San Juan Departure 2025

[WalkersMom]

We will be cruising Nov 14, 2025 departing from San Juan, heading to both islands, and arriving in Galveston. We are very familiar with Galveston, but unfamiliar with San Juan.

Right now we have booked rooms at Caribe Hilton.

Have you stayed there? What were your thoughts?

What about flights? We’re from Houston, flying with kids and want a direct flight. Did you book through Disney or independently?

Does DCL provide transportation or we need to find it ourselves?

Any other tidbits of cruisers who have recently cruised from San Juan are appreciated.

 

[Mathmagicland]

Here is a thread from July with a lot of good info about San Juan hotels -

https://www.disboards.com/threads/san-juan-pre-cruise-hotel.3950031/

 

[jjb80]

We just did that itinerary and stayed at Caribe. I felt like the hotel was good. It has places it is showing its age but the restaurants and pools were good. I liked the proximity to Old San Juan. We used an uber from the airport to get there. We then used Disney transportation to get to the port from the hotel. The port is close but I chose to use Disney because the PAT did not matter. We were able to get through security and the check in process and walk right onto the ship. It was the first time to San Juan for us and we enjoyed it.

 

[SnowWhite2]

Please remember that embarkation in San Juan is from the Pan American Pier, Terminal Isla Grande and not from Old San Juan. The Old San Juan pier is only used for ships visiting for the day.

 

[DietCokeMommy]

Keep in mind that boarding in SJ is very different than Port Canaveral. I'm not sure how Galveston boards, but in SJ it took forever in line and you had to keep your suitcases most of that time. Once you go through security then you can drop them and split off into lines by castaway status.

We love Puerto Rico though. It's a lot of fun walking around San Juan, and when our kids were littler we got kites and walked around the El Morro fort. We stayed at the Marriott Tiera Verde twice and really loved that hotel.

 

[emmybee]

I found the Caribe Hilton to be very shabby and in desperate need of maintenance. I'm not disparaging the housekeepers as our room was tidy, but it's hard to ignore cold showers and holes in the ceiling along a hallway in the main lobby. There appeared to be nicer hotels when we walked to the Condado area, and I wouldn't hesitate to stay anywhere else because Uber was easy to use.