La Isla Del Encanto. The Land of Enchantment. PUERTO RICO. Traveled to San Juan for a quick weekend getaway and it was a refreshing trip to end the Summer with – so refreshing that we booked another weekend trip in October. When I say weekend, I literally mean JUST the weekend. Both Trae and I got off work early around 1PM on Friday and headed to the airport to catch our 3:50PM flight. We ended up returning on Sunday, our flight out was at 4:40PM with an hour layover in Fort Lauderdale. Were we tired on Monday? Absolutely. But that’s the give and take of weekend travel and accommodating time off that you already have every week with travel plans! I asked my followers on Instagram what questions they had about San Juan that they wanted to know the answers to and I’ll be addressing them in this blog post!

Friendly reminder that I will be returning in October so I’ll have more Puerto Rican content in the next month or so. 

We arrived into Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport at around 9:30PM. Our total flight time was about 4 and a half hours since we had a layover in Orlando. Since we didn’t have to go through customs (Americans do not need a passport for Puerto Rico), or wait for baggage claim – we walked right out.

Although the city of San Juan does have Uber (no Lyft, unfortunately), you can not call an Uber to come to pick you up from the airport. Realizing this so late is not fun so I thought I’d share the wealth seeing as how I did not encounter this tip during my research. Coming in that late, they only had taxi’s running. The way their taxi system worked was kind of like a rideshare app. The guy working asked us where we were going, we said Old San Juan and he gave us a flat fee of $24 USD (Puerto Rico uses the American dollar). He called a taxi from the line-up and we were on our way. I’d recommend paying with cash for the taxi, I want to say he said cash only but I can’t remember so have cash just in case.

We arrived at our Airbnb and changed clothes to hit the bars.

Friday 11:00PM:

• La Factoria: A 8 minute walk from our airbnb in Old San Juan. We stopped by the famous La Factoria bar. Where some of Despacito was filmed. The bar is split into two parts. The part that you walk into is the front side where it’s more of a bar vibe with a couch and some chairs, I really enjoyed the DJ on this side (Latin trap, reggae, drake, etc). When you walk past the bartenders you’ll walk into the Salsa room. There are tables, a bigger bar, and a dance floor. It was so much fun. If you grew up with Latino music, you’ll appreciate it. I made my way to the bar and ordered more drinks and an order of Pork empanadas. If I don’t tell you anything else in this post, you have to get the pork empanadas. They were delicious. I wish I knew they had an actual food menu as I would have ate here instead of eating before our flight. I can only image what the rest of their food tastes like.
• After La Factoria, we literally headed up the street to a crowd of bars – we took a pick. A lot of these bars play hip-hop, reggaeton, latin trap, and even R&B. There was a bar we found along this street that had a balcony on the second floor, which was the perfect spot to drink and people watch. A couple of the people on the balcony were smoking weed, not sure if that was allowed and/or is illegal but is an option if that’s your steeze.
• Bars here don’t close until 4AM so we made our way around until 2AM and headed home since we had to be up super early the next day.

Saturday 9:00AM:

Not going to lie, we stayed in bed a little longer than I had hoped for. We lounged around for a little bit and were out of the Airbnb at around 10 AM.

• Cafe Manolin: One of my goals during this trip was to eat Mofongo. I have never had it before and thought Puerto Rico would be the right place to have it for the first time. Although, I had Casita Miramar on my list for best mofongo, due to time constraints I decided to just stay in Old San Juan and head out to another spot on my list, Cafe Manolin. Casita Miramar also opened at 11AM and ain’t no one had time for that! Going to be honest, Manolin was a good spot for breakfast but the Mofongo itself did nothing for me. I ordered the shrimp mofongo, and the shrimp was delicious, tender, and juicy. The mofongo itself left alot to be desired, it did taste good with the rice and beans. I would go back to Manolin but would get something different, and I would eat mofongo again but I just wouldn’t pay for it again.

Saturday 11:30AM:

• We decided to walk around the streets a bit before walking to our first stop. Old San Juan is super narrow and you can get to both sides of the ocean pretty quickly. We took in the water and the mountain views, the locals, and tried to cool off in the blazing heat.

 

• La Barrachina: On our walk to El Morro, we walked by La Barrachina which is in the house that supposedly created the first Pina Colada. My intial thought was that the Pina Colada wouldn’t be any good but it actually was. It wasn’t too sweet, which I feel like is the problem with a lot of Pina Coladas. To say I needed it in the heat is an understatement.

• El Morro: Our first stop of the day was El Morro. From the Cafe Manolin area it was about a 10 minute walk but the heat made it feel longer. It’s hard to miss El Morro because it sits high and on the edge. Once you get closer to it you’ll feel the breeze from the ocean, which again, feels marvelous in that heat. Entrance to El Morro is $7 (super affordable) and gives you access to the whole site (prices are going up to $10 in 2020). The views are EVERYWHERE. I truly felt like a princess walking through it.

Saturday 2:00PM:

After we got done with El Morro our next visit was to Castillo San Cristobal. We took an uber here, the Uber cost $3 and it was a 5-minute drive.

