Waiting To Cruise

Our party of six, hubby and I, my sister and her spouse, their two teenage boys, spent two nights at a resort an hour away from San Juan waiting till our Saturday sailing date. A Hyatt timeshare vacation resort got our money and when we walked into the lobby we were well satisfied with the place. First sight of our room was not so good. The decor was tired and a musty smell of an air conditioner needing repair lowered our opinions of the place. Both of our rooms were in need of work. Never mind, the view of the water was great and we made the best of it.
Ron and I went for a walk around the grounds and here I am heading along a path through the greenery to the water.

Our hotel had its own little bit of beach, a small but quite pretty cove.

At the front of the hotel, beautiful gardens shaded by tall palms were well maintained.

From our balcony I took this picture on a windy morning.

On Friday afternoon Ron decided to take us all to the Bacardi distillery in nearby San Juan. We had some interesting driving, almost had heart failure when we came to a merging corner where we came in on the left and joined with a street on the right, all of us wanting to get onto the street perpendicular to us. Ron had to work his way across two lanes of traffic to turn right. The way to do that in Puerto Rico is to just put on your signal, edge ahead, and hope that people actually let you in. They did! We made our right turn onto a narrow street in old San Juan, looking for Bacardi. I lost all hope of finding it as our directions were anything but direct and we hadn't seen a sign for many minutes as we drove along the coastal street. Suddenly, from the back seat, Brian spoke. "There it is!" And he was right. Somehow we had stumbled into the right place.

Perhaps in relief or maybe it was the two free rum drinks they gave each of us but Ron succumbed. He is the one on the table. At least he wasn't under it! (In reality he was posing for the camera.)

We loved the couple of hours we spent at Bacardi and even sent video emails to each of our kids from a station set up there at the end of the tour. A fun afternoon. And the cruise was yet to come.