Day 58 - March 1, 2008 - San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan photos
So, we get our passports back this morning for keeps! That is sad, because it either means we get no passport stamps for Turks & Caicos, or else that we have to personally present our passports again tomorrow!
We arrived in San Juan on time. Terry Breen spoke on open decks, Observation Lounge and Channel 2 from 8:30am until about 9am as we were docking. We backed in next door to Crown Princess right at the foot of Old San Juan. We are docked on the port side. Capt. Philippe made an announcement to expect heavy swells as we entered the harbor, but it was perfectly calm. Inexplicably, Terry made a little speech about how to pronounce and spell El Morro. Full name of the fort at the entrance to the harbor is Fuerte San Felipe del Morro. But, in any event she was quite specific that Moro is with one r. We have never seen it written that way. No idea how she could think it only has one r instead of 2. At 10am, Bryan began calling passengers to report to different spots to clear US ICE. Everyone gets their passports back and has to present themselves individually to US officials to clear for departure. The sheet of paper we got last night stated that no one could leave the ship until everyone had done this, but once cleared individually you can leave. All ship's tour participants were called first and then deck by deck starting at the top and working down. Since we are on deck 7, and independent, we were some of the last off the ship. Really, no matter as we have no plans because we have all been here before. All aboard is 4:30pm. Sailing at 5pm. So, it will be a pretty short day ashore here anyway.
We had a last, late, big Saturday breakfast in Compass Rose this morning. Tomorrow will be our last Sunday Brunch breakfast. Boo! They have big juicy raspberries aboard right now. Delicious! For the past 2 mornings, they have served them in the silver-footed bowls. Debbie pours milk over hers and her bowl has leaked causing some minor havoc and much amusement. Ludovich came by this morning to ask us where we were having dinner tonight. We know only because the only thing any of us saw on any menu that we really wanted was Debbie and Peanut Butter ice cream. Margie wanted to know why Ludovich wanted to know and he wouldn't say, only that it was a surprise. We are not big surprise lovers. Debbie told him that our only preference for dinner at this point was Peanut Butter ice cream in Compass Rose. Panic was writ large over his face as he reminded us that just because it is on the menu now does not mean it will actually be served in the restaurant. Debbie told him that he better have Peanut Butter ice cream, she was counting on it. Ludovich quickly summoned someone to make sure that it was actually in a refrigerator and not buried in some deep freeze! Funny! So, we will plan on the PB ice cream and a surprise.
Tonight at 6pm in the Constellation Theater is the Full Circle South America Farewell Party. We are advised to bring our cameras. More later. It is Country Club Casual tonight. Tonight the show in Constellation Theater at 9:45pm is Theater at Sea. It is Karen Mason in a show called Make Someone Happy. She originated the role of Tanya on Broadway in ABBA's Mamma Mia. Debbie is planning to attend. More later. Tonight we turn our clocks and watches back one hour. Hopefully, this is the last time change and we will put us back on East Coast time.
Tomorrow night is Formal and we are invited to dine at 7:30pm with Captain Philippe Fichet Delavault and Social Hostess Elsa McLean. Tomorrow night at 6:15pm is the Captain's Farewell Party for the segment. We still do not have departure information or luggage tags. Tomorrow afternoon we are in Grand Turk, then a sea day and on Tuesday we get the boot, or disembark.
