Tuesday, April 3, 2012

San Juan and Cruise (March 23-24)

Ricky and I had the best week ever last week! After we dropped the kiddos off with my sister, we headed up to Chicago. We stayed at a friend's house Thursday night since our flight was at 8:30 in the morning. She also helped us out by driving us there and keeping our car for us. Thanks! We spent the day Friday traveling. Our first flight was to Miami and since it is Spring Break season, the flights were very full. Once we got to Miami, we had some lunch and got to our second flight. We boarded the plane at 1:30, the flight was supposed to leave at 2:10. Apparently there was something wrong with the cargo hold, because we sat on the plane until 4:30 when we were supposed to arrive in San Juan. Very disappointing. We finally got to San Juan at 6:45 and I was starving. We met my parents at the Marriott Hotel on the beach and had dinner. We walked to a little restaurant across the street from the hotel. It was authentic Puerto Rican food and it was really good. After dinner, we walked over to the beach and enjoyed the warm water. I love walking on the beach at night. So peaceful! Ricky and I were exhausted after such a long day of traveling, so we headed to bed. I got the best sleep in such a long time!


We spent Saturday morning at the beach, after enjoying a great breakfast. Everyone there seems to be laid back and relaxed all the time. They are in no hurry to get your bill or take your money. I guess it's just their way of life.
The beautiful beach of San Juan.
Enjoying the waves. The water felt amazing, Gorgeous day!We got some ice cream from this guy. It was mango, pineapple, guava, and pina colada. Yummy!
The amazing view from our balcony! I could have stayed there all week! It was beautiful!

We had to check out of our room at 11, but couldn't check into our cruise until 2:30, so we had our bags checked at the hotel and we headed over to Old San Juan. We had lunch at the Raices Restaurant, which was recommended from a friend who used to live there. It was very good, but had a long wait (just what she had told me!).


We walked around and went to the Fort of San Cristobal. It was very interesting and had some great views of the city.
You can see the fort El Morro which is a mile away from San Cristobal. Very interesting to learn about the history of San Juan. It was extremely humid in San Juan. I had heard that before going, but didn't expect it to be that bad!While driving around, we saw our cruise ship docked in the ocean. We took a cab back to our hotel to get our luggage and headed over to the cruise ship. They had a ton of paperwork to fill out and we had to go through about 4 security checks before boarding the ship. I guess I'd rather be safe than sorry, but it was a bit much! Once we boarded, I felt like we were on the Titanic. All of the scenery reminded me of the movie. (I have never been on a cruise ship, so Titanic was the only thing close that I had seen.) We checked out our room and met up with Ricky's parents for dinner. We found out that for dinner, you have assigned seating and they put all the couples at different tables. When we finally noticed this, it was too late to get all eight of us at one table. My parents sat with their friends, and we sat with Ricky's parents. It was a bummer, since we booked the cruise together, but what can you do? I guess we know for next time! Dinner was fun, meeting new people from around the world. We had a couple from Florida, a couple from New Jersey, and a couple from Connecticut at our table. We all got along really well and looked forward to catching up with them each night. After dinner, we had a mandatory safety check. They are required to do it before the ship leaves port. When we started to leave, we wanted to go outside, but it was raining. We headed to the Solarium, which is an indoor pool area with all windows to watch the ship take off. We were sitting in the chairs and I started to feel really dizzy. I forgot to put the patch on and was really feeling the movement. I went back to my room to put the patch on and take Dramamine. About 20 minutes later I was ok. Thank goodness for the patches! I don't think I would have survived the week without them!

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