We finished work on a sunny, but snowy Monday - threw Roxy in the truck, grabbed the kids after school and hit the road - it’s Vacation!!!!
We drove to Guelph to meet Saint Mimi and Papa who were doing grand-dog sitting duties, and then made a beeline for the Buffalo Airport, hoping to get there before the pool closed.
We arrived at the Hampton Inn in Buffalo with lots of time for a swim. Unfortunately it turned out we were booked in at a different hotel. Not a confidence building start for this trip planner. Luckily, the Buffalo AIRPORT Hampton Inn where we actually had a reservation was only 10 minutes away and we were able to fit in a short swim before bed.
Our flight to San Juan went totally smoothly. Our original direct Air Transat flight had been cancelled without explanation in December and the only flight I could find at close to the same price was a painfully early one stop flight. So we set our alarms for 5 am and ended up counting the flights as a trip highlight - we totally fell in love with Jet Blue Airlines. Cheap checked bags ($35), free drinks and snacks included, seat back TVs with a big selection of TV and movies (I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's for the first time in my life!) and free wifi? What's not to love?! We had a selection of tasty Cuban snacks in the Fort Lauderdale airport (empanadas, guava and cream cheese pastries, and a bunch of other stuff I couldn't pronounce but just pointed to in the glass case) at lunch and hopped on the next flight.
We arrived in San Juan late afternoon, and were on track to make it to our rental apartment with a couple of hours before bedtime, but ground to a halt picking up our rental car. We waited for an hour in a line that did not move, and listened to customer after customer argue with the rental car agency that they had insurance coverage through their home/credit card insurance already. Fun fact. If you're in Puerto Rico, it doesn't cover you. It seems awfully unfair, and I listened to 9 other clients also discuss how unfair they thought it was, but if you could see the potholes on the roads, you wouldn't be so surprised. Luckily I had a relaxed family, who had a place to sit in a warm, tropical paradise outside. Eventually I made it to the front of the line, announced that I had checked with our home insurance and credit card companies, and had already confirmed that we didn't have any coverage in PR. It's amazing what speedy service you get when you already know you're going to have to pay horrifically high rates (demand outstrips supply in the rental car world of PR) and have come to peace with it. We paid more for our rented Corolla in PR per day than we did for our condos. Such is life.
We made up lost time by getting fast food instead of cooking in. It is a personal tradition to always get McDonalds in a foreign locale to see how the menu compares. It's fascinating, don't let the cultural snobs sneer at you. For example, in Puerto Rico, our value combos came with our choice of 2 of small coke, small fries or 4 nuggets. And then you could add on an extra 4 nuggets for another $2. Their drinks came with coffee cup type lids so you didn't straws. And they had breaded mozza sticks which were delicious. For journalistic record keeping - I had a McDuo with nuggets, fries and extra nuggets and a shared order of mozza sticks. Don't tell the crew at Cardiac Rehab. I had to get in shape for the cruise.
The art of travel planning can be described as trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, except you've got 5 times as many pieces as you could possibly fit in to pick from and only a vague image of how you'd like the final picture to look at the end. I love to travel, to explore new things (like McDonalds, yes), to experience authentic adventures in new and novel places. Rob likes to read a novel in relaxing places. He's been very indulgent of my preferences on the road, but this trip's goal was to do the impossible - be both a trip and a vacation - an almost impossible hybrid. The exciting news is we succeeded.
Day One - Beach Day. We slept in late, relaxed in the condo until lunch and then drove 5 minutes down the road to Luquillo Beach - an endless strip of sand in a protected bay with shallow water, just enough waves to make it fun and palm trees and lifeguard huts that looked like they belonged on a post card. We sunblocked, we frolicked, we played football, we re-sunblocked, we drank cold Coronas, we walked along the beach, we put on hats and sunglasses, we read, we saw a turtle, we re-sunblocked, we dug holes in the sand, we played in the waves until we had sand in places we thought it might never get out and finally rolled pleasantly back home. Relaxation achieved.
We had a comically bad dinner of store bought empanadas that I didn't realize were supposed to be deep fried until we got home (we baked them in a roasting pan since the condo had no baking tray) and an epic family game of Chinese Checkers. We nursed our inevitable sunburns with aloe and fell into bed.
We spent the next morning at the El Portal Visitors Centre for the El Yunque Rainforest. This was a big destination on my bucket list - half of the reason we came to Puerto Rico (the rainforest and the bioluminescent bay - but you'll have to wait till the last day to see if that one worked out). We watched a movie, Rob had a nice nap, we explored the centre and went for a short hike on a trail, taking waaaay too many beautiful flower pictures. It felt like something straight out of Jurassic Park. We kept expecting a brontosaurus to lean into view.
Next we headed through a narrow, winding typical road through the rainforest to get to a short hike called the Angelito Trail to get to a beautiful swimming hole on a clear, cool river. If I had an instagram account, the pictures would definitely belong there. I may have to get one, just to get full benefit from all these pictures...
