JamieLogical's Live from the Enchanted Princess 8/10

[JamieLogical]

Yesterday was our final port stop: San Juan. Surprisingly enough, with this being my 25th cruise, the majority of which have been in the Caribbean, this was my first time in San Juan. I was pretty excited to see that we docked near Old San Juan and didn’t have to arrange transportation over there.

 

We did our normal morning routine of having room service breakfast delivered at 6:30. I typed up my blog, got showered and dressed, did a little work (even though it was supposed to be a full day of vacation), and then we headed down to Good Spirits to play some games. We played 7 Wonders Duel, which I won super quickly with a military victory and then we played Splendor Duel which I also managed to squeak out a win when it looked like my husband was about to win for sure.

 

After our games, we headed back to the room to get ready to go onshore. We slathered on the sunscreen one last time. It was a good thing it was the last time because we were down to the last little bit of our spray-on sunscreen. I am very proud of us for not getting sunburned on this trip with so many very sunny port stops and spending a lot of time outside at each one.

 

Once off the ship, it was a short walk to the first few streets of Old San Juan. Our plan was just to wander and explore and then grab lunch at one of the several places my husband had researched while I was working. I was immediately struck by how beautiful all the buildings were and the blue brick streets. What a gorgeous town!

 

We stopped in a very popular store that had a lot of hand-crafted stuff mixed in with some of the usual made-in-China junk. The upstairs of the store had some beautiful paintings and all I could think about was how we would get them home, although we had passed a USPS on our way up the street.

 

We made an obligatory stop in a supermarket to check out the snack options. There weren’t many good ones. San Juan being part of the US probably just gets most of the same junk we do in the mainland. We did find some pork rinds that my husband was intrigued by, but we didn’t buy them right then.

 

We wandered some more until we decided it was about time for lunch. When we checked Google Maps to see where we were in relation to the lunch spots my husband had checked, we were literally feet away from the one that had the highest rating/best reviews, so it wasn’t a tough decision. I am so happy it is where we ended up.

 

The name of the place was Cafe Manolin and had a dinner-type vibe. It had an undulating countertop so that there was a lot of counter seating, but we ended up at a table since that’s what they cleared for us first. We had missed the breakfast time, but that was fine because we were there for lunch food anyway. I shocked my husband by ordering the Biftec el Lomillo (Puerto Rican Onion Steak) and my husband ordered the Mofungo Relleno de Pollo (Mashed Green Plantain Stuffed with Chicken). We both got rice and beans as our side. They gave us three sauces on our table. One was a homemade hot sauce, one was something like ketchup and mayo mixed together with a little spice in it, and one was like a very ketchup-y BBQ sauce. I liked all three of the sauces, especially the hot sauce, but it was a little much for my caucasian spice tolerance, so I used it sparingly. All of the food was incredibly delicious and I liked that the place was more full of local workers in their work clothes than it was full of tourists. Clearly this is a popular lunch spot for people who just work in the area and not many tourists are attracted to it because it’s so unassuming from the outside.

 

After lunch, we wandered some more and we made our way to an open plaza with a fountain outside what looked to be some government buildings. On the corner of the plaza was a Marshalls so we stopped in there for some air-conditioning. I ended up trying on two dresses but didn’t buy either one. The one that fit me had a slit up the side that exposed too much leg and the other one I couldn’t get over my head or my hips. It had a small waist that didn’t stretch and while I have a small waist, I couldn’t get that little waist part over my shoulders or giant hips.

 

Across from the Marshalls was a cool-looking building with paintings of the multi-colored buildings of Old San Juan along its balconies. We decided to check it out and I am very glad we did. The building was mostly an art gallery displaying the original paintings of a local artist named Nico Thomassin. I didn’t take many photos of the art, since I imagine that’s a bit of copyright infringement, so I encourage you to Google his name to see examples of his work. We both loved it and we ended up buying a printed tile and just a small print of two of our favorite pieces. Both depict the beautiful, colorful buildings of Old San Juan at night, along with the blue brick streets.

 

We started making our way back in the general direction of the ship with the intent of going back to the supermarket for some pork rinds, but we ended up in a different supermarket that also had them. I took a ton of photos of the beautiful buildings and streets as well as a fort near the ship. Then we got back onboard for some much-needed A/C.

