We stayed in Old San Juan for 2 days before embarking on our cruise. We toured 3 forts, the Governor’s Mansion, and the cathedral. We enjoyed all of those and just wandering around. It is beautiful and we had a fantastic time. We definitely want to return and explore outside of Old San Juan!

We met up with an old friend who lives on the island. We toured the island with him, went to the beach (Magens Bay), and had lunch. There is still quite a bit of devastation from the hurricanes but it wasn’t terribly evident in the tourist areas.

We wandered around exploring both within and outside of the tourist area. We got our passports stamped and had quite an adventure trying to locate the new customs location. We frittered away a couple of hours drinking beer in an outside cafe and it was wonderful.

We were exhausted by this point and wanted to take a beach break. We found a guy right outside the ship who charged $5 pp for transport to Eagle Beach and arranged for pick up and return to ship at our time of choice for another $5 pp. we rented loungers at the beach for $10 pp and sat under a free palapa.

Later in the evening we took the free trolley (right outside the ship) around the city.

We hopped off the ship and immediately joined a tour by Beulah (she’s on Trip Advisor and is worth every penny) for very cheap since they were trying to fill the remaining seats. She gave a wonderful history of the island and was funny while doing it. Soda and beer was available for $1. Air conditioned buses took us around to various sites on the island and then to the beach. The total time was around 6 hours but we took the option to return to the ship with some other folks instead of staying at the beach so our tour was around 4 hours and a bargain for what we paid!