Today is the big day. I board Star Pride for 14 days of sun and fun.

Boarding doesn’t start until 1 pm so I enjoyed another lovely breakfast at Mimosas cafe in the Hotel Casablanca. They are only open for breakfast/brunch, which is really too bad as they do a great job. In keeping with the Casablanca theme, there are 3 big screen TVs in the lobby two of which are playing the movie. I finally got a screen shot at the right time.

It was beautiful blue sky yesterday but as you can see today is quite overcast. There is still some blue peaking through though and it’s still 27 or so degrees, above zero. Sorry to be rubbing this in on one of the coldest days for most of you. The hotel kept my luggage and I headed out to explore some more around Old San Juan. As you can see from the picture of the map, it’s a relatively small area. It takes no more than 30 minutes to walk between the two Castillos on either end of the north side of the peninsula. I got cooled by a bit of a mist/drizzle as I walked this morning, although within minutes it stopped and was again hot and humid. I’m warning you now that any pictures of me will demonstrate that my hair is going to be uncontrollable for the rest of the cruise.

At the appointed hour I retrieved my luggage from the hotel and walked about 7 minutes to the cruise ship terminal. The boarding process was painless, but had many steps. The pre-requisite health screening reminded me that Nanci and I went on a Windstar cruise to the South Pacific February 2, 2020, just before the pandemic hit. During the boarding process there, the only questions were whether we’d been to, or in contact with, anyone who had been to, Wuhan, China. Little did we know…….

Once on board I was escorted to my cabin and left to settle in. Since my luggage had not arrived, I was free to wander and explore the ship. She is much bigger than the sailing class ship we were on in the South Pacific, but still really small in relative terms. Only 156 cabins for a max of 312 passengers. (Max 311 this cruise :-)) All three of the Star class ships have been “stretched” in recent years having been cut in half and an extra section being placed in the middle of the ship. I sure hope the marine engineers knew what they were doing! The bathrooms have all been redone and they are beautiful. The facilities are top notch as you’ll see from the photos. Not many people lounging about today since probably half are newly arrived and are settling in and exploring.

I grabbed some lunch from the Veranda restaurant on the top deck, and sat outside in the breeze. This is where breakfast and lunch are served daily. In my exploring I got trapped by the spa managers in the spa area checking out the gym. They showed me the facilities and would love for all passengers to purchase a multi-experience package but they have a hard sell with me. The gym is quite well appointed and there is a fitness, yoga, pilates, drill Sargent on duty most times during the day. They have classes which are complimentary, you just have to sign up the evening before. I have booked excursions most mornings so don’t know how I’ll get to classes, but I brought my workout gear just in case the spirit moves me.

We have a “muster drill” at 5:15, a draw for spa services and then have no other planned activities. After a couple of days of travel and hoofing it all over San Juan, I’m ready to just relax a bit. Tomorrow we are at sea so I may not blog. And the wifi is going to be frustrating I can tell already, so bare with me if I don’t get to it every day.

This just in…. Breaking news…… I have a door bell, and this was just delivered as a gift as a returning passenger. It would be rude not to eat them, right?

I have visited Puerto Rico at least a couple of times before, maybe 3, but it was years ago when we did several cruises that originated in San Juan. I won’t get out of the old port area this trip but on previous visits we rented a car and circumnavigated the island. There wasn’t too much damage to this area from Hurricane Fiona, but parts of the islands are still devastated and the infrastructure, which wasn’t the best to begin with, took a real hit.

Puerto Rico is actually not just one island, but rather it is an archipelago of one main island surround by smaller islands and cays. The majority of the population is rural, with the major city being San Juan. There are some beautiful beaches around the island, some of which are black sand and some pearly white and many of which are only visited by locals where family gatherings are frequent. Flamenco Beach on the island of Culebra is apparently one of the top ten in the world, according to The Guardian at least, for its white sands and turquoise waters.

Puerto Rico has an odd governance structure. It has been a territory of the United States since 1898 when the US invaded the islands during the Spanish American War. In 1917 Puerto Ricans received US citizenship for the first time, but they still can’t vote in the US Elections unless they’ve moved to one of the US States. Puerto Ricans can vote in the presidential primary elections and elect delegates to the Republican and Democratic national conventions, where their delegates can vote for their pledged delegate, but they don’t actually get to vote for the chosen presidential candidate in the presidential election. Nor can they vote for a representative to congress.

