By I have never been to the country/US territory of Puerto Rico. So when my sister-in-law mentioned she was headed there for a long weekend with her daughter, I invited myself to the party.
The only things I knew about Puerto Rico were from West Side Story.
Puerto Rico
Anita singing America from West Side Story
My heart’s devotion
Let it sink back in the ocean
Always the hurricanes blowing
Always the population growing
And the money owing
And the sunlight streaming
And the natives steaming
I like the island Manhattan
Smoke on your pipe
And put that in!
… and I knew it had been pretty devastated by Hurricane Maria a few years back (Irony – because the main character in West Side Story is named Maria).
Stupid me chose poorly with Delta flights. My flight from Atlanta left at 12:30…but Delta sent an email to arrive 3 hours before your flight, which put me right in rush hour. My return flight landed at 5pm on a Monday…so in rush hour again. Shout out to my neighbor and my sister for chauffeuring me.
We blew the budget and stayed at the Caribe Hilton – mostly because my sister-in-law wanted a hotel with tennis courts and she is a Hilton person. I had a lovely view from my room. It was a King Studio that was wheelchair accessible, which meant the room was spacious but the shower was weird (walk-in). I don’t like those showers, but I had no choice so after kvetching a bit I settled in. It’s hard to be mad when your balcony has a view.
I treated myself to a facial at the Zen Spa Oceana. You get a discount as hotel guests. The spa has a steam room and sauna which felt great after a day of travel. The pool was nice. There were two hot tubs by the bar that were always packed. I braved the pool, which was cool water that I eased into. In typical resort fashion, chairs filled up quickly. My sister-in-law was a huge fan of the hammock.
I had carefully made reservations at some nice restaurants off-site…but my travel partners were not as adventurous as me, so we compromised. First night we ate at Comedor – I can highly recommend that restaurant. I ordered the Kan Kan which is the biggest fried pork chop I’ve ever seen. I totally got the meat sweats from eating it (and haven’t had pork since). Second night we ate at Mojito’s on the resort property. The food was fine, but the service was atrocious. For kicks you should google them. Plus they only had one type of Mojito, which irked my companions. Third night we ate at Amor y Sal. The food was good. I just didn’t like my order (stuffed avocado with shrimp). The strip steak and tuna filet were ordered by others and were quite good. Unfortunately, the wait staff lost our appetizer and we were hungry. It showed up eventually but negatively impacted our visit. On our last night (told you it was a short trip), we ate at the hotel again, this time at Rustico’s. Food and service was good but decidedly over-priced. Continental breakfasts were included which made things easy but there was literally no change to buffet. It was the same exact thing every day. I’ve seen more variety at Hampton Inn. The coffee was bad, which was surprising because Puerto Rican coffee is normally quite good. Being in the sun all day was exhausting, so there were no wild nights at the disco.
If you’re concerned about transportation, just know it is easy to take Ubers everywhere.
We did a food tour of San Juan – I can highly recommend that. Ricardo is very friendly and educated us on the history of San Juan. And we did a tour of the bacardi rum factory. I’m not big into rum, so although I enjoyed it I honestly could have skipped.
I do want to come back. Next time I would stay at a different hotel and explore more local restaurants…and go to the rain forests and that bioluminescent bay thing.
Side note – the only food at the airport is expensive. I paid $18 for a chicken sandwich. I was starving, so it was worth it.
Meat sweats! Lol