San Juan Luggage Questions

[RioWilson]

Hi - Leaving in 2 weeks for a 7 day sail on the Caribbean Princess. I have 2 questions about luggage. We are doing a pre-night at the Sheraton. We'd like to spend Sunday exploring SJ before leaving. What do folks do with their luggage? When we get back we don't leave until 5 pm, so if we can spend some more time in SJ we might have the same question. If we are off the boat early, we'd have ample time to do some sightseeing.

 

Thanks in advance!

[DCCruiser57]

Not sure I can help you with the return trip. However, for the beginning of the trip you have two options - first the hotel will usually have a luggage storage area where you can leave your luggage until you are ready to board the ship. Boarding usually starts around noon, however, since all aboard is 10:30PM with a 11PM sailing, you can check in pretty late. The Caribbean Princess sails from the Pan American terminal and not Old San Juan, so you will need to take a taxi to the terminal since you are staying at the Sheraton in Old San Juan. Your other option would be to head to the ship, drop off you luggage with the porters, check in on the ship and then head back out. We actually walked from the terminal to a shopping area in Miramar, which was about 1.5 to 2 miles.

 

Hope this helps.

[SSM0120]

We left our luggage with the bell hop after checkout. He gave us a ticket for when we came back. Then headed out into OSJ for the morning to explore.

 

Then when we got back we just turned in our ticket and grabbed a cab from out front, there was a line of them.

 

The hotel has lots of pre/post cruise passengers and was very efficient handling everyone.

[youngnet]

Hi: A couple years ago, maybe 2, we used EZ Check thru Princess in SJU. I don't remember it might have cost 20-25 dollars. Princess made arrangements for our luggage to be delivered to the airline (ours was AA) Our luggage was waiting for us when we went to check in at the airport. It worked perfectly. We had a great day, got a dayroom, sat on the hotels private beach and actually watched our ship sail by on their next scheduled cruise. Hope it helps.

[Essiesmom]

EZcheck has not been available in SJU for at least a year, probably due to the required Dept. of Agric. screening. EM

[StillPooh]

I don't know the details, but I did see a sign in the airport for luggage storage. You should probably get the agricultural screening out of the way, then you could store your bags while sightseeing. Alternatively you could sign up for one of the shore excursions where they will keep your bags on the bus, the drop you at the airport after.

 

SJU is not an airport to have to kill five hours in, as we did yesterday. There is almost no place to sit and we couldn't hand our checked bags in until 4 hours before our flight. If I had known then what I do now, I'd have taken an excursion!

[RioWilson]

I don't know the details, but I did see a sign in the airport for luggage storage. You should probably get the agricultural screening out of the way, then you could store your bags while sightseeing. Alternatively you could sign up for one of the shore excursions where they will keep your bags on the bus, the drop you at the airport after.

 

SJU is not an airport to have to kill five hours in, as we did yesterday. There is almost no place to sit and we couldn't hand our checked bags in until 4 hours before our flight. If I had known then what I do now, I'd have taken an excursion!

 

That's an interesting idea. What time were you off the boat?

 

Also does anyone know the earliest you can check your luggage in with the Porters?

[StillPooh]

What time were you off the boat?

We were in one of the last groups, off at 10:15.

 

If you are a US citizen capable of handling all your own luggage, you can self-disembark between 7:00 and 7:30 a.m.