Trip to Puerto Rico
- Kimi's Travel Thoughts
- 12 minutes ago
- 11 min read
A couple of months ago, one of my best friends sent me a text message asking "Do you want to go to Puerto Rico with me in February?" with no additional context at first. Even before next text with additional details came through, I had already decided on my answer to the question. Of course I was going to agree to go on a trip! It turns out, she was allowed to bring a plus one for her company's trip to Puerto Rico and I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to take a free vacation. Well, not a true vacation because we were both working half the time. But the trip was FREE!
So how did I go about splitting my time working and vacationing in Puerto Rico for about 4.5 days? I created a personal itinerary designed to coordinate with the itinerary my friend was following for the company trip and my own work schedule. My itinerary also incorporated recommendations from one of my colleagues who used to live in Puerto Rico. For this blog post, I will share a day-by-day recap of the trip after sharing some general logistics details.
Flights to Puerto Rico
We booked flights on United Airlines and flew out of Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston late morning on a Sunday. That got us to Puerto Rico in the late afternoon and we actually arrived in San Juan at Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport thirty minutes early thanks to a very helpful tailwind. Our return flight was on time and we returned to Houston in the early evening the following Thursday. I don't fly United Airlines much these days, but I had a good experience. They offer a nice variety of free movies and tv shows plus they provide sanitizing wipes which I made sure to use to disinfect the seat belt and seat back table.
Lodging in Puerto Rico
The company my friend works for invited everyone from their corporate office and all of those employees were allowed to bring a plus one. From what I assume is a combination of number of rooms needed and budget, we didn't stay in San Juan. We actually stayed in Dorado which is roughly a 40-minute drive outside of San Juan. The company booked rooms for the week at Embassy Suites by Hilton Dorado del Mar Beach Resort. In addition to restaurants, the resort had a casino, direct access to the beach, an outdoor pool, and meeting rooms.
While the interior design isn't particularly modern, the suites are comfortable enough to make the most of your stay. The hotel staff were all super nice and having a balcony with views of the beach made up for what was lacking in interior design.
Getting Around Puerto Rico
We used Uber to get around most of the time. In Puerto Rico, you are required to provide your Uber driver with the four-digit PIN that is provided to you for that ride in the Uber app. This PIN is necessary to begin your ride and acts as a form of authentication to verify that you are with the correct driver and the driver is picking up the right passenger.
In addition to Uber, the company also ordered shuttles to take us into San Juan for the larger group activities.
Puerto Rico by Day
Since we were staying about 40 minutes away from San Juan and there was rain in the forecast all day throughout the entirety of the trip to Puerto Rico, I was limited in all that I could see and do closer to the big city with work actually only being a minor factor. However, that I didn't let distance and weather prevent me from having a great time!
Puerto Rico Day 1: Travel Day
Our first day in Puerto Rico was primarily focused on getting to Dorado where our hotel was located. We caught an Uber from the airport and easily got checked in before going up to the room and taking in views of the beach from our balcony. Sunset was on the way, so we decided to eat dinner at the hotel restaurant, Calypso. I ordered mahi mahi that was served with carrots and asparagus. I also had a side of mofongo with green and sweet plantains. For my drink, I ordered a very tasty virgin mango daiquiri. After dinner, we hurried back to the room upstairs to watch a show on Telemundo called Exatlón and then watched the GRAMMYs where Puerto Rico's own Bad Bunny won big exactly one week before he was set to perform the Super Bowl halftime show!
Puerto Rico Day 2: Work and the Beach
After eating from the buffet breakfast at the resort, I spent half the day working in the suite because I had a surprising number of meetings scheduled for a Monday. My friend went with several of her coworkers for a 5k in Old San Juan and returned as I finished up work for the day. It was raining periodically throughout the day, so she took some time to rest up before we went down to the bar by the pool where some of her other coworkers that arrived earlier in the day were eating a late lunch. We went back to our suite with to-go plates after hanging out for a while in hand and waited for another round of rain to pass.
As the rain finally began to let up, we decided to go to the beach and take some photos. We joked that we should imagine ourselves as if we were influencers because it was a free tropical vacation and a photoshoot on the beach is the exact kind of thing that influencers do. Once it started to get dark, we rinsed the sand off our feet and went back to the room just in time to avoid yet another round of rain.