We're back on the ship now! So, Deck 7 was finally called about 10:30am. We only stood in line about 5 minutes and then pretty much walked straight off the ship. We entered the starboard side of the Constellation Theater and were handed our passports by giving our suite numbers. We walked them to the front of the theater where a Customs & Immigration official compared us and the photo. We walked back out on the port side where someone gave us a Landing Card (just a slip of paper saying that we had been cleared and had our passports). Clay took the passports back to the safe first and met Debbie and Margie outside. We handed our Landing Card slips to the Security Officer on the ship that swiped our ship's card as we exited. You have to have your ship's card and a photo ID to re-enter the port terminal, but we all had our driver's licenses on us. We were at Cafe Mallorca having our toasted Mallorca sandwiches by 11am. Second breakfast. Clay and Margie had a really strong, thick and icy homemade lemonade to drink and Debbie had cafe au lait. She got the end of a pot as they started a new one right after they poured hers. That 2nd cup of really potent and thick coffee kick started her for the rest of the day. Her eyes were just about spinning in her head before she hopped off her counter stool and hit the ground running. Clay and Margie would play catchup for the remainder of the day. We had earlier abandoned the idea of going over to Bacardi. No one was really that interested in doing it and we all were thinking of taking it easier than we had on earlier visits here. Margie especially was feeling the heat, humidity and the uphill walks. Debbie was trying to keep ahead of her racing heart. Clay was just trying to keep up at all. We walked past La Bombonera, which is a competitor to Cafe Mallorca. A Mallorca is a local delicacy of a kind of flat, circular sweet bread or pastry. They slice it in half and put in butter, cheese, ham and or any combination and grill it like a panini, then cover it with powdered sugar. It sounds kind of weird, but it is really good. Margie had never heard of it and was really unsure since we just ate breakfast at 8am. But, she got the cheese one and really liked it. She sucked it right down anyway. It was pretty crowded in there and we just took stools at the counter. We got to watch them making everything. It was cool! After that, we continued walking down Calle San Francisco to the Plaza de Armas, where we watched the little 2-year old boy from the ship chase pigeons. he was having a blast. Then we walked up Calle San Jose to approach the Cathedral de San Juan from the rear. We went inside and saw the marble tomb of Ponce de Leon. He died in Cuba and was originally interred at the Church of San Jose. It is the 2nd oldest Roman Catholic church in the Americas, but it is closed. Anyway about Ponce, his remains were brought from Cuba in 1559 and moved to San Juan Cathedral in 1908. Next to the church was the Dominican Convent which is now a museum. It was built in 1523. It was closed for lunch. At the Plaza San Jose next to the church is a statue of Juan Ponce de Leon that was cast from English cannons captured during a naval battle in 1797. We then took a seat in the Plaza del Quinto Centenario. There was a snow cone stand there. Debbie read the flavors and picked Cane Syrup. Our bus driver in Barbados had talked about how he could not get enough of this stuff and it was currently available as the cane was now being harvested. He said it is only freshly available for a short period before it becomes molasses and sugar and rum. So, as you might imagine it is very strongly flavored and must be one of those acquired tastes. Margie and Clay both thought it was nasty. Debbie stepped up. You do not want to imagine the buzz emanating off her by this time! She was practically levitating! This plaza has multiple levels and at the lowest is one of those flat, action type fountains. It being Saturday, there were tons of families with kids out and a passel of screaming kids in swimsuits was running and screaming through the water fountain. Debbie was green with envy and wished she had known and worn Tevas and a swimsuit! Who knew. So, we went down and took some photos. There is a recurring image of a sheep with a flag that we have seen and there 2 bronze statues there representing the image. We aren't sure if it is like a state seal for Puerto Rico or if it is a San Juan thing or what. It was inside the Cathedral near Ponce too. Anyway, Debbie really liked it, so we took pictures. From there we could see a lot of kites flying on the green in front of El Morro. Debbie decided to do that. We went over to a stand and bought a kite and string for $4.09. Margie was so ready to see Debbie burn off some energy that she stepped up with $3 towards the purchase price just to get Debbie away. Remember we are officially in the US now, so US dollars. Debbie flew the first time out and got the string off the spindle and onto the handle. Margie and Clay both thought she had the easiest kite launch/flight ever. Then Debbie showed them her bloodied left hand. Nothing is ever as easy as it appears. Clay finished bringing the kite back down. We all had some water and sat in the breeze for a while to cool off from all the kite excitement. Debbie decided that we should have another kite launch by Clay before we donated the kite to a local kid. Clay got it up and then handed it off to Debbie to string out. After some close calls with Margie's head and an attack by another kite it was more than half way out when the string broke and it was lost forever. Debbie went hunting it and came up with a lost Care Bears and Cinderella, but our psychedelic kite was just MIA. Ah, well. It was great, cheap fun while it lasted. We made our way down to the city walls and started down and around the entrance to the harbor. We walked past the Casa Rosada (1812) and Casa Blanca (1540) which had been our goal. Casa Blanca was built to be Ponce de Leon's home, but he died without ever living there. His descendents lived there for 250 years. It is now a museum. Once we got there we decided that it was better just to go to lunch and then the ship. So, we did not enter. We found the Plaza de La Rogativa. It has an iron sculpture. It was done to mark the 450th anniversary in 1971 of La Rogativa, meaning the Procession. Here is the story; after a 2 week siege of the city, the city thought defeat was imminent and asked the Bishop to lead a night vigil in honor of St. Catherine. Marchers bearing torches went through the streets. The British in their ships in the harbor, saw the torchlights and hearing the bells ringing assumed that reinforcements had arrived from overland. Rather than face an uncertain battle, the British hoisted anchor and slipped away in the night. The next morning, ready to surrender, the townspeople found their prayers were answered! Great story, right?! We walked back across the Old City on Calle Sol. El Jibarito is at 280 Calle del Sol between Calle San Justo and right before Calle Tanca. Terry Breen told us this morning during her talk that El Jibaro is a symbol of Puerto Rico and is like the country, peasant whose hard work made this country. The other symbol is the Coqui, a small noisy, nocturnal singing tree frog. At El Jibarito, which serves Criollo food, Margie had Sanchoco, a soup. It had a ham hock, a beef rib, potatoes, carrots, peas, some kind of dumplings and a corn cob in it. It was a bowlful! It was very tasty though and came with a side of white rice that you could put in the bowl with the broth as you made room. Debbie had plantain tamales with pork and brown rice with black beans. The tamale part was very sticky and looked like molded sweet potatoes, it was kind of weird. Clay had chicken stew with white rice and red beans. It was very tasty as well. Clay also had a Medalla, a local beer. No room for dessert. Plus the place was packed with locals with screaming kids and it seemed like there were a couple of large groups gathered for celebrations. It was ear-shattering noisy in there. We walked back downhill to the port on Calle Tanca and stopped and bought our cheapest T-shirts of the entire trip! Crown Princess was disembarking and embarking today, so the Cruise Terminal building was a little crazy every time we came through, but we weren't long delayed either way. We were back on board an hour before the 4:30pm all aboard. We had beautiful sunny weather again today. On the warm side, but with a pleasant breeze most of the time. Our good weather wish is still on track even if seas are rougher than we wished!
