70TravelBug

Following.... Will be in OSJ before our 7pm departing cruise (leaving luggage at Barrachina for a few hours to tour the town). Have also heard nightmare stories about the length of time it takes the cabs to get to the pier (due to volume of traffic). Trying to figure out when is a good time to start heading to pier for our 4:00 check in. We chose a later check-in time for this reason, hoping a lot of the congestion will be gone by then. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thank u SO much for this. I haven’t been able to get a definitive answer…until now. Really appreciate it….I’ll be sure to ask for Fred. We’re there in 2 weeks. Enjoy your time there.

Ohio Boomer....THANK YOU! I have enjoyed reading through all of your funny and super informative posts. Appreciate the time it must have taken you! We are sailing out of San Juan on Sunday, February 12th. Staying at an Airbnb the night before...have to check out at 11:00 Sunday morning. We chose a later check-in time at the ship of 3:30-4:00, based on many other opinions and reviews of just how crazy it is in the morning. We would much rather spend a few hours and visit Old San Juan and let the craziness calm down. Question....looking for options of what to do with our luggage. Leaving it at our Airbnb is not an option. We debated going to pier, dropping luggage and leaving. But based on what everyone is saying...we could be waiting in an uber for an extended period of time just to do this. Others have mentioned the restaurant "Barrachina" that stores luggage pre/post cruise for a small fee. Anyone done this before? Or know if it's still a possibility? Any other suggestions?

Thanks...looking forward to it. Checked in today and chose the 3:30-4 time slot. That should give us a good few hours to check things out....we've also got the rest of Saturday once we land at 3.

Thanks so much for your input. We are staying at an Airbnb...so unfortunately, leaving bags there is not an option. I'm leaning more towards bringing luggage with us and dropping them at Barrachina (fingers crossed they still offer this service - website says they do). I don't think I want to risk getting caught in a hefty line up at port just to drop off bags. We will be doing our online check-in tomorrow...do you know what the latest time is that they offer?

We were actually hoping to just drop our bags and leave. No reason to get on the ship at all at that point. But have heard so many stories about people waiting for hours even just to do that. We didn’t want to waste all that time. If its feasible to do so….that would be our first choice for sure. We are debating dropping luggage at Barrachina…have heard this is a good option too?? Ideally….leaving bags at the port is the best choice….just don’t want to get stuck there for hours trying to do it.

Thank you. I did see that on their website...was just looking for confirmation that the site was up to date? I'm assuming so.

Does anyone know if the Barrachina Restaurant still offers luggage storage pre and/or post cruise? Are there any other facilities that offer this?

will do...and thanks for sending

Does anyone know if Barrachina Restaurant in Old San Juan still offers the luggage storage pre and/or post cruise? Or are there any other facilities that offer this?

We are actually doing the same thing in a couple of weeks. In looking around at different hotels, we discovered Airbnb was actually more reasonable...plus you quite often get an entire house/condo to yourself, as opposed to your standard hotel room.

I completely understand what you're saying. Definitely not ideal for the influx of "cruisers" in town with some time to kill before boarding...It's a shame really. OSJ is so beautiful....it was one of our ports of call on a cruise a few years back. Docking at OSJ makes the world of difference. Thanks for your feedback

I saw this mentioned in some older posts from a couple years ago on trip advisor...but didn't know if was still offered. I'm seriously considering this if it is. Wonder how quickly space fills up...do you know if it's limited??

Yikes....that's awful.

Appreciate your feedback...having been there yourself. I think we're leaning towards the later afternoon check in at the port.

Thanks for this....did not know that was an option. Will definitely look into it.

Hi All...newbie to this forum (but not to cruising) and looking for some insight please. We are departing Feb. 11th from the Pan American pier in San Juan. We haven't checked in yet (will be doing so this weekend at the 21 day mark), so I don't have our time slot yet. However, we were hoping to get an early time....then get back off the ship and explore San Juan for the afternoon, since we don't sail until 7pm (I do understand we still need to be onboard 2 hours before that). I'm hearing lots of stories of folks standing in line for hours to board...and the whole process taking much longer than they thought. If this is the case...it wouldn't allow for much (if any) time to explore. Can anyone speak from experience on this please?