The cruise started and finished in San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a US territory and, although Spanish is the main language there, nearly everyone could speak English. It had a Mexican feel about it, except that the currency was in US$, we could flush toilet paper down the toilet and we could drink the water.

After we flew to Puerto Rico, we spent the first couple of days walking around Old San Juan. The most imposing building in the area is the large fort of El Morro, with the smaller fort of San Cristóbal farther along the coastline. The Spanish successfully defended themselves against the English and other nations in these forts.

Here is El Morro from a closer spot.

On the morning of our cruise, we caught the ferry across the bay to the Bacardi factory.

This view of the bay was taken the day before, when speedboats were going through their qualifying trials before the Offshore Classic races the next day.

The ferry ride over was delayed because the 1pm race was about to start, and the ferry ride back was delayed because of the enormous number of people coming over to see the second race at 3pm.

Our ship, the "Carnival Destiny" was docked at Old San Juan. It was bigger than the Carnival Pride, which we were on last year, and had similar types of facilities, events, entertainment, food, etc. Our cabin was on deck 2 at the front of the ship. It had 2 portholes (yay!!) but was rather stuffy, as the airconditioner didn't work too well.