick of getting rained on so we headed back to the ship after about an hour. Cool thing about this photo is we took it from the backside of the sign which was less crowded and just flipped it on our phone. Cool trick
As we decided to go back to the ship another ship, Allure, with its 5,000+ passengers docked. We were told that the gangway for our ship would be closed while they docked for safety reasons while they tied the lines so we were like salmon swimming upstream with all the people getting off the 2 ships. Ugh!
We rested a bit and headed back out about 1 pm after the rain cleared. We had our sights set on a new brewery that open in January, Ocean Lab Brewery which was across the street from the dock. This was a great decision. The bartenders were very friendly and attentive. The beer was good and food was delicious.
After a few beers and some food we went to search for a mojito bar I really enjoyed last time.
We found a new mojito place, Mojitos to go, which got great reviews but it was like a Fat Tuesday place with all premixed drinks and they were very sweet. They came in cool bags for $12 so we could walk around with them
We decided it was not time to go back yet so made a second stop to Ocean Lab. A little drinking adventure in OSJ.
Back at the ship we headed to Music Hall for happy hour with our friends (because we didn’t have enough to drink yet!).
Our main dining service hasn’t been very good in My Time dining so we asked for a switch of our table. The new staff is excellent.
The show was the singers doing Voices of Royal. It was ok – the orchestra is amazing though. Now we have 3 sea days before we’re back in Bayonne on Sunday. Until then….
