Bacardi Rum Factory?

[browneyedcruiser]

Does anyone know if the rum factory gives tours on Sunday? And if there is an admission charge? Thanks

[gtaylor]

Open Monday - Saturday 8:30 - 5:30, last tour at 4:15.

Sundays 10:00 - 5:00, last tour at 3:45.

We haven't been since they opened the new Visitors Center, but it was always free before, assume it still is.

[naylenk]

We were there a week and a half ago and it was free - plus they give you two tickets for free drinks. I think they make their money from the gift shop, where you can buy very cheap Bacardi Rum. We did the tour on our own - worked out to be much cheaper! We took the ferry from Old San Juan to Cantano ($1.00 round trip) . Then when we got off the ferry, we walked up to the road, turned to our right and walked about a block to where all the taxis are waiting. It was $2.00 per person ride to the factory. We really enjoyed our time there. Hope you do too!

[Birdnutty]

I've heard conflicting reports on Sunday openings. Some folks swear it's closed, yet the website and other sites say it's open. How can we figure out the real scoop? It could totally alter the approach we take to San Juan touring.

[gtaylor]

I've heard conflicting reports on Sunday openings. Some folks swear it's closed, yet the website and other sites say it's open. How can we figure out the real scoop? It could totally alter the approach we take to San Juan touring.

 

(787) 788-8400

[Karen Lynn]

I heard all this tour does is show you a movie and then give you the hard sell to buy??

 

Opinions?

 

Thanks!

[dfb]

We were there last Sunday, Feb. 6th and took the Bacardi tour. We took the public ferry from Pier 2 in Old San Juan (it is the short one) and bought round trip tickets (which was 4 identical tickets at $.50 each). From Old San Juan you have to specify to Catano, not Hato Rey. From Catano back, the ferries only go to Old San Juan. When you arrive in Catano, walk out the front door under the covered walkway to the sidewalk, it looks like buses and taxis should stop right there but we were assured by the locals that they don't for the Bacardi tours. So, when you reach the street, turn right and walk one block to the green building, you can't miss it, you can see it from the ferry terminal. It appears to be a parking garage with lots of benches out front, we were there early Sunday morning in the rain, and there were only a few men milling about at the car entrance to the garage, they approached us and asked us if we wanted to go to the Bacardi Tour. We said yes and the price for the 2 of us in the van was $3 per person. (We were the only 2 passengers on the ferry going over!) The van picked up one more person on the way to Bacardi, got us there before 10AM and dropped us outside the gate (the guard refused his request to open it to even let us walk on over to the visitor's center.) After about 5-10 minutes, the guard yelled at us to come on through, opened the gate and pointed us in the right direction to walk. We arrived at the visitor's pavilion and gift shop right at 10AM. (Why did we not just take the ship's transfer tour to the airport? We don't like crowds. Our flight was after 5pm and we wanted our leisure for the day.) We got our 2 free drink tickets and waited with a mojito. They filled the first tram over with people from RSSC Diamond. We waited for things to quiet down and then rode over. You do get a radio handset and watch a video and look at a reproduction of the Cuban site and listen to snippets about them, then more individual a/v stations, then the little barrels of smelling stations, then the bar demonstration (in a reproduction of a 1930's art deco bar from Cuba), then a big noisy room with videos and music with drawers to pull out but all the contents were on loan at the time so no idea what was supposed to be there. This is where you can send the free video emails (go behind the wall of Bacardi bottles and you will see the hallway with about 4 terminals there), then the bathrooms and handset return, out the door to the trams. You will be driven by the factory and different parts of production may be pointed out then back to the bat wing pavilion and gift shop. It is mostly self-guided and self-paced, except that if you have come on a guided tour from a ship the Bacardi guides will keep you together by herding you from one room to another by closing and opening doors to keep you together and on the same tram, so if you go alone, you want to keep that in mind and not join a tram with a tour group on it. Our observation was that the ship's tour groups did not have time to enjoy their free drinks and were rushed in the gift shop to exit and did not have time to enjoy or even have there 2nd free drinks after the tour was over. There was no hard sell to buy and as this was our last day, we had plenty of time to price liquor in PR and through the islands, it was most expensive at the Bacardi gift shop (we saw the same bottle for $7.95 in St. Thomas at Havensight and $9.95 at Bacardi). It was not a "distillery tour" as it is advertised by Bacardi. We thought it was a good way to spend a few hours on a rainy Sunday morning. When we were ready to go, we walked over to the visitor's parking lot where there we several taxis waiting and we asked to be taken back to the ferry terminal (again we got an unhappy cabbie as he pressed to take us to our hotel instead) for $3 per person he drove us back and dropped us off at the green building one block from the ferry terminal.

 

We had to be all off RSSC Diamond by 9AM in Old San Juan, we were in the last group to be disembarked about quarter to 9AM. We walked right off the ship, through customs, and to the taxi line. Negotiated a $10 round trip to drop our baggage at Barrachina and back to the ferry pier. (Barrachina is a restaraunt/jewelry store that the Puerto Rican Tourism Co. and RSSC recommended when asked what we should do with our luggage since there is no where to store it at the piers. They do not charge for this service, but accept tips. The guy that took our bags at Barrachina said the "standard tip" is $5, which was what we had planned to give him anyway. They have a big interior room just off the patio dining area devoted to storing baggage. They gave us a slip with a bag count on it when we checked the bags in and he double checked that we were taking that number out when we checked the bags out.) The driver was not happy because he was hoping to fill his van and go to the airport, but he took us and even carried my bag and got Barrachina to open up a few minutes early to accept our bags so he could get back in the taxi line at the ship. (That may have been a lost cause for him because there were probably fewer than 50 people left on the ship when we left it.) We took the ferry alone and when we came back on the ferry near Noon, it was very crowded with a big press of people lined up at the gate to board. There were still enough seats for everyone. In Old San Juan, we walked up Tanca St. uphill to Sol and ate lunch at El Jibarito. The lunches there were $2-3 more on Sunday than they were on Tuesday, probably because there were several ships coming in that day, vs. Tues. There were a lot of local business people in there on Tues. and a lot of tourists on Sunday, anyway the food was the same and good and still not expensive, just a heads up that the price did increase. Then we walked over to Barrachina and picked up our luggage and a taxi to the airport, got there the recommended 3 hours early and went through security in about 15 minutes. (There were looong lines at American even for the self-checkin kiosks, we had traveled with one carry on bag each for our short cruise and printed our boarding passes from the ship's internet facility.) We found the gate with the first flight to our connecting city and asked if since we were here early we could take it rather than wait (we were traveling on frequent flyer award tickets) they boarded us on the earlier flight in group 4 and we were on our way home by 4pm.

 

Hope this helps.