Pan American Cruise Terminal or Old San Juan Terminal?

[canadagal]

Does anyone know which terminal in Puerto Rico, Silverseas embarks from?

Pat

[patnlcc]

The Silversea website says Pier 1, and that Old San Juan is within walking distance. We embark in San Juan, PR on 14th April and are assuming that we will have that information by then

[canadagal]

Thanks for your input. We are embarking March 31st and I will report back to confirm that it was the Old San Juan terminal. I did contact Silversea and they did say that they always go out of the Old San Juan terminal as they are a small ship. Seems all of the mega ships are out of the Pan American Terminal father up the island.

Pat

[unfathomable]

On at least one previous occasion, which was four or five years ago, we were at an intermediate pier, further out than Pier 1, but nowhere near as far away as the big-ships terminal. It would have been a long walk to the old town. We swore we wouldn't sail out of San Juan again (but that was because of Miami immigration, another story altogether). I expect it's changed by now, but if you're travelling independently, the usual advice applies -- check the cruise ticket and call the port agent on the morning of departure if in doubt.

[patnlcc]

Can you say why you wouldn't sail out of San Juan again? I'm now a bit worried as we are UK citizens, not US. We will be flying from Miami to San Juan and will spend a few nights there before boarding the Cloud

[unfathomable]

I don't want to cause alarm and despondency, but Miami immigration can be terrible. We're UK passport holders too and we waited four hours in a hot, humid, crowded hall with hundreds of others in slow-moving, barely-organised lines to have our pictures and fingerprints taken. We only got through when we did by queue-jumping (really not in British DNA!) and if we hadn't, I think we'd still be there. I've never had immigration this bad anywhere, including Eastern Europe and the developing world.

 

We missed our connecting flight to San Juan, despite having allowed more than three hours in Miami. Fortunately, this happens all the time (we didn't know that at the time, so this was high-stress) and the airline switched us to the next flight. But we landed well after midnight, only got the included hotel transfer with a lot of hassle and arrived frazzled and in need of a cruise! At least we had taken the precaution of coming in a day early, or we would have missed the ship.

 

This was four or five years ago, but recent online reports suggest that immigration at Miami is no better than this, at least some of the time. Your mileage may vary.

 

Hence, "never again". If we had no alternative to starting a cruise in San Juan, I think I might try to route flights via Newark, and spend a night in an airport hotel there before going on to San Juan.

 

BTW, returning to San Juan on board ship was no picnic either, even though immigration was on the ship. We were staying aboard for the next cruise and not even getting off the ship, but still had to queue up to have our passports looked at. Friends who did get off the ship "early" were shouted at and nearly arrested.

 

Hardly anywhere else in the world offers this level of rudeness. My wife refuses to travel to the US for leisure any more. There are plenty of other places to go, she says, where you are treated as a guest, not a criminal.

 

Forgive the rant, but forewarned is forearmed.

[BILLP1]

You seem to have run into a lot of bad luck in dealing with US entry ports.

 

Perhaps a change of holidays would be the best thing for you. Best of luck.

[canadagal]

On at least one previous occasion, which was four or five years ago, we were at an intermediate pier, further out than Pier 1, but nowhere near as far away as the big-ships terminal. It would have been a long walk to the old town. We swore we wouldn't sail out of San Juan again (but that was because of Miami immigration, another story altogether). I expect it's changed by now, but if you're travelling independently, the usual advice applies -- check the cruise ticket and call the port agent on the morning of departure if in doubt.

 

Thanks for the advice, will do! I'm sorry that people from the Uk have experienced long customs waits in Miami. I consider myself lucky, because as a Canadian I actually get to clear U.S.customs and immigration at our home airport in Toronto before even boarding the plane to the U.S. However, we too have experienced the line up on the ship for customs before disembarking but any cruiseline we've been on always seemed to handle it well and it went pretty fast. It's just part of security and no one is exempt. Actually I think I've been in that hot customs hall you described about 7 years ago when returning from Mexico on a flight via Miami. It was like a third world terminal far removed from the regular one located way out on the runway but then again I guess that's for security reasons too and things may have changed since then. I've also been on a snorkel boat that departed from St. John USVI, visited Jost Van Dyke BVI for only 4 hours and when that speed boat returned to St. John, USVI, the boat stopped at US immigration and I had to get out and show my passport. No big deal but I think it has been the only time I've ever had to carry my passport to go on a pleasure craft. Just part of the little annoyances one sometimes has when travelling. Travel is not as easy or fun as it once was so you just have to make the best of it. San Juan is such a fascinating city and full of history so even if one is inconvenienced I still think it's worth while standing in line for customs.

patnlcc:, I hope that things are different now and that you will have an easy time getting through immigration in Miami. I'd call your travel agent and make inquiries. They surely would have heard any negative feedback from their past UK customers if this is still happening.

Good Luck!

Pat

[unfathomable]

You seem to have run into a lot of bad luck in dealing with US entry ports.

Only Miami and San Juan.

Perhaps a change of holidays would be the best thing for you.

I think that's what I said?!

[patnlcc]

We were in California in Oct and had to stand in line at immigration in LAX - we seemed to be quite lucky, only waited for 10 or 15 mins, the process does take a few minutes. We had 'indefinite' visas on our old passports which meant we could come and go at any time in and out of the US, but times change and terrorism has caused problems everywhere. Fortunately we have a week in Florida and then 4 days in San Juan before boarding the Cloud, so we are hoping all goes well. We aso have these new ESTA forms, but so far no-one at US immigration has asked us for them. Pat (another Pat)