• Castillo San Cristobal: Entrance was also $7 for San Cristobal. They have a shop inside where you can either stand in front of the fan forever like I did or buy you some bottled water and/or souvenirs. Both El Morro and San Cristobal are huge. You get to see the city from different views, learn about the history of San Juan like how it is the oldest city in the United States.

• Governer’s Mansion: Originally, I wanted a picture in the famous San Juan spot with the umbrellas, you know which one I’m talking about. This spot is right in front of the Governer’s Mansion. Because of the political climate in Puerto Rico, protests caused the umbrellas to catch on fire and when our Uber dropped us off – they were gone. I wouldn’t go out of my way to just go look at the Governer’s House but if you’re in the area, it won’t hurt!
• Señor Paleta: Around the corner from the Governer’s house, was Señor Paleta. This is one of those places that you see everyone who visits San Juan, go to. Small and quaint popsicle spot, there are multiple locations but the one in Old San Juan is a very popular one. We got two lemonade flavor popsicles, they do have savory and sweet flavors. But again, the heat in Puerto Rico is a lot so a refreshing flavor like Lemonade hit the spot.

Saturday 4:00PM – Midnight:

The heat was a lot for me, so we headed back to our Airbnb and took a nap. After we rested, we got up and got ready for our dinner at 7PM.

• Oceano: Oceano is located in the Condado neighborhood of San Juan. Our uber ride was only $4 from Old San Juan to Oceano. The property is gorgeous AND oceanfront. We made reservations via Opentable and I specified that I wanted a table on the patio. The hospitality here is A1 and if you have a question or need a recommendation, they will go above and beyond in helping you decide. Being oceanfront made the dinner so much more special and we got to witness the sunset. We ended up getting the Churrasco Eggrolls – that I cannot recommend enough. They were a delicious appetizer and an item that I would get over and over again. I ended up ordering the lo mein beef and reef – so good. the beef was tender, the shrimp were juicy and, of course, the noodles were packed with flavor. I’m pretty sure I ate my lo mein in record time. Trae, on the other hand, ordered the surf and turf and said it was good but not great. His meat surprisingly was not as tender as mine and the mac and cheese left a lot to be desired. As far as drinks go, I ordered the Sunset and would order it again.

• La Placita de Santurce: La Placita is an outdoor plaza with a farmers market, restaurants, and bars. If you’re a Bad Bunny fan he often raps about la placita. It’s super loud, fun, and there are people everywhere. Music from all of the bars is blasting and this is the perfect place to bar hop. Around 11:30 the plaza gets super busy with everyone coming in all at once.

Around midnight we headed back to Old San Juan (Uber was around $6). We walked around the streets and come across a mini-concert with a band going on. The streets were so lively with people and families, dancing and people watching. There were food trucks scattered around and mini attractions for families. It was nice to see that the streets don’t die down even later on in the night.

Sunday 8:00AM:

• Café Marquesa: We woke up and headed to Cafe Marquesa in the Santurce neighborhood. Some one recommended this spot to me because of the red velvet pancakes. I love red velvet anything, so you know I had to go and see for myself. What I loved about this cafe is that a lot of locals come here (sign of a good restaurant). The red velvet pancakes did not disappoint. Although, I will say that these pancakes will be more sweet than savory. So if you’re more of a savory person maybe get something else? If youre into sweets – these pancakes are liiiiiife. They also have a lot of mimosa flavors if you’re in the mood for something besides the regular mimosa.

Sunday 10:00AM:

• After breakfast, we decided to walk around and look at the street art around the area. Santurce is known for it’s art pieces around the neighborhood, so this is a fun option for after breakfast or lunch.
• At around 10:40AM we headed back out to our Airbnb to pack up before our check out at 11AM.
• The Black and White Puerto Rican Flag:

Sunday 11:30AM:

• La Perla: In more touristy news before we left, we decided to check out La Perla. La Perla is a historical shanty town known for it’s crimes. Despacito was filmed here and although it didn’t look dangerous we choose not to walk down towards it. Besides that, La Perla is so colorful and very vibrant. Being oceanfront, the views were amazing and I would highly recommend visiting.

• Carmelo Anthony’s Basketball Court: Right beside La Perla is a vibrant orange and purple basketball court. It’s a helpful project that gives less fortunate children a place to play basketball.
• La Verguenza: Right across the street from La Perla, you’ll see La Verguenza. A bar/eatery/rooftop. The Pina Colada on a sweltering day is everything you need. The rooftop has tables where the ocean is in clear sight. On the first floor you’ll see tables lined up on the alley way with music playing. We ordered the chicken and fish tacos and both were really good.

Sunday 2:30PM:

Around 2:30PM we decided to head to the airport for our 4:40PM flight. As you can see we covered a lot of ground for only being there a weekend.

*note: I will be going back to San Juan in October and I will be posting follow up posts on details of my trip.

If you have any questions about any of these activities, please feel free to reach out!

XoXo,

Wynee

PIN THIS!