puerto rico - vacation?

[swampdragon]

My wife and I are thinking about getting away for 4-5 nights this summer and Puerto Rico seems like a pretty good deal.

Does anyone have a recent experience or suggestions? I don't know anything about the different areas or towns.

We don't care about golf or casinos but rather prefer beautiful setting, beach, some activities (tennis would be good) and maybe somewhere to explore also.

Thanks for any help.

[MagSeven]

We have stayed in San Juan pre- and post-cruise several times. There are many beautiful resorts in the Condado Beach and Isla Verde areas. Both areas are on the Atlantic with pretty heavy duty waves, but the beaches are magnificent. We have stayed at the Caribe Hilton and the Courtyard Marriot Isla Verde (which is 1/2 mile from the airport). The majority of the hotels in these areas have Latin bands playing all day and night it seems - and the people love to dance. Old San Juan is about 7 miles from theses areas but it is easy to get there either by bus, taxi or rental car.

In OSJ, you can just walk and walk and walk - the city is very clean. You can tour the 2 fortresses - San Cristobal and El Morro (but if you decide to explore El Morro make sure you get some bottled water because it is out in the open and OSJ is always hot). Have breakfast at La Bombanera and a pina colada at barrachina's (the home of the pina colada). The cathedral is magnificent, and right up the street from the cathedral is Don Collins' Cigar and Rum store - which is a must stop for us.

For day trips you can have the hotel arrange a trip to the El Yunque Rain Forest, which we haven't done yet. We've taken a tour of the Bacardi Rum Factory.

OSJ has many plazas throughout the city with fountains in just about every one. From the Sheraton at the cruise pier, if you walk along the harbor you can go down the paseo de la princesa (the main promenade) to the tip of the city where you can go to El Morro.

PM me if you want more info. I have pictures on webshots:

http://community.webshots.com/user/MagSeven9

http://community.webshots.com/user/MagSeven11

A few of the albums on both pages have photos from san juan

[swampdragon]

thanks - I am still working on this as a potential trip

[regular-guy]

A friend of mine went to Jamaica and loved it. He said the people there step all over themselves to please tourists.

i'd recommend that you go in October though if you are doing anything Caribbean. If you go in August or September, you may wind up staying inside or cancelling because of a hurricane. Besides, October is offseason and the costs will all be less. And with less tourists, you'll get special attention and probably good deals when you go shopping, especially markets where you negotiate prices.

If you have kids, just farm them out to their friends' houses for a week and they won't miss school. My family kept a friend of mine for 8 days once so my friend's parents could go on a cruise. He and i had tons of fun and so did his parents. His sisters stayed at their friends' homes.

[MrFurious]

My wife and I just got back on 7/28. We stayed for 6 nights in the Condado area (La Concha Renaissance Hotel on the beach. Lots of restaurants in the area as well.)

We spent a couple of days at the beach/pools.
We visited OSJ (2 afternoons) - The two forts/castles were the highlight here for me. I liked walking around the city and we ate at a couple of places. Don't get in a hurry to be served for the most part. That's fine once in awhile, but it is also nice to get a refill of water before the end of a meal.

Rented a car for the last two days for the following.
El Yunque - Rain Forest - lots of walking but very nice. My wife didn't care for the walking much.
Toro Verde Adventure park (zip lines, foot bridges and rappelling). We did 9 zip lines. The first 8 ranged from 800'-2600' long and 150-650' high. The last one, The Beast, is the highest and second longest in the world (~4600' long and 850' high). You ride this one Superman style. It is crazy to fly across the valleys like that. Very cool.


A couple of things we wanted to do, but didn't make the time for was the Bacardi rum factory tour (free) and the BioBay tours (bioluminescent algae that glows at night when disturbed). This is best to see when the moon is not full. Many places won't take you out if the moon is in the wrong phase. Check the lunar calendar to schedule this if you are interested.

The hotels can book tours for you, but we preferred to do that on our own. I'm not sure which I would prefer. I like that I was on my own schedule, but not having to worry about where to go and what to do when you get there has advantages as well.

The weather was upper 70's to upper 80's while we were there (pretty much year round). The humidity is very high, but overall it was very pleasant. A nice change from the 100+ days we have had here. During hurricane season it rains pretty much everyday. The showers can come and go quickly. They didn't deter us on anything we did.

Overall it was a good trip and I think worth the money.

[onejayhawk]

Three things you want to see in PR. San Jaun, of course. Its a big island city with all the perks. There is also the ruins of the Spanish fort in the Harbor. The second thing are beaches on the south side of the island. The atmosphere is slower, and the communities smaller. Small town markets have their own charm. Rent a scooter. The beaches are cleaner than the north shore, and the scuba/snorkeling is reputed to be great. The third thing is the El Yunque rainforest.

5 days is not really enough to see it all. Check out puertorico.com and elyunque.com

J