I’m staying for two nights in San Juan, the cultural, financial and tourism capital of the territory. It is on the north shore of the main island of Puerto Rico. Old San Juan is a charming area with Spanish colonial buildings dating from the 1500s, with cobble stone streets running up from the harbour to the cliffs where you’ll find Castillo San Cristobal and Castillo San Felipe del Morro. Restaurants and shops abound. Many are just now coming back from the pandemic and happy to have visitors once again. They are experiencing the same challenges as we are finding staff for retail and restaurant jobs.

More specifically I’m staying in a charming boutique hotel called The Casablanca. When I was sitting in the lobby having breakfast this morning i was thinking I had returned to Morocco it is so dedicated to to the theme. I bet you can even guess the wifi password. It is kind of funky but it’s growing on me.

On the roof top deck there is a lounge area and there are several huge bathtubs and sun lounges. Taking some bubbly in an ice bucket and heading for the roof top to soak in the tub seems to be a popular thing. I don’t think I’ll be participating.

My late breakfast in the hotel restaurant this morning was fabulous. Maybe the best scrambled eggs I’ve ever had, and I splurged and had bacon and toast as well. After all I needed fortification for my busy day.

I started off with a reconnoiter of some of the beautiful streets of Old San Juan with their colourfully painted buildings. I even encountered a park where children are encouraged to feed the pigeons called Parque de las Palomas. (Pigeons) The reasoning is that if they feed them there, that they’ll stay away from other areas. Seemed to be working as there was a swarm of day care aged kids in the park feeding them and no pigeons were to be found outside the park fences. It was hard to tell if the children were squealing from fear or delight. Maybe some of both.

Throughout the park were more than 20 little bronze shoe sculptures. They are placed strategically throughout the park where children might free themselves from them, and one set also included a parent sized pair. Guess that parent gave in to the feel of bare feet as well.

Parque de las Palomas has a fabulous view of the harbour and some of the remaining fortifications that once surrounded Old San Juan. If you’ve ever looked at promotional materials for Puerto Rico, you’ve no doubt seen pictures of the sentry posts of the two Castillos in Old San Juan. The forts are amazing structures built high overlooking the port of Old San Juan. What I didn’t realize until this trip is that the Castillos were just part of the largest fortification built in the Americas and which encircled the whole city. This impressive fort took more than 150 years to build and even the United States contributed to its structure during WWII.

I stopped for a nap around noon to get out of the sun and make up for some lost sleep from last night. Afterward, since I had visited Del Morro on a previous visit, I headed off to see Castillo San Cristobal. As I was walking up to the Castillo I felt like I was having deja vu. I realized just into the structure that I had visited a fort in St Augustine, Florida on my North American No Fixed Address Tour that was incredibly similar. Of course it was. The Spain explored and set up settlements in the same areas at near the same time. In fact from some of my reading, it seems there is some rivalry about who established a settlement first and who finished their fort first among the two locations. You’ll see three flags flying over the Castillo: the US Flag; the Puerto Rico Commonwealth flag and the Spanish Burgundy Cross.

It was only 4 pm but I’ve done over 12,000 steps today and I was getting hungry so I sought out an outdoor restaurant where I could enjoy the ambiance, work on this blog and fill my belly. I don’t usually chose fish but I decided since we were on an island and will be surrounded by the ocean for the next two weeks that I best get with the program. I had a couple of starters, fish tacos and chorizo croquettes which completely filled me up. On my way back to the hotel, I came across a Starbucks and so I grabbed a tea to try and help keep me awake to a reasonable hour tonight. I feel like I want to go to bed now! But I won’t.

Tomorrow will be Star Pride embarkation day, so fingers crossed all goes well. I won’t have great wifi for the next two weeks but will post when I can.

Fun facts:

⁃ One of the smaller islands is called Gilligan’s Island!

⁃ Puerto Rico uses a mixture of the metric and imperial systems of measurement. Distances are mostly measured in the metric system but speed gets measured in miles per hour. Gas gets measure in litters but other liquids like water get measured in gallons. (And I thought Canada was confusing on this front).

⁃ The largest distillery in the world is located in Cataño, Puerto Rico. Bacardí, the rum distiller originated in Cuba and established facilities in Puerto Rico in 1930. After the Cuban Revolution, Bacardí continued its operations in Cataño.

⁃ The elements of Puerto Rico’s flag: the triangle represent the government’s three branches (legislative, executive and judicial), the star represents the Commonwealth. The red strips represent blood nourishing the three branches, and the white stripes stand for liberty.

