what time to head to the airport

[mommao729]

will be getting off freedom on sunday april 5. our flight isnt till 3:30. keep reading about how busy it is and people having a hard time getting taxi"s and ubers.

trying to figure out what to do after we get off the ship  we will have our luggage. want to allow ourselves enough time to get to the airport. how early should we get there? 

is there somewhere we can put our luggage so we can spend some time in old san juan before we have to leave? also what is an agricultural scan? keep reading about allowing enough time for it at the airport.

 

[soonernstlouis]

Freedom of the Seas is across the bay from Old San Juan.  You can check your luggage for free at Barrachinas restaurant in OSJ (tips welcomed).  Explore nearby Morro fort, visit Chocobar Cortes or research nearby restaurants.  Most shops don’t open until 11am on Sunday.

 

You’ll be safe getting to an Uber around 12:30, maybe 1pm.  The ag inspection is just another luggage scan but you MUST do that before checking your bags for the flight (they put a sticker on each bag).

[mommao729]

Thank you! This is my first time leaving from San Juan. Very excited! But trying to get as much information as I can. 

[Desert Cruizers]

Our flight isn't until the early morning of the following day back to Calif, 1 AM. We ended up getting a Day pass at the Marriott. There was absolutely no flights leaving for Calif or Col until then unless we spent the night and left around 6 AM

[SG65CB]

Royal Caribbean has an excursion where they will drop you off in Old San Juan while they take your suitcases to the airport. You get off the ship, put your suitcases in a truck, and get on a bus. They dropped us off in OSJ after explaining there are two pickup times, you can choose which you want. After a few hours in OSJ they picked us up at the prearranged time and took us to the airport where they had someone watching our suitcases. 

[Desert Cruizers]

We are doing a b2b, so will come in 2 days early and will spend the Saturday touring OSJ before the first cruise then between cruises have a ship tour to the rain forest. As a result we will be seeing a lot of San Juan. When I looked for a flight out of SJ on the 22nd of March back to Calif there was nothing in the afternoon. It was 1 AM and we have not arrived back in port or 6 to 9 AM. So we will leave Monday . My flight is 1 AM on United and the daughter had a 1:30 AM until AA changed it to 2:45 AM. I should have just booked a night at a hotel in SJ and left around 7 AM. Trouble with that it could have run us an extra $200 + meals.

[piggiepuff]

After the last two winter cruises we took, we checked our bags at Barrachina, but it wasn't free.  They charged per bag, but it was a minimal amount.  There are lots of amazing restaurants in the area.  There was a really good gelato place just down from Barrachina - I can't remember the name, but it was within a couple blocks and I highly recommend passion fruit gelato with passion fruit liquor on top, yum!  We grabbed a taxi one year and last year, we just used our phones to schedule an uber to meet us back at Barrachina and get us over to the airport.  Our flight this year is around that same time frame, 330 or 345 (I can't remember exactly!) and this is exactly what we will be doing - leaving luggage at Barrachina and wandering OSJ.  There is a jewelry store a few blocks away that I got a beautiful mystic topaz ring at last year and I want to go back and see what else I can find there!  Oh, yeah, and like others said, the agriculture scan is just another xray machine for your luggage.  The first time we flew out of San Juan, we didn't know about it and we went to the airline desk first - oops.  It's quick and easy, just don't have fruits and nuts in your bags (my hubby had some trail mix left  - that he brought with on the way to San Juan - that they weren't super thrilled about, but they let him keep it).