Puerto Rico Day 3: Exploring Old San Juan
This was a day in which I had no meetings, but the company my friend works for had a half day of meetings scheduled now that all their employees had arrived in Puerto Rico. I spent the first half of the day logged in on my work computer working on some tasks and logged off when my friend said they had leftover lunch in their meeting room. I quickly went downstairs for the fajita lunch and then we got ready to board one of the shuttles for the group trip to Viejo San Juan (which in English is Old San Juan) for a fun afternoon of sightseeing and a group dinner.
We got dropped off by the "I Heart San Juan" sign in Plaza Colón and the large group began to split into smaller groups to explore Old San Juan. Some went to tour San Cristóbal Castle while others decided to walk around and sightsee. Wanting to make the most of our time before dinner, my friend, one of her coworkers, and I opted to walk around Old San Juan to do some sightseeing and a little bit of shopping. Old San Juan offers a plethora of gift shops, cafés, restaurants, boutique hotels, and other retail stores. Since this is also where the cruise terminal is located, most of what's around is designed with tourists in mind. While shopping, I bought some keychains for my collection at a gift shop (follow @KimisTravelThoughts on Instagram to see them) and a book titled, Afroalgortimos (2024) by Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro from La Casa del Libro Museo.
At some point, our trio felt like it was a good time to start walking towards the restaurant where we were scheduled to have dinner. We quickly identified where we were going and took a few photos by a nearby fountain after waiting for a brief rainshower to pass. Then, we made our way into Princesa - Cocina Cultura for a private group dinner. We had an open bar and multiple rounds of appetizers featuring popular local ingredients. I ordered a coconut mojito to sip on as I ate appetizers. I honestly couldn't hear what they said they were serving because a Bad Bunny playlist was blasting throughout the restaurant, but the appetizers were good. I know one item was a corn fritter and another was skewered pork with tamarind sauce. Our meal was served buffet-style. Food options included a whole roasted pig, pink bean mamposteao rice, red snapper in sweet and spicy chili sauce, mixed vegetables, and salad. Dessert was an incredible slice of tres leches cake (my favorite cake) that had a layer of dulce de leche in it. The cake and the rice were easily my favorite items from dinner!
After dinner, the shuttles picked us all up from the restaurant and we made our way back to the resort in Dorado to call it a night.
Want to see more photos from my trip? Be sure to follow @KimisTravelThoughts on Instagram where I will share more of my favorite photos from Puerto Rico!
Puerto Rico Day 4: Casa BACARDÍ and a Terrace Party
I woke up and ate another buffet-style breakfast at the resort before returning the suite to work for a little bit. My friend was working all day which means I would be on my own to experience Puerto Rico for the day. For my itinerary that day, I was going solo to Casa BACARDÍ for an afternoon tour. It was raining the entire ride there and I even had to wait under the awning where I was dropped off for some of the heaviest rain to pass before walking across the plaza to the pavillion to check in for my tour. I was given a wristband for my tour and a coin that could be used for a "free" drink at the bar. I ordered a Cuba Libre from the bar and went to the snack bar outside to order bacalaitos. Now I see why they encouraged visitors to arrive early!
I enjoyed my drink and snack while waiting for the call to get on the tram to begin the tour and took some photos as well. The tram went in a short loop with our tour guide, Alejandra, leading the way. We went into the museum portion and learned about the history of Bacardí, learning that we were actually visiting on Founder's Day! Our tour concluded after roughly an hour and wrapped up with a sample of their ultra top shelf rum before exiting through the gift shop where I bought a bottle of an old fashioned style rum and a custom engraving on my bottle along with a box of rum chocolates. After shopping, I returned to the resort to change clothes and get ready for the company party on the terrace.
The company party was originally planned as a beach party, but the rain was pouring down that evening and the terrace was the next best location. A little rain wasn't going to stop the party with an open bar! While a Bad Bunny playlist had been the staple no matter where we were all week, we had a live steel band this time around and they made sure to play some music to get people onto the dance floor. My friend and I ate some of the appetizers which were similar to the ones we had a Princesa a couple of days prior and we even had a similar buffet-style dinner with some slightly different options to select from. As we were finishing our meals, a fire dancer appeared to entertain the crowd as the steel band continued to play. What a fun way to end the last full day in Puerto Rico!
