First Trip to San Juan Puerto Rico

I finally arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. My misadventures continued. Everyone boarded the plane at Dulles International. After everyone was seated, the Captain comes on and tells everyone that their having problems with the plane's computer but he thinks the mechanic will be able to fix it with a reboot. At the next update, we're given the bad news. The plane's computer will have to replaced. That'll take at least 20 minutes. We grit it out for 20 minutes and pull away from the gate. Tower informs the plane that it will have to wait in the waiting area for at least 10 minutes. I forget the reason the Captain was given. After being nearly an hour late departing, we finally took off. The flight was nearly 4 hours. The stewards and stewardesses were excellent. However, TeD definitely packs people into their planes like cattle. I had very little leg room. Also, if you want something to eat barring 2 cookies, you'll have to shell out $5 for a boxed snack. I bought their mini-meal. It was actually pretty decent.

Once I arrived at the San Juan Airport, I followed the signs to baggage claim. The signs said through the rotating doors to the United Airlines baggage claim. One problem, the doors wouldn't budge. Someone found out there was a long way around to the baggage claim. So, off I trudged to find the baggage claim. Thankfully, all my luggage arrived and to my surprise, TSA left my toothpaste alone and didn't open my scuba diving equipment bag. Hurray!

I quickly found out that English is NOT the dominant language in Puerto Rico. It's Spanish. All signs were in Spanish and a few had smaller words in English. I wasn't thrilled with this discovery as I'm off on my own for the next 2 days and I can't speak Spanish (except the numbers 1 to 10 which wouldn't do a lot of good). Barring getting help from the hotel, I get to sort stuff out myself. Not fun. I like having someone there just in case. It's one of the primary reasons I go on Globus tours. If I run into a jam, I can go running to the tour guide and yell HELP!

My misadventures continued at the hotel. The hotel is supposed to have free WiFi. I hooked up my WiFi card and it didn't pick up any signal. I found out the free WiFi isn't working. The hotel let me use their cable modem for free as a consequence.

After calling my friend Harvey and telling him what to expect i.e. WARM and LOTS of palm trees and LOTS of bright sun, I headed off to Old San Juan. I found out it's 2 and 1/2 miles from my hotel. I didn't feel I needed that much exercise. It cost me $10 to take a taxi. The driver dropped me off at Colon Plaza, named after Christopher Colon (I think he was an explorer though I'm not sure). I walked down to the cruise ship piers to find out where I'll have to go Sunday. The Regent Seven Seas Mariner is in port. It's on par size wise with a ferry but this ship doesn't carry any buses or cars. It is huge. I won't be going on that one but, I will leave from the same pier.

After that, I made my way to the Hard Rock Cafe. In the last 22 hours, I'd only had the mentioned mini-meal on the plane. I was ready for some food. I ended up having a vanilla milkshake, an order of chicken wings and their artery frying hickory smoked bacon cheeseburger with caramelized onions with an order of french fries. By the time I finished all that, I was happily stuffed.

It was time to burn a little of that dinner off. I walked down Paseo de la Princesa (La Princesa Promenade). It was a nice stroll. I got to see some of the old city walls. At the end, I got to see the La Princesa Fountain. It's a nice fountain though I was surprised by the bare boobs on the women in the fountain. The views over the water from there were great. It reminded me of my days at Fort Walton Beach, Florida. They were very beautiful.

After that, I walked back to Colon Plaza. I hopped into a taxi and told the driver I was staying at the Normandie Hotel. The driver gave me a quizzical look. My reaction was ah oh. Thankfully, he did know how to get the hotel and, he didn't try to rip me off. Once in my room, I called Caribe Aquatic and confirmed all was set up for my check dives on Sunday. So far, all goes well. Stay tuned for my updates.

Update: January 1, 2014. Two things. First, the Hard Rock Cafe in San Juan is closed at the time of this update. I was in San Juan April 2013 and sadly saw it was closed. I don't know why it was closed. Also, today, I checked the Hard Rock Cafe website (http://www.hardrock.com/locations/cafe3/) and, it still isn't listed. Second, the Normandie Hotel is closed. According to the following webpage: http://blekko.com/wiki/Normandie_Hotel?source=672620ff, it was closed in 2008 due to redevelopment plans and purchased by Ben Medetsky and Jack Polatsek of Interra Capital Group in 2013 who are working on redeveloping the hotel. I couldn't find anything on that on Interra's website: http://www.interracapital.com/default.aspx about that or what their plans are for the hotel though the property is a departure for this company as all its listed properties are in Texas.