Celebrity's El Yunque Rainforest Tour with Airport Transportation... OR???

[BeachTunes]

Greetings From Snow-Covered Ontario, Canada! 

 

We're finally just over a week away from embarking on the Millennium for a sailing out of San Juan. To say we are excited is an understatement! 

 

Everything is pretty much planned for our pre-cruise stay and port days with the exception of that age-old dilemma of "What to do in San Juan when you have to be off the ship around 8:30am and don't need to be at the airport until 2pm for a 5:30pm flight?".

 

We will be spending two nights in OSJ before the cruise and have also been to San Juan before and while the area is interesting we're looking to do something different. 

 

We've narrowed it down to:

 

A. The Celebrity excursion that takes guests to El Yunque with an airport drop off at 12:30pm. It looks interesting but to be honest, we don't love big group tours. Just wondering if anyone has done this recently and enjoyed it? We would then still have a whopping 5 hours at SJU to crush before our flight. 

 

B. Alternately, we're thinking of hiring a driver to take us to "Pork Alley" and then on to either El Yunque and/or a beach. This is pricing out a little bit more than the ship's sponsored excursion, which is fine but but could be a miss if we end up with a less than dynamic personal tour guide. On the bright side, we wouldn't likely have to spend an exorbitant amount of time at the airport. 

 

If others have had a stellar experience with Celebrity's excursion, we'll go with that. Again, though, we sometimes have found big group excursions to be disappointing as we are very active and don't prefer to wait around for those might dawdle. (No offence to anyone!)

 

Thank you all in advance! I promise to post a detailed trip report with photos when we return! 🙂

Edited March 15, 2023 by BeachTunes
Corrected a type-o.

[Arizona Wildcat]

Suggest you look on your Roll Call and the ports forum.

[BeachTunes]

47 minutes ago, Arizona Wildcat said:

Suggest you look on your Roll Call and the ports forum.

 

Thank you for your reply. Both the San Juan port forum and Roll Call for this cruise have been very quiet. That said, I will reach out there as well.

 

Being a Celebrity forum, I was hoping someone who has experienced this specific Celebrity excursion might notice and chime in!

 

Edited March 16, 2023 by BeachTunes

[l1lgreekprincess]

We did this tour in December and really enjoyed it. It was a smaller bus of maybe 20 people. The tour guide was very knowledgeable. I would definitely do it again. Celebrity was also very organized to pick up your luggage at the airport.  

Edited March 17, 2023 by l1lgreekprincess

[BeachTunes]

25 minutes ago, l1lgreekprincess said:

We did this tour in December and really enjoyed it. It was a smaller bus of maybe 20 people. The tour guide was very knowledgeable. I would definitely do it again. Celebrity was also very organized to pick up your luggage at the airport.  

 

Thank you very much for your input! This is encouraging! I think we might go with Celebrity's tour for the sake of ease and simplicity. 🙂

[LeeW]

Just remember you can't check luggage in San Juan until 4 hours before your flight.  Will take you a few minutes to run luggage through the agricultural xray (assuming plane stops in US) but you probably do NOT want to get there at 12:30.

 

There used to be no seating or food in the unsecure area but at least that has now been fixed.

[jean87510]

On 3/15/2023 at 7:14 PM, BeachTunes said:

Greetings From Snow-Covered Ontario, Canada! 

 

We're finally just over a week away from embarking on the Millennium for a sailing out of San Juan. To say we are excited is an understatement! 

 

Everything is pretty much planned for our pre-cruise stay and port days with the exception of that age-old dilemma of "What to do in San Juan when you have to be off the ship around 8:30am and don't need to be at the airport until 2pm for a 5:30pm flight?".

 

We will be spending two nights in OSJ before the cruise and have also been to San Juan before and while the area is interesting we're looking to do something different. 

 

We've narrowed it down to:

 

A. The Celebrity excursion that takes guests to El Yunque with an airport drop off at 12:30pm. It looks interesting but to be honest, we don't love big group tours. Just wondering if anyone has done this recently and enjoyed it? We would then still have a whopping 5 hours at SJU to crush before our flight. 