Puerto Rico Day 5: Shopping in Old San Juan and Return to Texas
My friend and I left the terrace party early the night prior to the day we were set to leave Puerto Rico because we wanted to get a head start on packing after making plans to go back into San Juan for a couple of hours to eat breakfast and shop for some souvenirs. We ordered an Uber the morning of our last day in Puerto Rico as soon as we had a late checkout confirmed with the front desk at the hotel. After hitting some morning traffic, we got to Old San Juan at 9:30 AM and were dropped off at the cruise terminal area (after I accidentally chose the wrong sign for drop-off). It all worked out though because we were a short walk from the place that were going for breakfast: Cuatro Sombras. This is a local coffee shop that my colleague recommended and I was excited that we had a chance to go. I ordered a latte and a bowl of oatmeal with sweetened papaya. I'm not a huge fan of coffee, but that latte was really good and I never knew how much I needed sweetened papaya in oatmeal until that morning!
After eating, we found our way back to the streets of Old San Juan that we walked earlier in the week to try to find some of the shops we stopped in before in search of a particular Bad Bunny Super Bowl halftime show t-shirt. We couldn't find the exact shirt we were looking for and instead shopped at some other stores for souvenirs that were still on our lists. We eventually walked to Plaza Colón and determined that was going to be the end of our morning in Old San Juan. We ordered an Uber to return to Dorado and had an hour to spare before our late checkout time which gave us time to charge our phones before going to the airport, catching an Uber with my friend's coworker who toured San Juan with us earlier in the week.
The airport is extremely efficient with USDA baggage screening and TSA security, so we had plenty of time to do a little more shopping. I bought some really tasty coquito from the massive duty free store that you have to walk through as soon as you get through security and my friend did some additional shopping at a souvenir shop before we went to our gate. Then, we were off to Houston where she was going home and I was catching another flight -- but it wasn't to Austin. Stay tuned to my blog and social media find out where that flight ended up landing!
Wrap-Up
And that is a the recap of my trip to Puerto Rico! I would love to go back and visit again one day. I would certainly make sure to stay longer and try to go when it's not raining every single day. Additionally, I would take time off work and maybe even rent a car so I can go farther and have time to see more of the island. Puerto Rico is beautiful with a rich culture, deep history, great people, and delicious food. In college, I took a course called "Puerto Rico in Crisis", taught by Dr. Mónica A. Jiménez, which was the only time I learned about Puerto Rico in a class and I was fortunate to receive an extensive history lesson and made me much more informed about current news and issues across the island. Having that knowledge really shaped how I viewed my experience each day on the island. The information I learned from that class along with having just visited Puerto Rico in the week leading up to the Super Bowl made it very easy for me to see and understand the ways in which Bad Bunny brought Puerto Rico to the biggest stage on the planet. If only I was in Puerto Rico for one of the watch parties!
You might be wondering "Is knowing Spanish necessary to get around Puerto Rico?" and the answer to the question is -- it really depends. In tourist areas, certainly not a requirement. However, some knowledge of basic Spanish is helpful when visiting any place in which Spanish is the primary language. I can read Spanish far better than I can speak it and I can understand a decent amount of what someone is saying in Spanish. Fortunately, my friend is fluent in Spanish and helped translate anytime she noticed there might have been some confusion around whatever was being discussed or to make it easier to get answers to whatever questions we had. As my friend pointed out when I was watching the news our final morning in Puerto Rico, watching the news in Spanish is a great way to practice and learn the language!
So with all of that being said, take some time to learn about the history of Puerto Rico prior to visiting or at least read some articles online about current news. It's always a good idea to do this for any place you're traveling to that you're less familiar with, but Puerto Rico's status as a U.S. territory (which is really a colony based on the way the relationship works) is particularly complex and having even some basic background knowledge helps you put a lot of what you might see or experience into greater context. If you've been to Puerto Rico before or plan to visit in the future, I think it's a place that you will easily be able to say you enjoy -- just remember to keep the 96% humidity in mind as you pack for the trip!
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