 

Once we were showered and redressed, we headed down to Internation Cafe for coffee, but Good Spirits was a mob scene, so we took our coffee and games up to Crown Grill Bar where I proceeded to just barely win another round of 7 Wonders Duel. We discussed what to do about dinner. It was another Italian Night in the MDR and the selections didn’t look bad, but they weren’t inspiring either. We checked the entertainment schedule and saw that Rolling Wave would be performing in O’Malley’s at 5:00. It was already past 4:00, so their bar was open. We decided to head down there and get some drinks, watch the show, and then get dinner.

 

We had some drinks and played some Rummy (I crushed it!) until the band came on. It got incredibly packed in there, as it always does, as people started filing in to listen to the band. Fortunately, it cleared out a bit once the band finished and lots of people didn’t stay for dinner. I will say, my dinner was a bit of a disappointment this time. I have been experimenting with trying to combine ingredients from their two burger options and had hit paydirt the last time we were there for dinner with a perfect combination of additions/substitutions, but I get that it is hard to change too many things. This time I ended up with basically a burger patty, some whiskey glaze, and some unmelted cheddar cheese. I was missing the grilled onions and the bacon. Also, the burger itself was undercooked for my tastes. Oh well, I didn’t starve!

 

After dinner, we came back to the room to drop off our games, which we still had since we had gone directly from the Crown Grill Bar to O’Malley’s. Then we watched the sailaway from our balcony and hung out in the room for a while. Then it was down to Crooners to listen to Ian Frost. I danced with Edgar at the bar to Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight.” Edgar seemed very flattered that I told him how wonderful he looked. We sat across from a British couple we have run into several times throughout the cruise and who we have accused of stalking us. We didn’t get a chance to chat with them much because of the music, but we have chatted a bit with them in the past. The husband is from Liverpool and the wife is from Scotland and we learned that we are all the same age as each other and as Ian Frost.

 

After Ian’s set, we had to rush to Vista Lounge where a new comedian was performing at 9:15. My husband and I have been a bit miffed that they have twice now had “dueling” comedy shows on the ship at the same time. Earlier in the cruise they had the two comedians we had seen in May performing in the Vista Lounge at the same time Dan Bennet was in the main theater. This time they had this new comedian in the Vista Lounge at the same time a comedy magician was performing in the main theater. Why wouldn’t they space them out more so that the people who enjoy comedy could see all of them?

 

Anyway, we went to see Sam Fedele in the Vista Lounge. I am glad we got there early because it filled up fast. He had just boarded the ship in San Juan and this was already his second show onboard! Overall, he was pretty funny. I could have done without the usual sexist garbage about how women are so high-maintenance. Jokes about how many clothes women have and how long it takes them to get ready to go out are pretty old and tired in 2024. For the record, from the time I wake up until the time I have brushed my teeth, showered, dressed, combed my hair, and taken my pills is under 30 minutes. And my husband’s clothes occupy ⅔ of the closet in our bedroom, plus he has a whole other closet in his office at home. I just have two nightstand drawers, four dresser drawers, and ⅓ of the bedroom closet for all of my clothes.

 

I did enjoy all of his jokes about aging and cruising, so I was happy he didn’t stay on the sexist stuff for too long.

 

We had high hopes of making it to the late show of the comedy magician in the theater and the even later Ian Frost set at Crown Grill Bar, but without an afternoon nap and having walked around so much in the heat in San Juan, we decided to call it a night after Same Fedele. I headed off to the casino for a bit then up to Slice for my pizza and then off to bed.

 

I really loved our stop in San Juan and I am looking forward to going back there in January. It reminded me a lot of the Old Town in Cartegena, Columbia, but without the very aggressive street vendors/performers. The architecture, vibe, colorful buildings, narrow streets, old forts, and oppressive heat were all very similar to what we have experienced in Cartagena, which is also one of our favorite ports.