We heard Capt. Philippe make the announcement as we went up to our cabins in the elevator that the US Coast Guard was onboard conducting a safety evaluation. He said that the crew was required to go through some drills for this and for the passengers to just stay out of the way and ignore it. Capt. Philippe announced that we were about 30 minutes late departing as a result, but that the ship had an excellent result of our evaluation and the ship was very safe.
On the health front, Clay seems to be improving though he still has a cough. Debbie and Margie were both up last night coughing again. The bronchitis appears to be relapsing as they are both coughing up yellow goo again. Does not bode well for Clay who just last night finished his 6th day of Cipro. Debbie and Margie both took a 5-day course as prescribed to Debbie by the ship's Doctor. Since Margie still has 5 days left from her home Doctor, she has started a 2nd 5-day course. Debbie and Clay will just have to wait and see at this point. In our experience, these ship-bourne respiratory infections are persistent and vicious and hard to shake off. Keeping our fingers crossed for now though that the relapse which seems to be occurring will not be too bothersome.
The Farewell Party for the Full Circle cruisers was good. They showed 2 video clips and announced that they would be providing a DVD to each cabin with about 1 hour and 10 minutes of video on it. Bryan Townsend sang a song from Porgy & Bess. Then he sang a duet from Porgy & Bess with Heather Clancy of the PGT Singers. Then Bryan sang Old Man River. Then Heather came out to sing again and was joined by the other PGT Singers. Then the PGT Singers sang Hey Jude and all the ship's staff and crew came streaming out onto the stage to sing it with them. They ended about 10 of 7pm. A good thing since all the waitstaff and kitchenstaff and Bridge staff and Reception staff, all the cocktail waitstaff, all the deck hands, all the cabin stewards, in short all the people who work on the ship plus all the officers and staff were on the stage for those several minutes. The waiters in Compass Rose joked that the ship sat still for 10 minutes while nothing else happened except our farewell. Maybe! Also, onboard last night and introduced by the Captain, but not onstage, was Andre Norseth, an executive from RSSC's Ft. Lauderdale office.
On to dinner. Everyone was being really weird tonight around us and we were worried about our surprisefrom Ludovich. After we ordered dessert, Ludovich showed up with a Big O-shaped chocolate cake with candles and decorations and the words BIG ZERO on it. It was super-rich and chocolatey! It was probably the best dessert we have had all cruise. It was way too much with our other desserts. But, we were happy for the Peanut Butter ice cream to help cut the richness of the cake. We couldn't finish the pieces they served us and we had our leftovers delivered to the room. Tomorrow we will plan to finish it while we watch Chocolat the movie. We will try very hard for Ludovich to get Chocolat once and for all.
So, we get an extra hour of sleep tonight and we need it. Debbie plans to get a final laundry day in tomorrow before or during our Grand Turk stop. Then we have to pack up on Monday. It is hard to believe it is finally over! Margie was asked by the Reception staff this evening if it was too long. Her answer was that it was too long and too short. She explained that around day 25 to 28, she thought, enough, I can't go 60 days. Then, she got over that and now it seems like it can't really already be over! Then, there was Brazil, which the Reception staff agreed seemed like we would never leave! Too long. We were in Chile a long time, but every port was so different that it didn't seem monotonous. But, Brazil just seemed like Brazil everywhere we stopped and it seemed like we would never get out of Brazil. We all needed a break, but then as soon as we left Brazil, it just seemed like we were busy, busy with no rest and now it is over!
So, ends a long and good day.
San Juan photos