12/14–San Juan, Puerto Rico

San Juan! In the daylight! With all the power restored! Remember the last time we were here was right after Maria when 2/3 of the island was still without power. We’re excited for today, just to wander around and hang out a bit. No pressure, no big plans. And good thing too, because we have to go through US immigration here today and it becomes a huge CF. For one thing, the captain managed to get us into port 2 hours early – which is great, except CBP didn’t expect us so early and can’t really accommodate us because they have 4 other ships in port they must handle. Let the grumbling begin! It’s really sort of ridiculous that people don’t understand the inspectors can’t just drop everything and come here for us. And to be honest (hate to complain but), the ship announcements don’t help. Instead of trying to objectively explain the situation, the CD repeatedly apologizes for the delay but keeps reinforcing that we are “at the leisure of the local authorities.” Look, we’re not the biggest fans of the CBP (we won’t get into the whole political border discussion), but they are just doing their job here – and they have other appointments that were previously scheduled. They will get to us at our appointed time. Sigh. Ok, rant over.

We don’t really care, because we have no where urgent to go, so we hang out, eat our lunch, and head up to the lounge when they call our deck. As we are going there we walk with a couple who chat us up, and ask “how many Oceania Cruises have you been on?” “Oh, this is our 6th,” we say. “We’re in our mid-20’s,” they reply, “we’ve already had our free cruise.” Dang it!!! When will I learn that “how many Oceania Cruises” line is their come on to throw it up in our faces that they’ve been on 20+- cruises and have their free cruise. It’s happened a couple of times, the exact same thing – jeez – you’d think I’d learn by now. Honestly!

Ditching the “mid-20’s” cruisers, we breeze through immigration and make our way to the gangway and out into Puerto Rico to begin our explorations. First stop is the Walgreens across the street for more Aleve and a rib “corset” belt for Ed. Hoping that might help his muscle tear a bit. Then its out into the surprisingly empty rain soaked streets, heading for the old town and this cute little bar called The Red Monkey.

They are sort of open – well, the bar is, the kitchen is not – but we’ve just eaten, so all we want is beer – we’ve got nothing else to do since we covered much of the old town the last time we were here. The bartender is adorable and chats us up, then some random semi-homeless looking dude comes in with a guitar and wants to play music. Well, the bartender has good music playing on the satellite, so its not really necessary, but he’s insistent, so we all finally relent. From the interactions with the bartender, this guy is apparently a regular nuisance, because she tells him only 2 songs and he begins some song which he draws out for-absolutely-ever! Oh geez. She finally just turns the radio back on – which is fine with us. The guitar guy starts making like he’s going to play again, and she gives him some money as a tip we guess (we thought about it, but then decided he may never go away if we did) and he reluctantly leaves. But he doesn’t go far – it turns out he hangs out on the street out in front of the bar telling people not to go in there because it’s a bad bar. Ay yi yi!

Meanwhile, we’re having a lovely time hanging out, oblivious to the drama, drinking our Medalla beers and taking pictures of the graffiti wall to post on Instagram for The Barksdale (you have to follow me on Instragram to understand!). It’s actually quite a cute little bar with tons of fun stickers and things on the wall, an open air atrium and an outside patio that at the moment is still too wet to use. Right on cue, it starts to rain again, so we have another beer, then finally take our leave, walking up to the main square to wander around the grocery store.

We’d priced out beer at Walgreens and it is actually cheaper there (and far closer to the ship!) so we ditch the store, walking down to the Paseo del Princesa to peruse the craft stalls. It only takes a few moments to figure out we’re not really interested in anything here, which begs the question: why not just go back to the ship? Good idea! A pit stop at the Walgreens, a short haul up the pier and we are back aboard, relaxing through the rest of the afternoon.

We hit the happy hour and retire to our balcony with our drinks to watch a beautiful sunset…

…when suddenly we see boats, lots of boats, with lights….It’s the Christmas parade! Totally cool. We run to the elevators and manage to squeeze in with 4 other folks all heading up to see the parade. We’re jam packed into the teeny elevators (very teeny on this ship!) when we stop at another floor and two rather large people try to get in. We all say, sorry, we’re full – but they insist, trying to push their way in, saying “we can fit.” No you can’t! Fortunately the big tall guy in the front tells them they won’t fit and shuts the door. Honestly – can you believe? We are packed like sardines, no personal space whatsoever and these 2 big people think they can join us? This is not a VW Bug! We are not going for the record of the most people jam packed on an Oceania elevator. Sigh. MS Rude. That’s what we’ve dubbed this ship.

So, anyway, we make it up to the aft deck to watch the parade – which is fantastic. There are 30+ boats, all with the best light displays. There is Santa (of course), boats with masts decorated like Christmas trees, green lights, red lights and of course, my favorite, the Rudolf boat. It’s so fun! And in the middle of all our holiday cheer, the two big people from the elevator invasion come up there, take one look at us, and say – “oh, there are those elevator people!” Yep, that’s us. The elevator people!!!