Our background: We are young-ish seniors who have been on five previous cruises. Our vacation consisted of two one week cruises out of San Juan on different ships—the Celebrity Summit followed by the Jewel of the Seas. This review covers our first week aboard the Summit.

We flew on a red eye flight from LAX to SJU (via FLL) on Jet Blue. It was our first time on this airline and I was impressed by seat comfort and entertainment systems in the seat backs. Hardly anyone onboard slept—we were too busy eating snacks and watching movies. Once in San Juan, we quickly got a cab to our hotel in the Condado area—Le Consulat. Although the staff was very kind, the hotel was pretty basic with a noisy air conditioner and weak water pressure. The location was good. We could not check in so early, so they held our bags while we set off to explore El Morro fort and Old San Juan. The public bus (while slow and kind of unreliable) was a cheap 35 cents each way for seniors. We walked all over the huge fort, then walked around the streets of Old San Juan. Dehydration and exhaustion caught up with us and we turned in early.

The next day we shared a cab to the port with another couple, arriving around 11am. The porters were actually helpful about moving to take luggage (unlike our experiences in Fort Lauderdale). We were onboard and eating lunch by 11:30! Read more