 

Day's Drinks:

Mimosa from Good Spirits
Passion Fruit Mojito from Cafe Manolin

Coffee w/ Bailey's from International Cafe

2x Golden Gorse from O’Malley's 

Bailey's & Raspberry Martini from Crooners

Blind Russian from Crooners 

Vodka & Ginger Ale from Vista Loung

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 21 by JamieLogical

[JamieLogical]

It's been quiet on this thread. I hope some folks are still following along. Let me know if anyone has any questions that I have yet to answer.

[Scottdalfonso]

6 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

It's been quiet on this thread. I hope some folks are still following along. Let me know if anyone has any questions that I have yet to answer.

I'm still here, taking my notes for 2 weeks from now, lol.   I have noticed a lot of comedy shows on the app for our sailing, but seems like one a night, but a different one almost every night. We LOVE comedy shows, so we will definitely make as many of those as we can.  

You guys seem to have luck getting to Omalley's but I always read how hard it is to get a table. If we wanted to go for lunch or dinner, the trick is getting there before food actually starts being served and just hang out for a few drinks, basically? 

[JGmf]

22 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

It's been quiet on this thread. I hope some folks are still following along. Let me know if anyone has any questions that I have yet to answer.

 

Hi Jamie.  I'm avidly following and enjoying your posts (as always!).

 

One question: as fellow fan of Bon...last month when I chatted with him, I think he mentioned he was headed home relatively soon with the end of his contract.  If so, I'm happy for him of course.  Did he mention that?  (Asking b/c I'll be back on the Enchanted in October; and I'm hoping to hang with him again).

 

[Honolulu Blue]

51 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

It's been quiet on this thread. I hope some folks are still following along. Let me know if anyone has any questions that I have yet to answer.

I'm here and I've been here since the beginning. You haven't been able to chase me off. 😛  I have been reading your adventures here.  They've always been interesting.  I also have enjoyed the pretty pictures.

 

I do have one question.  I've responded to you here and there in various threads through the years.  You've never responded to me, ever.  I'm convinced you have me blocked somehow.  If by chance I'm NOT on your block list, it would be nice if you could reply to me with anything - even something silly like "Dominica is not in the Dominican Republic".  Thanks.

[JamieLogical]

1 hour ago, Honolulu Blue said:

I'm here and I've been here since the beginning. You haven't been able to chase me off. 😛  I have been reading your adventures here.  They've always been interesting.  I also have enjoyed the pretty pictures.

 

I do have one question.  I've responded to you here and there in various threads through the years.  You've never responded to me, ever.  I'm convinced you have me blocked somehow.  If by chance I'm NOT on your block list, it would be nice if you could reply to me with anything - even something silly like "Dominica is not in the Dominican Republic".  Thanks.

 

Dominica is not in the Dominican Republic 😋

[catgirl411]

SAN Juan is one of the most beautiful ports in the Caribbean to sail in and out of. The fort is so picturesque . Last time we were there there was a storm as we were leaving and there were waves crashing against the shore. It was very beautiful.

[DavidsNana]

Yes, also following along and enjoying your commentary and pictures.  Thank you so very much.

[suejoe]

I am enjoying your daily reports and pics (even my husband has been reading them).  We will be on this cruise in November repositioning back to Florida.  We have done this cruise several times and always enjoy all of the Caribbean islands.  We are also doing the Canada/NE cruise the week before to make this a b2b - 21 days!!

Enjoy your last few days onboard.

[cruisebeachgirl703]

Yup. Still following. Thanks for all your effort.

[JamieLogical]

48 minutes ago, suejoe said:

I am enjoying your daily reports and pics (even my husband has been reading them).  We will be on this cruise in November repositioning back to Florida.  We have done this cruise several times and always enjoy all of the Caribbean islands.  We are also doing the Canada/NE cruise the week before to make this a b2b - 21 days!!

Enjoy your last few days onboard.

 

I wish I could have done that with this one. I love CA&NE cruises!

[Mommapadraig]

6 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

It's been quiet on this thread. I hope some folks are still following along. Let me know if anyone has any questions that I have yet to answer.

Yes I check out your posts every day. Your pictures of San Juan are stunning. We have yet to make it there! Thanks for the great review….keep winning at those games!

