The first indication we were getting close to old San Juan harbor was the appearance of the pilot boat.
Soon the skyline of the old city was in sight. The sea was a bit choppy as we moved into shallower water near the port.
Soon we were passing Morro Castle, which has guarded the entrance to San Juan Harbor since the 1600s.
Here’s a close-up view of the fortifications as we sailed by.
We were going to share the pier with Celebrity Apex which had left Fort Lauderdale just before us on Saturday.
The Coast Guard has taken over from Morro Castle these days – just as the US has taken over from the Spanish Empire.
We had a couple of hours to tour Old San Juan before it got dark. After our tour we were scheduled to have dinner in the Tuscan Grill, so we didn’t waste any time. We got off the ship and headed straight for the Christopher Columbus statue in Plaza Colon.
Just down the road from Chris, we saw another road leading up to Fort San Cristobal, which guarded San Juan from a land invasion back in the day. It’s even bigger than Morro Castle.
Here’s another view of the Fortress San Cristobal. One good thing about a late afternoon tour is that the light was really great for photography.
The light was good for people and flower photography too. Maria had her sunglasses on so she wasn’t squinting into the late afternoon sunlight.
We headed back through Plaza Colon past Chris’s statue and went over to Calle Fortaleza to do a little souvenit shopping.
With two ships in port Calle Fortaleza was getting busy but we were only looking for a souvenir magnet or two, so we were OK.
There were plenty of places to choose from.
We finished our shopping and headed back past the Post Office to the Waterfront.
Here we see the two Celebrities side by side in San Juan. This might be a good time to have a rant and contrast the old classic Celebrity vibe with the new glitzy one. The older Reflection has the wonderful Solstice class lines while the Apex is – dare I say – butt ugly.
Many other “features’ on the Apex guarantee I’ll never likely sail on her and her sisters.
First of all most of the “Infinite Balconies” on Apex are not balconies at all. You get a little extra room inside your cabin with a window that you can lower down – if the Captain hasn’t locked it in place. When you do lower your window, the A/C or heat cuts off in your cabin so you get hot and humid in the tropics or freeze in Alaska. Our stateroom attendant told us they were having glitches with the A/C system restarting after you closed your window. Gross.
Second, unless you are in a suite you cannot go up to the bow of the ship at all. There is much more of a segregation of passengers on the Apex class. The stern of the ship has a beautiful area called Eden, but I still don’t like the restrictions that confine the lower class guests to that area.
Combine those negatives with the tugboat like appearance and I’ll pass on the Edge class ships thank you.
When push comes to shove, I prefer the old school classic looks of the Solstice class ships. Hopefully they’ll be around for a long time to come.
Probably a little bit touristic but how could we resist?
It was getting dark and we needed to get back onboard for dinner, but we had one final opportunity for Maria to photobomb a flowerbed.
After dining at the Tuscan Grill and watching the sunset we went up to deck 15 to get a final shot of the Apex before she sailed away. We would not see her again on this cruise.
I’ll conclude this post with a couple of images taken with my Pixel 7 Smartphone camera. Normally I hate Smartphone photography. There’s no real telephoto capability, it’s like taking photos with a bar of soap, and my fat fingers get in the way of the lens.
However, there are times when the computational photography of a Smartphone will enable you to get a picture when a conventional camera will fail due to low light. I may have been able to take this shot with my Lumix but it might have been shaky. The Pixel 7 handled it well.
I know for sure this San Juan night photo could not have been recorded at all without a tripod for a conventional camera. The Pixel 7 did a pretty good job though. It’s not the equipment you use; it’s the pictures you get.
So ended our trip to San Juan as we slipped our moorings and sailed away into the night. Our next stop will be St. Thomas – tomorrow.