Below are some miscellaneous shots from today. Weather was perfect, BTW. Hate to rub it in but while Ottawa was getting – 27 I was in +27. Humid and sunny.

After all the nightmare scenario travel stories I’d seen over the holidays, I had been hoping for a calm weather day for travel, and seems like I got my wish. It was a bit nippy this morning when I left home, chauffeured by my kind SIL, Phyl, after a few flakes overnight but otherwise no drama.

I arrived at the airport at 9:00 am and by about 9:07 I had gone through US departures check in, baggage drop, security, Customs & Immigration, Timmy’s and was seated at my gate. So much for needing to be there 2 – 3 hours ahead of time.

My routing was through EWR – Newark, NJ, just across the Hudson River from NYC. As we were coming in for landing, I briefly saw the Statue of Liberty watching over the bay, but wasn’t in a position to get a picture. My grandson is obsessed with it having received a map with man made icons on it for Christmas. He’s also obsessed with the CN Tower and the Parliament Buildings, probably because he’s seen both of them.

I was pleasantly surprised by EWR after hearing all the ribbing that it takes as a less than desirable airport. I arrived and left from Terminal C not the dreaded Terminal A, although I understand the new Terminal A is now open after long delays. It’s got lots of facilities, including a separate breast feeding room which I’ve never seen before (although to be fair I haven’t been looking!), and a plethora of iPad stations and work stations with lots of plugs. I chose the most expensive restaurant in the airport for lunch, no doubt, but it was a nice ambiance and while out of the sea of humanity, it was not too tucked away so still lots of air circulation. Can’t recall choosing my location based on that criteria before. It was a long day with several hours to wait in Newark before my flight to San Juan, but it passed fairly quickly and I was on to the next flight.

The next leg was Newark to San Juan, Puerto Rico where on Saturday I will board the Star Pride. The flight was a little bumpy but I got my nose into my e-book copy of Spare and got 100 or so pages under my belt. I hated to feed the dragon, but given how much chatter there has been about it, I was curious. It’s actually been interesting to read about some of the details of Harry’s life from his perspective. I’m only in the early years so far.

There to greet me in the arrivals area when we landed was Hector from Rico Sun Tours with his “Lois Johnson” sign, such a relief to see at the end of a long day and at 1 in the morning in a city with which I’m not that familiar. And as exciting was finding my suitcase looping around the luggage carousel. I travelled to the downtown area with a couple of other Canadians from Toronto who will also be joining the cruise on Saturday. They are staying at a new Sheraton, which is part of the convention complex which looks gorgeous.

I, however, am staying at a boutique, funky place called Casablanca in the heart of Old San Juan. There is some construction going on and the driver had to back his mini bus up the street to get to the hotel for me. Adventure in travel. The hotel is not my usual standard of travel, but given the prices at the Sheraton I decided I’d rather spend the money on an excursion on the ship and I wanted to be in Old San Juan. And it’s only 2 nights so how bad could it be. I’ll let you know tomorrow after a night’s sleep here.

After a hiatus during the pandemic, aside from one trip to BC in fall of 2021, I’m starting up my travels where I left off, on a cruise with the Windstar Cruise Lines. I start on the cruise next weekend, if flights, Covid, and the travel gods will allow. I’ll have two nights in Puerto Rico before embarking on my cruise, to hedge against weather and other delays and to hopefully allow for my luggage to come along on the trip.

This time, I’m headed to the Caribbean for the 14 day Lovely Leeward itinerary. I was on one of the sailing ships last time, but this time I’ve chosen the newly renovated and expanded Star Pride. The Star Pride is a small enough ship that it can get into ports and make stops at islands which the larger cruise ships are not able. It has 156 cabins for a maximum of 312 guests.

I have visited some of the islands which we will be visiting before but it was ages ago. Looking forward to some great snorkelling, exploring and sun and warmth. Below is the itinerary. It’s two 7 day cruises back to back thus the to and fro-ing. Buy hey, not complaining.

I have to admit to some nerves in anticipation of this trip, both because of the COVID threat, and also because it’s been so long since I’ve done all the logistics of travel. I started this year by testing positive for COVID on January 1st. Thankfully the vaccines did their job and I had only really mild cold symptoms which passed quickly. So with all my vaccines, boosters, and now the natural immunity from having the virus, I’m hoping that I can get through the increased exposure of travel healthfully.

Those who know me will know that part of my pre-trip ritual is to get a pedicure and have my toes painted. This is just the first of what will no doubt be many pictures of them along this journey. So, come along on this journey with me.