[laudergayle]

When you mentioned Marshall’s I had to laugh.  I, too, wandered inside for AC and a quick review of offerings.  Upon exiting I, too, spotted the unique “poet’s passage” and took a very similar pix.  Thanks for the memories  😊 

 

 

Edited August 21 by laudergayle

[Crusin Karen]

1 hour ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I wish I could have done that with this one. I love CA&NE cruises!

That’s the cruise I’m doing 9/14-9/21 on enchanted. Boston, bar harbor, Newport, Halifax from Red Hook. 

[grimace95120]

Hi JamieLogical. On your cruise on port days, have the casual restaurants been open at lunch? 

Thanks

[summercruiser20]

2 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

 

I wish I could have done that with this one. I love CA&NE cruises!

I am also doing CA & NE this fall.  It’s my first time on Enchanted Princess (first time on Princess) so I am following your live...thank you for all the great info (I have taken notes) you have been very helpful

[avonlady6390]

Hi following along as well when I was in San Juan we went to the Walgreens right by the port had cheap souvenirs and coffee Will be on the Enchanted next November a different itenary than yours but still following along.

[Scottdalfonso]

6 hours ago, Crusin Karen said:

That’s the cruise I’m doing 9/14-9/21 on enchanted. Boston, bar harbor, Newport, Halifax from Red Hook. 

We are doing the kind of weird one on 8/31 where they canceled Bar Harbor all together, and changed Newport to Eastport... yeah there's a reason you never heard of Eastport, lol.  We are one of like 3 cruises that stop there in the next 6 months and the others are all about half the size. It's a tiny  fishing town with not much going on. Which is fine, it'll be our first time on Princess so we will just use it as a "check out the ship day"  BUT we DO have the cast of the Love boat and a few performances by the band Air Supply, so that's all cool. 

[Honolulu Blue]

15 hours ago, JamieLogical said:

Dominica is not in the Dominican Republic 😋

Thanks for the shoutout!  I'm sure you and your husband are enjoying breakfast right now, to be followed by a report on what happened yesterday.  I am looking forward to it. 👍

[JamieLogical]

10 hours ago, grimace95120 said:

Hi JamieLogical. On your cruise on port days, have the casual restaurants been open at lunch? 

Thanks

 

Only Gigi's is open for lunch on port days. O'Malley's and Ocean Terrace have only been open for lunch on sea days.

[JamieLogical]

Today’s blog is going to be pretty short because yesterday was pretty uneventful. When we woke up, my husband wasn’t feeling great… felt like a sinus thing coming on. Not surprising really, because there was some weird high-pressure situation happening that made it almost impossible to open our sliding door onto our balcony and caused all the water bottles we’ve been hoarding in the fridge to get crushed. We still went about our morning routine with breakfast arriving at 6:30, me taking a shower, typing up most of my blog, and then starting work at 8:00. I had a lot of work to do because I had taken both Monday and Tuesday as full vacation days, so only worked on the emergency stuff that come up those two days and not the daily tasks I usually do or any of the things that could wait a day or two.

 

I ended up working until about 11:00 when I was able to post the blog I typed up earlier and get all my photos uploading while I straightened up the room and prepared to head downstairs. I met my husband down at Good Spirits where I quickly ordered champagne and chambord and we played a game of Splendor. I am happy to report that my winning streak continues!

 

After our game, we had to decide what we were doing for lunch. Initially, my husband just wanted to try one of the meat pies he had been spotting all week at International Cafe and bring it up to the room with him since he still wasn’t feeling well, but when he peeked over there, there were none to be had. I had planned to go to Ocean Terrace by myself, but when there were no meat pies, he decided to join me. We got seated right away but realized the menu wasn’t the same as the dinner menu and we really weren’t interested. I should have snapped a picture for you! I will try to remember to do that today.

 

So I then headed over to Gigi’s and my husband was going to go to the buffet to get food to take back to the room when his eagle eyes spotted they had put meat pies out at IC, so he headed down there. I got my table for one at Gigi’s and it was the busiest I had seen it there. Every booth was taken and there were two large tables of 6 and 8 set up in the middle, I figured I might have a bit of a wait, but I wasn’t in a rush. I ordered a Fellini from over at Bellini’s and poked my phone while I waited for my Duo de Parma pizza.

