Turtle Woman

We went with Tours by Locals. The guide was prompt, very knowledgeable, and tailored our tour to our interests. He took us to Arecibo to view the radio telescope and the visitor center there, through different areas in Puerto Rico, and showed us some wonderful street art in Arecibo township and in the Sanlturce neighborhood of San Juan. He also stopped and let us sample ceti empanadas at a local stand, and so much more. I was impressed by his ability to identify different plants and to answer all of our questions. At the end of our tour he dropped us off by El Morro in Old San Juan.

Learn from my mistake:

We docked at St. Croix on March 14th. This was the last stop on our cruise. My husband talked to the lady at the taxi desk just off the pier, and arranged to hire a cab for four hours so my husband could take pictures. He handed over the cash and someone escorted us to a taxi. Our driver's name was "Doughnut".

While we were at the Botanical Gardens (very nice!) our driver walked out to meet us and asked if we had gotten something in writing so that he could get paid and we realized we hadn't gotten any receipt. A previous taxi hire, in St. Maarten, had been a handship deal with no problems.

We let the driver take us back to the cruise terminal so that we could talk to the dispatcher. After we talked to the lady and she said "no problems, I will make sure he gets paid" we turned around and watched the taxi drive off with other passengers. I didn't realize for a while that we had had the cab for less than three hours.

My bad memory of St. Croix will always be that we got ripped off! Nobody's fault but my own, but hope this advice will help someone else.