ChristmasNTheCaribbean Group Cruise sets sail from San Juan, Puerto Rico
CruiseNReview's first-ever group cruise, ChristmasNTheCaribbean, has officially set sail from San Juan, Puerto Rico! If you couldn't join us, don't worry, we'll be doing a daily recap of our activities plus posting on social media from each destination and adventure during the trip.
Guests traveling with us were given an all-inclusive package including meals, private guided tours, cruise fare, wifi, onboard credit, dining, and more. The cruise is a 7-Night Southern Caribbean Cruise onboard Virgin Voyages' Resilient Lady. The cruise departs San Juan, Puerto Rico and travels to Tortola, British Virgin Islands, Barbados, St. Lucia, Antigua, and St. Maarten. We chose this itinerary so we could show our clients our favorite beaches and places in the world.
It's boarding day in San Juan, Puerto Rico! Perhaps the most exciting part of any vacation is the beginning and arriving. One of our favorite things about the Southern Caribbean is that San Juan as a home port is a destination of its own. We love the vibes, culture, beaches, food, and history of this amazing Puerto Rican city.
We arrived a day and half ahead of embarkation and will stay one extra day in San Juan post cruise so we can spend time in one of our favorite cities.
Our time in San Juan was a great as we could've hoped. Our traveling party all stayed at our hotel of choice, La Concha Rennaisance Resort. The hotel, located in the new San Juan Condado Beach area. It's a 5-star hotel with great access to restaurants and beautiful views of the Atlantic Ocean. It features an infinity pool overlooking the ocean with a great bar and food service poolside. It's out go-to each time we visit San Juan. The service is amazing and location impossible to beat.
A highlight of a trip to San Juan is exploring Old San Juan (Viejo San Juan). Built around the original Spanish forts that guard the entrance to the harbor, Old San Juan boasts cobblestone streets lined with historic buildings with great shops and restaurants. It's the heartbeat of the city and a can't miss. If you visit San Juan as a port of call, your ship will dock in Old San Juan.
We hit up some local shops, bars, and restaurants to give everyone a taste of the place. We had amazing customized cocktails at 173, the best empanadas (in our opinion) in the city at Birra y Empanadas, and wrapped things up with our ChristmasNTheCaribbean welcome party at THE CAVE: Cuban Cuisine and Cocktails.
This was the launch party to set the stage for the fun our group was going to have this cruise. Norris Frog, the Chief Party Officer (CPO) at CruiseNReview is hosting his beach bast on Day 7 in St. Maarten, he presented everyone with a surprise t-shirt to wear to his Get Smashed Beach Bash. It was great to gather with everyone even thought we were missing some of our group due to travel issues getting to San Juan.
So to cover our recommendations for San Juan as far as things not to miss:
Walking, shopping and eating in Old San Juan.
Empanadas and margaritas at Birra y Empanadas.
Custom Cocktails at 173.
Hotel Recommendation: La Concha Renaissance Resort
Moving on to Day 1 of our cruise. As I was saying, it's hard to beat the excitement of boarding day. You have your entire trip ahead of you and get to finally experience all the things you've been planning.
Virgin Voyages does embarkation/debarkation differently. They don't normally start boarding until around 2:30 in the afternoon. Most cruises start boarding around 11:00 am. The reason for this is that while most cruise lines force you off the ship and into lounges bright and early with all previous cruise guests off the ship by 10:00 am, Virgin Voyages allows you to start on the ship later, stay in your room until you leave, and get off the ship whenever you want. Consequently, you don't get to board the ship until later the day. Fortunately, Virgin Voyages had a great set-up that allowed us to drop our bags and then had shuttles waiting to take us to Old San Juan. Bonus Old San Juan for the win!
We went back to Old San Juan, did some shopping, then hopped back on the shuttle and went back to board Virgin Voyages' Resilient Lady to start our cruise.
Embarkation was smooth and our group was onboard in around 15 minutes.
As night fell, we had drinks on the open decks and even got to take in a Christmas Boat Parade. Yachts and sail boats passed by us blowing their horns decked out in Christmas lights and decor. It was a great kick-off moment of the cruise and really set the tone for "ChristmasNTheCaribbean".
Unfortunately, some of our group had further flight issues and were unable to make it to San Juan on time. We were able to get them into San Juan will fly them to meet the ship in Tortola tomorrow to enjoy 6 of the 7 days of the cruise. As we do these blogs one day behind, spoiler alert, they made it to Tortola and are now sailing with us!
Aside from that small disaster, it's Christmas pajama night onboard Resilient Lady. During the Christmas season, this is a staple on Virgin Voyages sailings' first night. So, the ChristmasNTheCaribbean crew donned their CruiseNReview provided pajamas and headed to dinner!
We wore our Christmas pajamas to the dinner at Test Kitchen because on a previous Virgin Voyage, everyone wore theirs the entire evening. Unfortunately, we may have led our group astray as we were the only ones in the restaurant dressed in our night-nights. Oh well, at least they knew what the CruiseNReview crew was all about!
Dining on Virgin Voyages is all-inclusive and different from most major cruise lines. Instead of a buffet and main dining room with a la carte speciality dining, Virgin Voyages has a food court instead of a buffet and multiple fine dining restaurants with different culturally diverse menus instead of a dining room. All dining is included.
CruiseNReview made group reservations at each of these restaurants so our group cruise clients could get the full experience. Our first stop as mentioned, was Test Kitchen.
Test Kitchen is a little polarizing. By our experience, people either love it or hate it. The menu is a unique, experimental, and set preparation of foods by the dining team at the restaurant. There is no menu, it's a set five-course dining plan with the food presented in unique ways. You can see a picture of the courses in the image. In our group, it was about 50/50 of those that liked that and those that might have gone for a pizza afterwards. If you go to Test Kitchen, bring an open mind and a bold palette. Picky eaters will not like this restaurant.
After dinner, it was time for the highlight of the evening, the Christmas pajama party! Since Virgin Voyages is adults-only, this is literally a bunch of grown adults throwing down in their PJ's. Held in The Athletic Club outside on the top deck, it's a great atmosphere with a DJ, drinks, and special surprises from the ships very lively crew. Our crew had a great time and after a lively couple of days, was ready to turn in for the night.
Coming Up Next!
There was a lot to cover in this post since we had to set the scene, the rest of the daily blogs will be more focused and shorter reads. Day two will feature a port call in Tortola, British Virgin Islands, a new cruise port for CruiseNReview.
Since we've never been to the BVI, our ChristmasNTheCaribbean group cruise clients will get to experience a CruiseNReview beach hunting adventure to Smuggler's Bay. We are also looking foward to welcoming the rest of our delayed clients onboard as they meet us in Tortola.
Below is our full itinerary with links to already completed live reviews:
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