 

My husband texted me that the meat pie was a disappointment and I texted him that I was still waiting on my pizza. Once he knew what I had ordered, he asked if he could come join me and eat the half of my pizza I wasn’t going to eat anyway. I said “sure!” and asked one of the servers to bring back a place setting for him (they had taken the second place setting away when I sat down). He arrived just after the pizza did and it worked out great, except I had been looking forward to having my very own tiramisu, so I asked our server if she could bring us two so I could still have one all to myself. It was delicious as always!

 

After lunch, we both planned to head back to the room for a nap, but I got hit with a work crisis in my email. I worked on that as much as I could until I got to a point where I had to wait on someone else and snuck in a nap. When I woke up from the nap, I worked some more and stayed in the room to keep an eye on things and jump back on my laptop as needed. We ended up watching some more of The Americans while I manned my phone and laptop. I had at least identified the source of the problem but had to wait for someone with student access to test whether my planned solution might work. Once it got past 5:00 and I hadn’t heard back from my tester, I decided we should probably just go about our evening.

 

We were definitely doing dinner in the MDR because it was my favorite MDR menu on Princess, the one with the vol-au-vent and goat cheese souffle. Dinner went great! There was a bit of a line when we showed up at the starboard side of Capri, but it turned out the people in front of us were trying to make a reservation for the following night. Once they were out of the way, we got seated at a two-top right by the window! It was great and we had the whole area to ourselves until we were already to our entree.

 

Our waiter was delightful. Super friendly and super funny! My husband also went with the vol-au-vent for his appetizer, which I was happy about because it meant he wouldn’t steal any of mine! He had the beef wellington for his entree. We had finished our entrees exactly 30 minutes into our time there. Service was incredibly quick! Our waiter brought back the menus so we could choose a dessert, but we both already knew what we wanted. I ordered the creme brulee and my husband ordered the chocoholic cheesecake. Both were great! It was a perfect MDR meal!

 

After dinner, my husband planned to go straight back up to the room to rest, but we got distracted by Ian Frost playing in the Piazza, so we stood along the railing and listened for a while. I then headed to the casino where I stayed for a long time and only ended up down $50, which is pretty good for me!

 

Unfortunately, my head started hurting while I was playing. I think I was stressed out about the crisis at work, so I headed back to the room to see if I could figure it out. My tester had gotten back to me that my solution would work, I just needed to figure out how to scale it up so that I didn’t have to manually update 250 student accounts. Tech support for the vendor said I would have to do it manually and that was not an acceptable solution for me, so I figured out a way to do it en masse and it worked!

 

After that, I was able to relax a little bit more, but I still just hung out in the room with my husband. We finished watching Rocky Horror, which he had started while I was in the casino and then we watched more of The Americans. I eventually went up for my pizza from Slice and then called it a night.

 

Side note: Rocky Horror is an American Treasure and is one of the most re-watchable movies in human history. I think I have probably seen it 50 times and listened to the soundtrack hundreds of times. It never gets old! My husband still has a bunch of friends that he met going to Rocky every week when he was in his late teens/early 20s.

 

Day's Drinks:

Mimosa from OceanNow 

2x Champagne & Chambord from Good Spirits 

Fellini from Gigi's

Vodka & Ginger Ale from Capri

French 77 from Take Five

[JamieLogical]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 22 by JamieLogical

[Crusin Karen]

4 hours ago, Scottdalfonso said:

We are doing the kind of weird one on 8/31 where they canceled Bar Harbor all together, and changed Newport to Eastport... yeah there's a reason you never heard of Eastport, lol.  We are one of like 3 cruises that stop there in the next 6 months and the others are all about half the size. It's a tiny  fishing town with not much going on. Which is fine, it'll be our first time on Princess so we will just use it as a "check out the ship day"  BUT we DO have the cast of the Love boat and a few performances by the band Air Supply, so that's all cool. 

They put Bar Harbor back on ours. Have not heard any changes for Newport knock wood! 

[grimace95120]

32 minutes ago, JamieLogical said:

 

Only Gigi's is open for lunch on port days. O'Malley's and Ocean Terrace have only been open for lunch on sea days.

thank you ! Appreciate the info