FamBam Cruise 7: Back to Puerto Rico

On Sunday morning, June 29, 2025, we got off the Royal Caribbean "Rhapsody of the Seas" after a fun week sailing the Caribbean.

I took an Uber to the airport to pick up a rental car, since I was staying in Puerto Rico for two more nights, along with Linette, Erika, Adam, Sienna, Jared and Katelyn.

My Uber driver only spoke Spanish, so I had fun trying out my Spanish and chatting with him. I don't usually get the chance to do that, because most of my family speaks Spanish well enough that they usually handle it.

Meanwhile, everyone who was leaving that day (Shaylee, Mikayla, Kelsi, Chase and Eva) walked over to Old San Juan to see it during the short time they had available.

When I returned with the rental SUV, I drove the other kids up to Old San Juan.

Then I immediately drove Mikayla, Shaylee and Kyle back to the cruise port, where Linette was sitting with all the luggage. They had heard that their flight was messed up, so they grabbed their luggage and took an Uber to the airport to get it sorted out.

Linette and I loaded up all the remaining bags and then we drove to Old San Juan again. Kelsi & Chase took their bags and Ubered to the airport.

The rest of us spent a few minutes walking around the fort area. Here's a cemetery next to the fort.

I thought people had gone into the fort, so I bought a ticket, only to find that they hadn't. So I spent a few minutes wandering around and getting a look at the place. Here are some gun emplacements.

This tower appears to have a lighthouse built into it.

Castillo San Felipe del Morro (which means "Promontory Castle of Saint Philip") was commissioned by King Charles I of Spain in 1539 and continued to develop until it reached its final form in 1787. It has walls that are 18-25 feet thick and has six levels rising 140 feet above sea level.

The fort was attacked several times.

• 1595 - Englishman Sir Francis Drake tried attacking from sea and was defeated.
• 1598 - English successfully attacked from land, but then dysentery drove the English out.
• 1625 - The Dutch also attacked from land. The Puerto Ricans were bummed that the Dutch could walk right down to the port without the cannons being able to reach them at such close range. The Dutch sacked and burned the town but eventually left, too.
• 1797 - The British attacked with a force of 7-13 thousand men, but were repelled by the Puerto Ricans.
• 1898 - The United States bombarded the fort in the Spanish-American War. This was when forts stopped being useful in modern warfare. The U.S. used it through WWII.

In 1961, the fort was turned over to the National Parks Service and became a museum.

Katelyn and Jared got a picture of a cool little tower just outside the fort.

At that point, we loaded up and drove to church at a Spanish-speaking ward. Afterwards, we drove back over to Old San Juan one more time, now that we had more time to explore.

Here is a nice, shady park where we were able to sit and finish lunch. It was just upstairs from where I found a parking garage.

Some of us went into the museo de San Juan, a small, free museum. There were a few cool things there.

They were having a special exhibit to honor Luis Germán Cajiga, a Puerto Rican artist who had passed away recently.

They had several of his paintings on display, and there were people sitting in chairs that had been set up earlier for a little memorial service for him.

Meanwhile, Katelyn and Jared were wandering the cute neighborhoods nearby.

The old, colorful buildings and narrow streets were adorable!

My ticket to the fort included entrance to the nearby San Cristóbal Castle, so I ran over there and checked it out.

Here you see three flags: The Cross of Burgandy (representing the Spanish Empire), the single-star flag of Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Flag.

There was a cool tunnel with light coming from alcoves with windows.

They had some cannons and rifles on display.

Our cruise ship was just down the hill from this fort, which is why others had been able to walk to it that morning. (It may have taken longer to drive than walk because of the narrow roads and traffic).

This fortress is even larger than the other one, and was the largest fortress built by the Spanish in the New World. It was built starting in 1634 after attacks by the English and Dutch (mentioned above). Once it was built, attempts to attack either fort by land became much more difficult, and this fort helped successfully repel the attempted attack by the British in 1797.

After checking the fort out, I walked around the cute, colorful buildings of Old San Juan itself.

Katelyn wanted pictures of this cute couple, and they were flattered to be asked.

Eventually I met up with others in the family.

While all this was going, on Kyle, Shaylee and Mikayla were struggling with their flights. One got delayed enough that they would miss their connection, so they took a different flight to Orlando. But then the flight out of there got cancelled or something, so they were still wondering what was going to happen.

Here is Mikayla's BeReal. I like Katelyn's causal response.

They eventually arrived in Salt Lake City about midnight, so Kyle didn't get home to Nibley until about 2 a.m. But at least they got there.

Meanwhile, Kelsi & Chase had gotten home no problem on their direct flight. After seeing Eva's skills in emptying the packet boxes, it was cute when Kelsi said that they were home safely and that Eva was happy at work unloading the suitcase.

Before long, it appeared to be pretty much taken care of.

After our lovely time exploring Old San Juan, we began the task of seeing how in the world seven of us could fit in a small SUV with all our luggage. It turns out, we had to do it about like this.

I drove very carefully for the 45 minutes it took to get to our AirBnB in Luquillo.