 

B. Alternately, we're thinking of hiring a driver to take us to "Pork Alley" and then on to either El Yunque and/or a beach. This is pricing out a little bit more than the ship's sponsored excursion, which is fine but but could be a miss if we end up with a less than dynamic personal tour guide. On the bright side, we wouldn't likely have to spend an exorbitant amount of time at the airport. 

 

If others have had a stellar experience with Celebrity's excursion, we'll go with that. Again, though, we sometimes have found big group excursions to be disappointing as we are very active and don't prefer to wait around for those might dawdle. (No offence to anyone!)

 

Thank you all in advance! I promise to post a detailed trip report with photos when we return! 🙂

I have done neither.   But if you are active and hate crowds, do the private.  We have dropped our suitcases in the past at Barranchina restaurant and explored OSJ.  We have also done the day pass at the Marriott.  When we had late afternoon, early evening flights.  Since you are already spending time pre cruise in OSJ, go for the private tour.  We have also rented bikes and rode around OSJ and out to Ensenada beach area after we dropped suitcases off at Barranchina.  

[BeachTunes]

10 hours ago, LeeW said:

Just remember you can't check luggage in San Juan until 4 hours before your flight.  Will take you a few minutes to run luggage through the agricultural xray (assuming plane stops in US) but you probably do NOT want to get there at 12:30.

 

There used to be no seating or food in the unsecure area but at least that has now been fixed.

 

Thank you @LeeW. That's a very good point about checking bags and waiting around SJU's sparse check in area!

[BeachTunes]

4 hours ago, jean87510 said:

I have done neither.   But if you are active and hate crowds, do the private.  We have dropped our suitcases in the past at Barranchina restaurant and explored OSJ.  We have also done the day pass at the Marriott.  When we had late afternoon, early evening flights.  Since you are already spending time pre cruise in OSJ, go for the private tour.  We have also rented bikes and rode around OSJ and out to Ensenada beach area after we dropped suitcases off at Barranchina.  

 

@jean87510: Thank you for your input! We have dropped our bags off at Barranchina before and found it to be an excellent service! We are now tempted to go with the private tour option but renting bikes sounds like fun as well as it's something we haven't done. 🙂

Edited March 17, 2023 by BeachTunes

[BeachTunes]

12 hours ago, l1lgreekprincess said:

We did this tour in December and really enjoyed it. It was a smaller bus of maybe 20 people. The tour guide was very knowledgeable. I would definitely do it again. Celebrity was also very organized to pick up your luggage at the airport.  

 

Thanks for sharing your experience! 🙂

 

[jean87510]

1 hour ago, BeachTunes said:

 

@jean87510: Thank you for your input! We have dropped our bags off at Barranchina before and found it to be an excellent service! We are now tempted to go with the private tour option but renting bikes sounds like fun as well as it's something we haven't done. 🙂

good luck and post what you did as Im always looking for ideas.

[BeachTunes]

4 minutes ago, jean87510 said:

good luck and post what you did as Im always looking for ideas.

 

Will do! I plan to share an overview of the whole cruise with lots of pictures when we get back. I'd love to commit to a live thread but alas, I know I will too distracted on board and in port! LOL!  

[l1lgreekprincess]

We had a 5pm flight out of San Juan. We got there from the excursion in between 12-1230 so we did have to wait over 30 minutes to check in. It wasn’t terrible for a small amount of time waiting. You can do the FDA inspection before which takes 10 minutes or so. 

[BeachTunes]

18 hours ago, l1lgreekprincess said:

We had a 5pm flight out of San Juan. We got there from the excursion in between 12-1230 so we did have to wait over 30 minutes to check in. It wasn’t terrible for a small amount of time waiting. You can do the FDA inspection before which takes 10 minutes or so. 

