Caribbean Cruise 2020 (page 1 of 10)

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Greta's travel blog:

Day 0 - Thursday, Feb 20, 2020

We left the house just before 6:30 am and were lucky to miss all the traffic. We parked at the "Quick Ride" at the airport and got a shuttle ride to the terminal. That was really fast and our driver was excellent. We checked our bags, and got through security pretty quickly. We'd had breakfast already at home, so we just got something to drink before the flight and then on to the plane. We made it to JFK quickly, took a bus to a separate terminal, had time to get a sandwich and beer at Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch. $70 later!!!!! Expensive airport food but oh well. Our flight to San Juan was a bit bumpy but otherwise uneventful and we got in a bit early. We saw our Costco driver before we got to the baggage claim. We got all of our luggage in under 5 minutes and were out the door!

We met up with Jim & Trina at the Sheraton - Old San Juan. We unpacked, then headed out to La Casita De Rones. They have a wonderful shaken Pina Colada. Mike got a "monkey business" drink, with banana flavoring but adorned with a "barrel of monkeys" monkey. Jim and Trina had similar beverages. We then headed over to Tijuana Bar & Grill to get some food. Jim/Trina shared some chips/guac, Mike got Fajita Tacos and Greta got a mole dish. Everything was quite tasty, as well as the margaritas. It was a good way to end the night. Everything is 2 hours ahead of MN/IA, and after a full day of travel, the MN clocks may have read 9:30 pm, but our bodies definitely were feeling the 11:30 local time.

Day 1 - Friday, Feb 21, 2020

We slept in, although Mike was ambitious and ran on the treadmill at the hotel. We then headed up the hill a bit to Cafe Mimosa, which was inside the Copacabana Hotel. There were just a few tables, but we were seated and waited on immediately. Mimosas were had by everyone, plus omelets for the boys and eggs/hash browns/bacon or sausage for the girls. Food was great, as were the drinks.

We then headed up the hill to the fort "Castillo San Felipe del Morro". We wandered around there for quite a while. It was amazing at how huge the place was, especially after parts of it were built 100s of years ago. We were in Old San Juan and originally the entire area was a walled-in city, built to protect the city from invading nations. Later, the locals were able to convince the government to tear down some of the walls so that they could expand, as the city was becoming very crowded. We had walked through parts of the city and nearly all the buildings are the very old structures. Some were remodeled, some seemed to be utterly inhabitable.

A mile away was another fort, "Castillo San Filipe del Morro". Here the $10 entrance fee at the first fort covered entrance to this place as well. We wandered about some more, and took some more pictures, but were a little tired & "forted out", and so headed back towards the harbor where our hotel was. We stopped at La Casita for a beverage and then headed to a tourism shop to try buy some tickets for a bioluminescence tour, but that was full already. We stopped by the CVS for a couple things, then back to our rooms to rest for a bit.

At 5 pm, we headed to a restaurant that we'd noticed on our way to the fort called La Bodega Viejo San Juan - Cuban Rican Latino Kitchen. Per the menu, Puerto Rico & Cuba are considered the "sister islands" or two wings of one bird, due to the similarities in their Flag, Food & Culture. The food here was a nod to that. Our waitress Janice was HILARIOUS. She first assured us that all the food was good, but the Puerto Rican food was better. She told us many stories of her visit to Iowa & Chicago last December, as well as some local stories about idiots riding bikes and how they can fall off. She was loud, bossy, and funny.

The food was very good. We started off with a pulled pork appetizer. Trina had fried port with Puerto Rican rice. Jim & Mike both had the grouper Mufungo. Greta had the shrimp Mufungo. Mufungo is a fried plaintains & other veggies that are put in a mortar (bowl) and then mashed with a pestle. They are then topped with some sort of meat. It's the traditional food of Puerto Rico. The food was GREAT. Janice promised us "lick your plate good" and she was right. We had a few mojitos as well.

Afterwards, we strolled along the harbor a bit and then back to the hotel to relax and enjoy the pool. It was a great first day, albeit a bit exhausting. All day was sunny & warm & windy, and we all have a bit of red skin after the first day.

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