Puerto Rico Prelude and Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastian

Welcome to Puerto Rico, a vibrant island paradise in the heart of the Caribbean, where history, culture, and natural beauty converge.  We spent 3 days of exploration in San Juan before setting sail on our Sunsets in the Lesser Antilles Virgin Voyage.  It’s a great idea to arrive at your cruise departure location a day in advance; It’s not worth missing the cruise due to airline cancellations or weather delays.  

Puerto Rico is a US territory so you do not need a passport to travel here.  The island is filled with things to do and include the El Yunque Rainforest National Park, Isla de Culebra, and then of course Old San Juan.  Given the limited time, and the amount of things we would be doing in the water on the cruise, we wanted to explore the city and decided on the Condado Beach area as our home base. 

La Concha Renaissance San Juan Resort 

I made reservations for an Ocean View King room at La Concha a couple of months prior to the cruise.  I loved the location of this resort, the amenities, large beach and amazing pool and spa areas.  We also had breakfast included, which was a $60 daily spend.  La Concha is recognized by its signature “Conch Sea Shell” restaurant and pavilion located on the beach and they offered a nice lobby bar/beach bar and restaurant, new Sushi Bar, and to pass the time you can gamble in their Casino located in the lobby! 

Travel More Tip:

The hotel also gives you a $10 voucher to play table games for each day you are there - we had some time prior to heading to the airport the last day, so I used them to play $5 blackjack and ended up leaving with $120! 🎉

Day One: Exploring Condado Beach

The first day was sunny and we decided to walk around the Condado Beach area to explore.  This is a popular tourist area in San Juan and there were lots of scooters around to hop on and off.  We walked the strip down to the Puente Dos Hermanos (2 Brothers Bridge), did some yoga poses, walked over to the lagoon with hopes to see a manatee, and then walked back and spent some time on the beach.  

There are tons of restaurants and bars and this is a very lively area with plenty of nightlife.  We ended up eating dinner at our hotel at Serafina Italian Restaurant (where we also had a $75 dinner credit from La Concha).  It was a very happening spot with many large parties, including a bachelorette group.  We got lucky and snagged a spot at the bar for 2, ordered a Caesar salad, pepperoni pizza, a prosecco for me and a Maker’s for Will and it was absolutely delicious.  We decided to head to bed early with plans to explore the San Sebastian festival the next day.

Day 2: Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián Festival and Old San Juan Exploration

I did not plan this in advance and what an amazing opportunity to experience the culture and history of Puerto Rico.  The Fiestas de la Calle San Sebastián was revived in the 1970s to celebrate Saint Sebastian and is an internationally recognized celebration attended by over 200,000 people annually.  The festival is filled with work by local artists, dancers and singers and consists of street performances and Puerto Rican art to buy during the festival. 

We knew it would be tough to get into Old San Juan as they had the entire area blocked off for walking traffic around the event and taxis were hard to find. We were only about 2 miles away and remembering all the scooters we saw the day before, we walked down to the bridge and hopped on started our ride via the app!

This was so fun and Puerto Rico had dedicated scooter tracks colored green on the streets, so it was VERY safe and clearly a way that a lot of people navigate the city.  We took some detours on our way there, exploring the sea shore, old forts, scuba shops and more. 

We ditched the scooters as we approached Old San Juan and ended up walking by the Capitol building and the Plaza San Juan Bautista. We joined the pack of people and ended our trek at Plaza Colon where the primary stage of the festival is located!  This just happened to be exactly where we were the year prior when we only had a day in port to explore.  We went back to the Mexican food restaurant we loved last time, Don Tako, sat down on the patio and enjoyed the amazing people watching at the street party. We walked around the street, wandered into some shops, bought a PR headband and some souvenirs, found some food, listened to music, and had an absolute blast in this vibrant city. 

With all the commotion, we were not sure about catching a taxi to get back so we started walking back the way we came.  All the scooters were out of juice, but there was a continual parade of people with lighted necklaces and sunglasses making their way to the party, so we ended up walking the ENTIRE 2 miles back to La Concha.  (Hey, we’re still young - why not!?).  The hot tub at the hotel was amazing on our tired legs and we headed to bed after to prepare for departure the next day!

Day 3: Cruise Terminal Departure

With the festival going on, only official government vehicles (i.e., taxis) are allowed in the San Juan gated off areas, which is where we needed to go to get to the cruise port.  (Do not take an Uber, as they are not authorized).  Virgin did an amazing job of alerting us to this fact and sending notifications and emails daily reminding us to secure a taxi well in advance.  

Travel More Tip:

Be sure you have cash when traveling as most transportation can be negotiated on the spot as long as you have cash.  We hopped in with another couple headed to the Royal Caribbean port, but it is not in the same location so we were able to throw a couple of $20s at our driver to take us the rest of the way. 

Our embarkation time was set for 3 PM, so we had some time to drop our bags and then have a drink and some snacks at a local bar before heading to the boat!

Ready to experience the vibrancy of Puerto Rico and beyond? 

Go to the “Contact” page now to easily schedule an initial discussion with us to get things started!  Thank you for reading and following our travel adventures!  Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube Channel and to follow along @travelmorewithkristin on Instagram for the latest travel tips, tricks and our newest locations visited.  

Thank you!

Kristin & Will

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