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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Puerto Rico help
We'll be in Puerto Rico for 4 days in January (arrive late on Monday night and leave early the following Saturday morning.) For some reason, I'm not enjoying planning this trip. I want to get a good taste of the island, but I also want to relax and not kill ourselves being tourists. Any suggestions? What hotels have you enjoyed? Did you rent a car? Thanks for any help!
Re: Puerto Rico help
I assume you'll be in San Juan? We stayed at the Intercontinental and it was a nice hotel. The rooms were a little small, but comfortable (we were all over the place that trip, so we literally came into the room, showered and crashed). The pool area was nice and so was the beach in front of the hotel.
I think a must-do activity is to see the Bio Bay. There's a few in PR, but the easiest to get to, and the brightest is the one in Fajardo. There are a TON of companies that do this tour, but we went with Pure Adventure. We also did a daytime tour with them the same day which included kayaking and snorkeling, which was really fun.
My favorite activity we did there was a waterfall hike/zipline tour with Acampa. It was awesome and so gorgeous. Also, the meal that they serve for lunch was seriously the best meal we had the entire time in PR, it was delicious. I'd highly recommend them if you are into the adventure kind of stuff.
Also, taking a day to walk around Old San Juan is a must. Buy the pass to see both of the forts (and don't forget to wear sunscreen). There are a ton of restaurants down there and our favorite was getting the mofongo at Mojitos. (I liked it with carnitas).
As for renting a car, we only did for two days. One to drive to Fajardo for our trips with Pure Adventure and the next day to drive out to Isabela for a horseback riding tour. Otherwise, we took advantage of the bus to get into OSJ and our Acampa tour provided transportation.
HTH
Agree with pp on this. We used East Island Adventures and went out to the bio bay in Vieques because it was the only one that still allowed you to swim in it. It was definitely the highlight of our trip.
We stayed at the Caribe Hilton and got a great deal on Priceline.
We went and hiked El Junque one day which was also very nice. I used www.puertoricodaytrips.com to help with my planning.
I have a post in my blog (link in siggy) about our trip to PR if you'd like to read about everything we did on our 10-day trip.
I really enjoyed and highly recommend doing a self-guided walking tour of Old San Juan! You can find some by Googling or checking TripAdvisor- a few destination experts have put them together. It was nice to move around the historic area at our own pace, stopping to relax, shop or have a drink along the way.
I also loved our visit to El Yunque. We arrived early in the morning and had the entire place to ourselves- when we left around 11:am the place was crawling with tourists that came in on buses from the resorts. I recommend getting a car and getting there early so you can leave as the crowds are coming in. There are a lot of cute little galleries to check out in Palmer, the little town leading to the rain forest. From there you can head over to Luquillo Beach, one of the most beautiful beaches (Blue Flag designation) in PR. There are many little food kiosks outside the beach- they look run down but offer the best of Puerto Rican foods and are always alive with music, locals and tourists enjoying the area together. Then drive to Fajardo that evening to visit the biobay.
Have a blast!
An American Girl's Travels
There are a lot of large resorts in that area if that is what you'd like. We prefer smaller properties and stayed at the Luquillo Sunrise Beach Inn and had a wonderful time. As far as I know, every room has an ocean view- we were so close to the ocean that we could feel the mist on our faces when the waves came in! Breakfast was delicious- they have the usual breakfast buffet and do a different hot meal each morning- banana pancakes, breakfast burritos, breakfast pizza, etc.
http://www.luquillosunrise.com/
Great reviews on TripAdvisor, as well- not one 'Poor' or 'Terrible' rating and only 12 out of more than 300 reviews rated it average!- http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g635965-d649104-Reviews-Luquillo_Sunrise_Beach_Inn-Luquillo_Puerto_Rico.html
An American Girl's Travels
We stayed at Luquillo Sunrise and found it fine. It wasn't luxury but was clean, had decent breakfast options, good rates, and was next to the beach. We rented a car and visited Old San Juan for a day before going to Luquillo. It was a nice stop. Second to El Yunque (sp?) and Bio Bay. These were def worth it.
If you like margaritas, hit Lolitas near Luquillo. But be warned, the drinks are super strong but very good.