PR: Day 1.5 - let's look around

The first full day in Puerto Rico was pretty uneventful. Most of the day was spent recovering. LouAnna and I spent the majority of our time outside on the balcony listening to the waves break on the shore below us. The windows in the living room open almost the entire length of the room allowing for some wonderful coastal breezes and we couldn't be more spoiled with this amazing view of the coast from the 25th floor!

The biggest excitement was probably playing with the shower. There were several different water jets. It even displayed the water temp. I probably took too long of a shower playing with all of the features, but what the hell... I'm on vacation right?  I'm gonna look at Lowe's to see how much to get one of these babies for our house!  ;)

We did manage to go out to get some groceries since we have a full kitchen (to save money and time). Thankfully they had a Walmart about 2.5 KM from where we are staying. The food there was a bit more expensive than I thought. But then again, most of the food was shipped here.  PSA warning!!!  A super helpful tip for those that are wanting to come to experience the island life... bring bags with you to Walmart or other grocery stores. They don't have plastic bags here. We wound up buying small trash bags to carry the food up to our room.
Dinner we decided to stay in, I attempted to recreate a naked burrito bowl.  LouAnna was happy and that's all that matters.  We curled up on the couch, still pretty worn out from the previous day's travel.  But then again, this is island life; relax!

Puerto Rico - Day 1: the getting here

Welcome to another adventure of Eichrodts' travels.

A few months ago LouAnna Engle Eichrodt talked about going away for our 5th wedding anniversary. She searched for great deals. We settled on Puerto Rico.

We scored some great tickets through Spirit airways, less than $200 round trip each. I guess they are famous for their bare fares. They charge you for everything though. Drinks, snacks, checked baggage and carry on all were an additional fee.

Rachel drove us to the airport, we got the winter advisory message. Our flight was delayed an hour due to a plane swap at the previous stop. We finally boarded the plane at 6:47pm. Onward to Orlando!

Our experience in Orlando wasn’t a good one. First off back to Spirit, I swear their seats have no padding in them. So two and a half hours in an uncomfortable chair, luckily we had each other on the first leg of the journey.  As the passengers started to depart from the plane, we both experienced something weird. Passengers from behind us skipped out on waiting for their row to get up.  Orlando international airport is laid out kind of weird. They have different terminals and gates in different locations. We are pretty spoiled with how our airport is laid out. We flew into gate 12 or so and proceeded with the hoard of people to a common area. I checked the board for our connecting flight, the details didn’t match what was on our tickets. So we talked with someone at the information desk. Turns out we had to get on a tram and go to another terminal. The lady we spoke to wasn’t completely clear on the directions. We wound up riding the same tram multiple times before one of us pulled out our phone and found a map of the airport. Finally, we found the right gate!

For our next leg of the adventure started just after 11pm. We were separated by a few rows, LouAnna’s row was completely filled, I had a row to myself. We both tried to get some sleep, but we just can’t sleep on a plane. After a 2 1/2 hour flight we made it to San Juan, Puerto Rico!  We both decided that we are going to bite the bullet and rent a car for the week. It was a good thing as a cab ride to where we are staying would have been $100 before tip.

Traveling in Puerto Rico is about the same as in the US, with minor exceptions, EVERYONE here has really bright headlights. LouAnna drove the 50 minutes from the airport to Fajardo. It would have been less time but I made us take several wrong turns.

So after 21 hours of our adventure, it was finally time to get some much-needed rest. We both woke up the morning well after 12pm. Puerto Rico is an hour ahead of Eastern time. I woke up and opened the patio door to see our view for the week.