 

@greekprincess: Thank you for that info! Our flight is departs at 5:15pm so it's good to know if we go with the group tour that the wait wouldn't be unbearably long. 🙂

Edited March 18, 2023 by BeachTunes

[l1lgreekprincess]

On 3/18/2023 at 9:17 AM, BeachTunes said:

 

@greekprincess: Thank you for that info! Our flight is departs at 5:15pm so it's good to know if we go with the group tour that the wait wouldn't be unbearably long. 🙂

No problem! If you are in the JetBlue terminal, it’s very small only a small food court and not much to do. We didn’t notice until it was too late that we could walk over to the other terminal that had full restaurants and more options. 

[BeachTunes]

Hello All! 

 

Just following up on this as I started this thread and a few people wanted to know what we ended up doing to bide our time from disembarkation in San Juan to our afternoon flight so here goes! (This is long overdue as is my March trip report! LOL!)

 

We disembarked the Millennium in San Juan on April 1st. I ended up booking the two of us a 5-hour private car and driver to take us on an El Junque Rainforest hike followed by stops at Luquillo Beach and the Pinones Beach. The company is called Puerto Rican Green Transportation. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

 

I spent a bit extra and chose a Tesla vs a regular sedan because I have never been in one and was curious how it handled. Haha! Silly me, I wouldn't pony up more next time as with traffic, it didn't make a difference. That said, it was nice knowing I was helping the environment a little extra that day! I believe most of their fleet is at least Hybrid. Given how travel can batter our fragile planet, this company's initiatives are appreciated by us!

 

Booking this company was a FABULOUS decision. Our driver Felix was an absolute delight. He grew up in Luquillo, the area south of the rain forest and about an hour east of San Juan so he shared an incredible amount of interesting info about the region and its history. He picked us up at 9am and returned us to the airport at 2pm. It was the perfect amount of time for touring, exploring, chatting and lunch. 

 

He took us to a trail that is less travelled than where the bigger busses go. The hike took about half an hour and we ended up at a breathtaking fresh water waterfall. We had the entire majestic place to ourselves! Apparently the waters are known to be healing so we took advantage of swimming, even though we were worried about being a bit soggy before our flight. It was worth it! 

 

We had lunch at a beach view restaurant in Luquillo and looked around the nearby stalls and shops. We then went to the Pinones Beach which happens to be quite close to the airport. We ADORED Pinones! The food and drink stalls there, while across the street from the beach, seemed a little more authentically local, with wood fire ovens grilling up chicken, seafood and other delights. We were there on a Saturday when it apparently is quite common for locals from nearby small towns to ride their horses to the beach. At one point a calvacade of a few if not several dozen citizens on horseback rode past us on the road! We have been to San Juan a handful of times and had not experienced anything like it. It felt like we'd traveled back in time. Definitely a huge contrast from the nearby, more modern neighbourhoods/hotels of Isla Verde and Condado. 

 

We enjoyed our two-night pre-cruise stay in Old San Juan as well. We had only overnighted in Condado previously, so it was fun to see the old city alive at night. Next time, we'll definitely consider a pre-cruise stay near Pinones so we can bike along the paths to the beach and food stands and enjoy the day. 

 

If going on this private excursion, be sure to wear flat shoes that you don't mind getting muddy. We wore Keens. (I've had my Keens since our Costa Rican honeymoon in 2011. They've been through a LOT and are still holding up!) Same goes for shorts and a T-shirt or tank top. Don't wear anything you might be sad to part with should it get dirty. I admittedly dressed for Instagram-worthy jungle photos and had to change at a gas station before the hike. 😉 

 

All in all, we were very pleased with our decision, although definitely not the most economical option, especially because our Canadian dollar is worth so little right now. I think for a family of 4 or a group, it's an even better value. We'd book with Puerto Rican Green Transportation again in a heartbeat and would consider touring in the other direction, to the region Northwest of San Juan next time. 

 

Thanks so much for everyone's help with this! I think the cruise excursion option would be great too, and probably less "muddy" if that's a concern! 🥰

 

Happy Travels!

Edited May 25, 2023 by BeachTunes

[BeachTunes]

PS: Photos to follow. I'm having iPhone and Cloud issues due to taking too many cruise photos! It's time for me to invest in a storage drive or get a new phone but I keep spending my extra funds on traveling. 🤪