Background: My wife and I had never been on a cruise prior to our week on the Crown Princess.

Pre-Embarkation: We traveled through Atlanta on Delta Airlines arriving in San Juan on Friday 3/21 the day before our cruise. We were extremely happy with Delta and had no problems whatsoever with check in, flight delays, or luggage. We arrived around noon on Friday and took a taxi to the Caribe Hilton.

Hotel: We enjoyed our stay at the Caribe Hilton. It is located in an area just east of Old San Juan and is the only hotel in Puerto Rico with its own private beach. Unfortunately on Wednesday and Thursday before our arrival the area had seen some of the largest waves and storm surge in twenty years and the beach, some of the pools, and the oceanfront walk areas were closed for clean up. We arrived at the hotel at around 1:00 pm and our room was not yet ready. We ate lunch at the hotel and checked back and at that time we were able to get our room. We had a true ocean front room with a large picture windows looking directly at the ocean. Later that evening (Good Friday) we had a wonderful seafood buffet at the Palmeras Restaurant at the hotel. Saturday, we got up early and enjoyed a couple hours of beach and swimming in the ocean time before checking out. The resort did a great job of cleaning up the facilities so that everything was open on Saturday morning. We took a taxi for the short ride to the Old San Juan Pier. Read more