Aviator of the Seas

The San Sebastián Festival is the largest mass event on the island, which traditionally closes out our very long Christmas season. It will run this year from Thursday, January 18 to Sunday, January 21, 2024. If you never heard of this festival, hundreds of thousands of people descend on Old San Juan for the festivities, mostly Thursday and Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday. Traffic will be affected immensely to go in and out of the Old City, so give yourselves plenty of time to navigate the traffic and the crowds if your ship happens to be at Piers 3 or 4 that weekend. Good luck and have fun!

Pier 1 in Old san Juan is closed/condemned/unusable.

NCL's turnaround operations (embark/debark) are performed at the PanAm pier. Pier 3 is only for Port of Call operations. Pier 3 has no facilities (terminal) to handle embarking or debarking passengers. Carnival, which used to use Pier 4, is not doing homeport out of San Juan anymore and not for the foreseeable future.

If you can't get there and wish you could, you could donate to Save-a-Gato directly. They need the help. https://www.saveagato.com/

The port of San Juan is in 'transition' right now. The Puerto Rico Ports Authority, which runs the cruise ship piers, is bankrupt along with the rest of the government. Literally. The entire Puerto Rico government is going through a U.S. Bankruptcy procedure and it is under the financial control of a federal supervisory board. That's going to take another couple of years to surpass. In the meantime, the authorities are turning over operations like the cruise ship ports to Private-Public Partnerships (PPPs). Global Ports Holdings won the bid to manage the cruise ship ports - over the objections of several cruise lines including Carnival and RCI. They were supposed to take over this year, but apparently they have been unsuccessful in securing financing and we haven't heard from them again. If you go to their social media, for example: https://www.facebook.com/sanjuancruiseport, you'll see that there hasn't been any updates since November 2022. So, not much is being done. The PR Ports Authority is performing minimum maintenance to the facilities, which are in serious disrepair. Therefore, cruise lines have not much to plan on and are on a wait-and-see attitude, in my opinion.

Piñones is a popular locals hang out for food and beach. The first quarter mile or so of that strip might look shanty-like to some. It's just an unplanned mess of eateries. If you go further along the road, it is very nice. The problem is that this is a "remote" area, meaning a likely cell phone dead zone for most services, so getting an Uber or even a taxi back from there is a challenge. There is a city bus that runs along, but service is also spotty. Best bet is to rent a car but on weekends traffic can be a nightmare. Again, very popular locals hang out. If you're not up to this type of "adventure" I'd suggest Ocean Park beach between the Condado and Isla Verde districts.

For the actual El Yunque National Forest, you need to make reservations for your car at recreation.gov. The park rangers won't let you into the recreation area without a reservation. This is a US federal agency that runs the park. many "tour guides" will try to snooker you into buying a tour for the periphery of the actual park. Be aware. Tour Guides with a 'YNF'-number permit are allowed inside the park.

The Trolley is not up yet. They just have three 5-pax golf carts running around. Sorry.

Hey, thanks. I don't know but I will find out.

Nope. All good.

Hi, sorry for the delay in responding. We're already back to normal in San Juan. Power and water services are restored.

No cruising out of San Juan right now but that was the case during the summer before the storm. This year no cruise line has a summer homeport in San Juan. That is scheduled to resume in the fall with Royal Caribbean first, in October I think, then NCL, then Viking, etc.

Hi all, Overwhelming day yesterday in Puerto Rico with Hurricane Fiona. The emergency is still going on due to continued torrential rains, especially up in the mountains and the southwest portion of the big island. Otherwise, San Juan suffered minimal damage. Just no power and running water right now and for a couple more days. But we should be back to near normal pretty soon. Your fall and winter plans should not be affected. That is all!

English language wire: https://apnews.com/article/travel-caribbean-puerto-rico-san-juan-fe05991a3be3279e574b2b7238e81ee4

This reference is in Spanish. As soon as I find one in English, I'll try posting it here. https://www.noticel.com/ahora/gobierno/20220816/seleccionan-a-san-juan-cruise-port-para-operar-terminales-de-cruceros-de-la-bahia-de-san-juan/

The same operator as Barcelona, Valetta, Malaga and others, has been selected by the Government of Puerto Rico to run the cruise piers in San Juan Harbor. Just announced in a presser by the Governor of Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Ports Authority and Global Ports Holding. Good or bad? Have you had any experience at the other ports managed by this company? The chief local complaint is that they will take over ALL services, to include port agency, passenger transportation, sightseeing tours, shops, restaurants, etc. Now, everyone agrees that the cruise ship piers in San Juan need investment, and the Government of Puerto Rico is broke and can't afford that, but to establish a monopoly which the major cruise lines have objected to (see earlier post that includes the letter from the cruise lines)...

The Governor of Puerto Rico just announced, today, March 7, 2022: The Travel Declaration/Proof of vaccine or test status/Infamous QR code required to enter Puerto Rico will be eliminated after March 10, 2022. That is, March 10, 2022 is the last day those will be required. Compulsory use of masks indoors/outdoors eliminated, although the federal requirement for ports and airports remain. Vaccine or test screening at commercial establishments like restaurants is no longer compulsory, but business owners may keep doing it for their own businesses if they want. The Governor's Twitter is in Spanish, but here it is: