San Juan, Puerto Rico (July 9th, 2014)

Our youngest daughter had some time off from work in July, so we decided to take a quick trip to Puerto Rico with her. We left the house at 3:40 am for a 6:45 flight on Airtran, which was a bit strange as I had booked via Southwest.com.  Our flight left on time, which was nice. We had a scheduled 45 minute layover in Atlanta. Flight arrived 5+ minutes early. Had to go from terminal C to D. Very easy and quick. Carried on 3 of 4 bags as I was worried they wouldn't make the transfer to Southwest. Flight coming out of Atlanta was 45 minutes late leaving but arrived in Puerto Rico only 30 minutes late. 3 hours and 50 minutes gate to gate from Atlanta. 

San Juan, Puerto Rico was a small airport easy to navigate. Car rental was with Thrifty which had shuttle bus to facility. We waited about 15 minutes for a shuttle to come. Arrived at Thrifty and went through the rental process. Our insurance with Statefarm did not cover rentals in Puerto Rico, so we had to get their insurance. We talked to another women at Thrifty who was insured with Allstate, and she was covered in Puerto Rico. We updated to max coverage. We were glad to have the full coverage as some roads were a bit rough. After we got our rental contract we went outside to get our car. They picked a car for me and then went to wash and detailed it. Very interesting process; It took about 15 minutes to actually get our car after going outside. Once it was clean, we went over the car for damage with a Thrifty Rep. Lots of little dings and chips on car that only had 15k miles.

We brought our own GPS from home, so that we wouldn’t have to rent one. It took us straight to the Holiday Inn Express in Condado. We paid $128 per night for five nights and $178 for each Friday and Saturday. Also had parking next to hotel for $15 per night which was great. The parking was very tight, but we always had a spot. There was a gate with an electronic opener so very easy in and out. Parking is very difficult everywhere in San Juan. Most lots required valet services.

When we arrived at the hotel, our Verizon cell phones didn't work. We turned on voice and data roaming and then it worked as it would stateside. I called Verizon and they said ‘yes this needed to be done’ which was a bit disappointing as had gone by store and called international phone number and both said my phone was set correctly before I left. AT&T cell phones all work fine without anything additional needing to be done.

We took a walk on the beach in the evening; very nice out; high humidity but very comfortable. The sand was extremely soft and the beach was very clean. It appears that they clean it each night. Walked to a local restaurant that serves Puerto Rican food for dinner. Steve had flank steak, ordered medium rare and it came very rare. Heard others patrons with the same issue. Our daughter had ribs and Andra had shredded pork. We all had Mofongo which is a local dish, made from plantains or root vegetables and cooked many different ways. It was a very heavy dinner with lots of butter and fried stuff.  Overall we really enjoyed the meal.

Wonderful first dinner in Puerto Rico.  Definitely heavier food than were used to.