Day 71 - 12/16/23 - San Juan, Puerto

 For the most part, we slipped into San Juan quite early and the docking process never woke me up.  By the time we left the ship around 8:30am for the mandatory US Border Protection. Face to Passport inspection, Florin reported to me that the entire crew had been inspected in under an hour starting at 7pm.  


We headed out of the port with a short stop to thank the Shore Excursions Manager, Debbie, for not cancelling the Baths excursion yesterday.  We walked towards the fort and stopped at a Subway for a breakfast omelette which was quite good.  We continued our walk until we reached Anita's Gelato where we enjoyed açaí smoothie.  We then toured the Cathedral and walked out to the Fort.   Unfortunately we didn't have our National Park Pass with us, so we had to pay $10 each to get in.  But it was also valid at the other fort about a mile away.  While we had visited the Fort previously, we still walked all over it and enjoyed the views.  We even spotted an iguana for the first time there.  









Cathedral 


Fort entrance (yes it's a long walk)








Leaving the fort we walked back towards the museum, but didn't visit it.  We spotted an other historic church and toured it.  We then walked down Calle de Fortelaza for a mile or so shopping along the way.  We reached the other fort and since our admission covered entry to it, we toured it as well.  One of its really cool features in a long sloping tunnel which has limited lighting but serves as a connector between various parts of the fort.  

After touring the fort, there was a little restaurant across the street where I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which was my first PBJ sandwich in 2.5 months.  It was yummy! With an approaching storm, we made our way back to the port and purchased a couple of Coke Zeros and sipped them while watching some last minute YouTube.  

Back on the ship, I wrote some in my blog until the sail away party which was held on the aft LIDO deck.  There they had an open bar and served cheese and crackers throughout our departure which was at 5:30pm.  By the time we reached the harbor exit it was already dark.  Tonight's LIDO dinner theme was Caribbean and I really enjoyed a variety of items including my typical 4 jumbo shrimp.

Rainbow

I turned in our luggage survey form.  Before that I had investigated use the LUGGAGE FORWARD service, but they wanted $175 per 75 lb bag which I felt was too expensive since our luggage travels for free on our flights.  We had thought it might be helpful to send 2 bags using the service so that we would only need to check one bag.

The evening entertainment was the 10th and final performance by the singers and dancers.  It was a program called Guitar Rock and was really good.  We stayed for the 9pm show.  

Now we need to turn to thoughts of packing our bags and making airplane reservations. I've already ordered prescription refills that will be ready when we arrive home on Tuesday.  We also received a message that our two youngest grandchildren are anxious for us to get home.  That definitely tugs at one's heart, and they don't even yet know that we are turning around and leaving for about a month more.

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