Luquillo is in the northeast corner of Puerto Rico, near El Yunque National Forest. We stayed at a nice AirBnB just across the street from a beach.

The balcony had steps down to a lawn that led to a refreshing pool.

We dipped our feet in the pool for a while and it was nice to relax after a fairly busy day.

The palm trees looked pretty from there.

A few of us walked across the street to check out the beach.

Sienna found this nice palm tree to lie on for a picture. (It looks amazing, but she actually said, "Hurry up, this is uncomfortable!" :)

There was a lot of seaweed washed up on the beach and floating in the water, so it wasn't very tempting to swim. So we sat for a moment and enjoyed the waves. Adam read one of the 200 or so books that he has going at any given time. (The hilarious thing is that this isn't an exaggeration!)

The next morning, Linette went jogging around the beach and she said that she discovered a nice beach around the bend.

That day our main activity was to go hiking in El Yunque National Park again. We decided to hike the Mt. Britton trail.

It was a beautiful day, and the jungle was lush and beautiful. The beginning of the trail had a narrow cement path.

Along the way, there were little structures, perhaps to provide respite from a downpour.

This tree had so many roots exposed, and they all had moss growing on them.

Occasionally there was a break in the jungle that gave us a view down below.

Sienna caught a butterfly.

Eventually, we reached the Mt. Britton Lookout Tower.

 

From the top, we could see this interesting structure.

The view was amazing in all directions.

It was interesting how thick the jungle canopy was.

There was a little path that led to a refreshing overlook.

Then we continued on to Los Picachos Trail (which means "little peaks").

These flowers are Bromeliads.

As we hiked along, we could see the Mt. Britton Tower that we had come from. It seemed really far away!

We also saw this lizard.

Along the way, it was time to BeReal.

As we reached the end of Los Picachos trail, we got a better view of the Mt. Britton Tower that we had walked from.

From this lookout, we could see the ocean in several directions.

We could also see Yokahu Tower way down below, which I had visited with Kelsi and Chase the week before.

After a pretty long hike, it was nice to sit and dangle our feet for a bit.

As we started back down, I saw another of these snails, which is apparently a "Puerto Rican Painted Snail" (aka "Puerto Rican Tree Snail", or a Caracolus caracolla). Now that I know what it's called, I really want to paint one with a little Puerto Rican flag.

Luckily, AI can now make our dreams come true! (Gemini did this. It's not actually real.)

Linette got ahead of us and listened to an audio book on this perfect sitting rock while she waited for us to catch up.

We finally reached the road, and Sienna checked out a little trickle of a stream on the way back to the car.

From the car, we could see the Mt. Britton Tower that we had hiked to.

We were all pretty hungry by then, so we drove to a place with great reviews, found that it was closed, and ate at another place nearby instead. I think it was called "La Catrina" or something.

It turned out to be very tasty as well.

After a week and a half of adventures, it sounded wonderful to sit in the AirBnB and relax for the rest of the day.

But since some of us are too dumb to do that, we decided to go to the beach instead.

Adam, Jared, Katelyn and I walked around the beach looking for a nice spot to sit and/or snorkel, but there was still seaweed all along the way. So while it was still pretty, it wasn't a great place for going in the water.

We decided to try driving to Luquillo Beach, which was just 5 minutes away. So we walked back to the house, and then I went with Jared and Katelyn to see if this beach was better. It was a slow drive there through a market with lots of speed bumps, but then we got to the beach and it was beautiful!

No seaweed, wide open clean sand, and gentle waves!

The sun was just setting, so it was a beautiful scene.

We were glad we had made the effort.

During our last evening in Puerto Rico, we watched a movie and played St. Lucia Sadness with our new deck of cards from there. (I just got the King of Spades, which is Very Sad.)

Our flight was at 7am, so we had to get up at 4:30am (which is 2:30am Utah time) to get to the airport. We packed our bags high and smushed in again.

It was dark when we left Luquillo, but the sun was coming up as we got to the airport.

Soon we had our bags tagged and we were on our way.

Puerto Rico was so beautiful. We had never been there, and it was a delight to get to know this U.S. territory.

We flew through Houston without incident and arrived home that afternoon. Sharon and Colleen (Katelyn's mom) were kind enough to pick us up at the airport.

What a fun trip! I loved the beautiful green hikes in El Yunque, and the magical bioluminescent bay. St. Thomas had fun sea turtles; St. Croix had great snorkeling and horseback riding; St. Maarten had an intense Sea Trek Adventure and fun parrots; St. Lucia was luscious and green, especially when seen from a fun catamaran; Barbados had a pretty beach; and Old San Juan had some fun history and cute neighborhoods.

It was wonderful to have all the kids and in-laws ("In-Laws! In-Laws!") along, plus little Eva and a couple of nieces (who basically grew up like siblings in our house or theirs much of the time). The things we did were fun, but my favorite part was spending time with this wonderful family that we've been blessed with.

At dinner on the last day of the cruise, Chase told us, "Thanks for making the dream come true!" I replied, "Thanks to all of you for being the dream that came true!" I love this family!