We headed back to the beach for the afternoon. The currents had shifted - a weather phenomenon that would now follow us for the rest of the trip and change many of our plans - and it made the waves noticeably rougher/funner (as long as you're not getting smashed in the head or trying to figure out how you've ended up 10 feet further along the beach than you were a moment ago). I had planned on us checking out the local surfing beach this afternoon, but it was red flagged (no swimming). So we set up near the kioskos (a group of 60 restaurants, bars and shops) on the beach from the day before and we had a huge dinner of various empanadas cooked the proper way and tasting infinitely better. We also tried local sodas and declared the Malta India (their most popular pop) an acquired taste.
A spectacular sunset from the parking lot of the kioskos
Hiking El Yunque Rainforest - We woke up bright and early to hike to the summit of El Yunque peak - a fabled ecosystem of rare cloud forest - swathed in fog and moss at the top of the tallest mountain, filled with ferns as large as trees and tiny Coqui frogs as small as your thumbnail. The only problem was it was a beautiful, sunny day. So we got to hike, hear frogs, see the giant fern trees and a great view from the top.
Enjoying our rooftop hot tub (well, cool tub, technically). An amazing Puerto Rican view of rainforest covered mountains 15 minutes to the north, the beach and ocean 3 minutes to the south and an abandoned apartment building (presumably from Hurricane Maria damage) next door.
We thought Puerto Rico was a great and easy place to visit - it reminded us so much of Costa Rica, except with Burger Kings and Church's Chickens on the corner. That's a compliment. When I discovered that Heidi was wearing her Blundstone's instead of her sneakers (we'd picked them up at school unexpectedly) and that this was not going to go well on the beach for the next 2 weeks, we just popped over to Walmart. Easy peasy!
We spent the next morning packing, sleeping in and relaxing. I went for a walk down to the beach at the end of our street, renowned for surfing (Playa La Pared). An unseasonable rip tide current had moved into the carribean, but made for wicked waves to watch. The surfers seemed to love it.
Two tone bougainvillea? That's a first for me!
We returned our rental car, got a shuttle to the cruise port and started the next leg of the holiday by noon on Saturday. Celebrity Millenium, here we come! They had more check in staff that customers at the time we arrived and it was the smoothest arrival we've ever had. They scanned our Celebrity App barcode at 5 different stations, mispronouncing Heidi's name each time (every cruise staff seems to call her Hitty, we're not sure why), told us our room keys were stuck to our cabin door, and just like that we were on board!
I am terribly proud of the deal I found to make our Puerto Rican March Break a reality - may I present you with a $429 a week cabin, probably the most elegant room we've ever cruised in. Coupled with flying on points, it felt like a real bargain!
Free unlimited ice cream! With lots of sorbet, you know, for healthy eaters.
Since our cruise out of San Juan didn't depart until 8:30 we had time for a delicious lunch of fajitas, curry and fried chicken (what can I say, I try to dine internationally on a trip), then a full wandering tour of the boat before changing into our swimsuits for a dip in the pool. This was the Sky Lounge, the top deck lounge we had cocktails in on our final cruise day as an homage to my Mom and Dad's cruising style.
Main lobby atrium. The coffee shop, gelateria, martini bar, guest relations desk and DJ with strobe lights all shared this area. It was also where we met our friends the Miles' each morning before excursions and watched people take photos with varying levels of revealing gowns at night time.
"Relaxation is an art which must be practiced to be perfected"
Sunset over San Juan before sailing away. The Miles' (our neighbours and friends who joined us for the cruise) made it after a very harrowing series of lost and broken items, but by 7 pm we were all together and toasting new adventures in the Rendezvous Lounge. And waiting for dinner to start.
Organic beet salad with feta. Also a work of art. We tended to have dinner all together in the main dining room, but Celebrity must really lean into the belief that quality takes time because it took an average of 2 to 2 1/2 hours to finish a 3 course dinner. Children literally fell asleep on the table waiting for courses to arrive. Adults almost fell asleep. Some would claim that it took so long because I kept ordering 3 appetizers, but Emily ordered 4 one night, so it's not all on me. I had a bunch of culinary firsts - including Shrimp Louis, Duck Rillette Quenelles and Cobia (fish). The food was good, and elegant, but I won't lie a few of the nights we were just too impatient to wait and had good dinners in the buffet upstairs instead.
Chillin'
Our 1st port (of 5 !!) - Tortola, British Virgin Islands. First mission - get Jay replacment sun glasses. I think we pulled together well as a group to make this happen and a few tourist shops later, we were back on track. The plan was to head to Brewer's Bay Beach to swim, snorkel and look for turtles but a very patient persistent taxi driver insisted that the water currents had churned up the water there and that the experience was much better on Long Bay on Beef Island. So, adaptable as I am, we headed there instead and had a great 1/2 day body surfing in the waves and drinking buckets of Coors Light. We packed a tupperware full of chocolate croissants from the breakfast buffet for lunch and thanked the universe for a decadent life!
