Summit out of San Juan during spring break...nightmare?

[DrivesLikeMario]

Thanks, secrui. I've sailed from SJU twice, but not with Celebrity and the embarkation process wasn't bad, so that's why I'm asking. We're planning to arrive about 12:30ish. We'll hope for the best.

[stratixman]

Never had embarkation problems with Celebrity out of San Juan. Will find out if anything has changed when we sail from there at the end of the month.

[monicajay]

Only cruised twice out of San Juan and early in March. No problems with embarkation (around 11am) or debarkation (walk off). No spring breakers on board and no huge family groups either. I'd be cruising from there again if they weren't chartered or dry-docked at our preferred travel time. I love that port.

 

There were lots of 'college breakers' staying in SJU though, you could see them walking around the streets with drinks in hand. Didn't bother us at all though, in fact we thought it was cute.

[2theship]

Embarkation and disembarkation in San Juan can be tedious but if it's a winter cruise, you're already in warm weather! It can be 40 degrees in Miami in January but toasty warm in San Juan.

 

I agree that spring breakers are more likely to fly to San Juan to hit the beach there rather than to get on a ship. You may get some large family crowds of Puerto Rico residents but probably few college kids.

[Lois R]

Never had embarkation problems with Celebrity out of San Juan. Will find out if anything has changed when we sail from there at the end of the month.

 

I sailed her in November and had no issues with embarkation at all.

Got to the port, gave my checked bag to the porters and took my carry

on with me. There were absolutely no problems at all.

[Iamcruzin]

We have sailed out of San Juan 4 times. 3 times on Princess and once with Celebrity. On one to the Princess trips they were backed up. We had booked transportation through Princess and when we arrived at the airport they had the bus service take us on a tour of Old San Juan without charge. It was a really nice surprise. We arrived at port around 3:00pm for a 11:00pm sail away. No lines. We checked in and boarded the ship. Our luggage was in our room by 5:00. When we sailed on Celebrity we flew in a day early. We checked out of the hotel and they held our bags. We spent a few hours at the hotel pool before we headed over to the ship at 2:00. By that time the rooms were ready. We dropped off our carry ons and head to the buffet which was empty at by this time. I know many want to rush to the ship to start their vacation but the nice thing about sailing out of San Juan is that you can make it a port of call and enjoy the early part of the day on the island. I wouldn't feel the same way about Ft Lauderdale or Miami.

[DrivesLikeMario]

Thanks to all these posts, I just changed our sailing. I looked up the spring break schedule for schools in PR and it looks like they are typically off the week BEFORE Easter. This is the week we were due to cruise in 2017, so I quickly changed us to start our cruise a week after Easter next year. I'm hoping there will be less families by then. It was the last possible sail date for the itinerary we want.

 

Unfortunately, the price has gone up $200 since I booked with the "2 free perks". "Free"...yeah, I think just paid for them with that price increase. :cool:

Edited January 20, 2016 by DrivesLikeMario

[digital_curator]

We refuse to ever sail from San Juan again regardless of what month it is. We had a bad experience and learned our lesson. :(

 

I guess to each their own- San Juan is our favorite embarkation port. We LOVE Old San Juan and go down a few days early. We have never waited longer than half an hour to board and the longest was when we arrived before they had started!

 

We don't love the airport and you do have to go through an extra agricultural inspection (no big deal) but we hate the Miami airport too (ALWAYS a zoo after a cruise).

 

I agree that Summit will be one of your best bets. Unless there is a residency sale, I doubt that you will see many kids!

[Ozzmund]

We have sailed out of San Juan 4 times. 3 times on Princess and once with Celebrity. On one to the Princess trips they were backed up. We had booked transportation through Princess and when we arrived at the airport they had the bus service take us on a tour of Old San Juan without charge. It was a really nice surprise. We arrived at port around 3:00pm for a 11:00pm sail away. No lines. We checked in and boarded the ship. Our luggage was in our room by 5:00. When we sailed on Celebrity we flew in a day early. We checked out of the hotel and they held our bags. We spent a few hours at the hotel pool before we headed over to the ship at 2:00. By that time the rooms were ready. We dropped off our carry ons and head to the buffet which was empty at by this time. I know many want to rush to the ship to start their vacation but the nice thing about sailing out of San Juan is that you can make it a port of call and enjoy the early part of the day on the island. I wouldn't feel the same way about Ft Lauderdale or Miami.

 

Our experience is exactly as Mike describes. We headed over to the ship around 3:00 PM. No lines, no touble finding a Porter, cabin was ready when we boarded. As we always arrive to the port a day early, we spent the morning and early afternoon enjoying Old San Juan and the returned to our hotel, grabbed the bags and headed to the port.

 

We did notice a fair amount of local families on the ship, but they presented no more of a.problem than similar groups from the U.S.

 

We would not hesitate to cruise from San Juan.

[whitshel]

I know isn't with the Summit but we were on the Navigator from Galveston this April which happened to be Easter week. The one thing that was very noticeable was the ship was very weighted to the Hispanic side (Easter being a huge Catholic Holiday), probably 75% Hispanic 25% other. Nothing wrong with that, we actually had a couple Hispanic people in our party that found out most of these people came up from Mexico, mainly from Monterey which is only like an 8 hour drive.

 

So my guess is if this is Easter week you will have a lot of Puerto Rican families on board, not spring breakers.