Honeymoon: San Juan

8.20.11
We started our honeymoon bright and early as we had a 7:30am flight out of town.  Stewart had asked several times if I was okay flying out of our small airport or would I rather drive to Austin or Dallas.  Seeing as how the prices would be the same and we would have to drive four hours plus pay for parking, I said I'd be fine flying out of our airport.  It was a ridiculously small airplane with propellers.  The flight wasn't too bad actually and the seats were comfortable.  I've flown a lot but it's usually alone.  It's so much better to fly with someone.  You don't have to worry about invading someone's personal space and it ends up being roomier.  Plus, I don't like strangers, and now I get to avoid them!

We arrived in San Juan, PR, around 5:00pm and headed straight to our hotel, Da House Hotel, which is a Bohemian Boutique style hotel.  We had a corner room that looked out on the street and the club next to us which features salsa music every night until 4am.

Our room

We settled in and then got ready to head out in search of food.  Stewart and I had talked a lot about our love of travel as that's one of the many things that attracted us to each other.  I'm so glad that we were both excited to experience other cultures.  We checked in with the front desk about places they recommended for local food.  She sent us around the corner to The Parrot Club.  Oh my goodness, the food was a fantastic way for us to start our trip.

Nachos: Plantain Chips with Beef, Avocado,
Sour Cream, and Fresh Salsa

Caribbean Spiced Grouper:
Pan Seared Grouper with fresh corn and crabmeat
and salsa on a croquette

Plantain Crusted Dorado:
Mahi Mahi in a buerre blanc pepper sauce
and Peruvian potatoes

 As much as I was looking forward to having some flan for dessert, we were both stuffed!  The food was so great, and we were both looking forward to all the great local food we would get to try over the next ten days.  We went down to the piers to scope out where CVS was as we forgot to bring some Dramamine and we needed to pick up a case of water for our room.  We also wanted to figure out how long of a walk it would be to the piers and whether we would need to call a taxi in the morning.  It was a short walk and there seemed to be quite the night life happening along the water.  There were several little food carts selling snacks and drinks and a band was playing.  We watched some couples dance to the music and Stewart even led me in a dance for a few minutes.  San Juan definitely comes to life at night.  After a long day of travel, we were both pretty tired.  We decided to head back to the hotel to see if we would be able to get any sleep with the salsa music playing.  We passed right out!

8.21.11 - Cruise Day!
We woke up semi early and headed to the roof top terrace to get a better view of Old San Juan and the forts.  We could see that the cruise ship we would be sailing on was at the pier already.  Stewart had done a lot of research and said that the best time to board would be 11:30am.  We headed out to find breakfast.  I was in the mood for a little cafe and we were in luck.  There were several in our area.  I decided on one called Caficultura.  We sat in the back area by the kitchen where the food prep was done right outside.  It was a neat little place.  And the food!  It definitely did not disappoint.  Both Stewart and I were very happy with our selections.

Pancakes with flambed bananas

Toasted sweetbread with coconut and pineapple

After breakfast, we walked back to our hotel still talking about the food and got our luggage.  We decided to walk to the pier and stopped at CVS along the way for last minute supplies.  Stewart had been tracking the weather and knew that a tropical storm was brewing in the Caribbean but, as of the morning, there was still no sign of it.  We were able to get aboard the ship quickly and headed to the top deck to get a good lookout.  We found a fun little adults only area with lounge beds.  We settled onto one and ordered some sodas while we talked over our plans for the day.

The ship wasn't going to leave San Juan until 10pm.  We talked about getting off and going to one of the forts to look around.  While we were discussing this, we could see some clouds on the horizon.  I'm a big baby when it comes to walking around in the rain.  We decided that since we were going to spend some time in San Juan at the end, we would go to the fort then.  Boy are we glad we did!  The cruise director came on over the loudspeaker and announced that the port of San Juan was closed.  Then he came on and said that we would be leaving early so make sure we were back on board at 8pm.  We still decided that we were okay hanging out on the ship.  It felt so good to just relax.  A little while later, the cruise director came on the loudspeaker and said because of the storm, we were leaving early at 6pm and if we had any loved ones who were off the ship to give them a call.  We later found out that we left 500 people in San Juan!

When our room was ready, we went downstairs to settle in and check it out.  Stewart did all the planning, and I had no idea what to expect.  I knew we had a balcony but I was not prepared for this:

We had planned on sitting on our beautiful balcony to watch the ship leave but it started to rain hard so we went up to one of the upper decks and sat by the huge windows that stretched all around.  We watched the tugboats come out and escort the ship out of the port.  We then went to the dining room for our first meal.  It was so good.