Departing from San Juan?

Question

if you are departing for a southern cruise, san juan is the common port. I've read in some internet blogs that if you leave from san jaun most of the passengers will be puerto rican and that you will find it uncomfortable because spanish will be common umong passengers and if you are not spanish. is this true? or is there still a multi-race group of passengers?

Answer 1

That is so NOT true.  There is a multi-race group of passengers, and all of the crew members on cruise ships are multi-raced also.  

Everybody on the ship (crew members) speak ENGLISH.

Answer 2

I've sailed from Puerto Rico and found a varied mix of nationalities.  I guess it would depend on the time of year you travel. They may get discounts in off season (August-November) We had a couple from Iceland and a couple from iItaly at our table as well as some Americans. We all got along quite well.

Answer 3

You know it doesn't have as large a percentage of countries represented as other cruises I've been on.  It did have a lot more spanish speaking.  Many cruises have more people from the home port.  However, cruises to the Caribbean depart from Miami, Ft Launderdale, Tampa and Galveston.  All have huge spanish speaking populations.

However I did not like the San Juan port as much for a couple other reasons.  I didn't like the luggage handling.  At Tampa and Ft Lauderdale, at the entrance I hand my luggage over to some one and they get it on the boat.  At San Juan, I had to carry it much farther and lift it up to the gangway myself.  Once I got it to the boat, it was delivered to my cabin but it was difficult taking it through the lines with all my luggage.  

Second thing to consider about San Juan, you are closer to all the other islands.  I decided that I really enjoyed that first day at sea--to relax, have nothing to do, get the feeling and layout of the ship--before having to wake up early each day to get out at port.  We went out of San Juan, and the next morning was at St Thomas, next morning Dominica, and the next morning another island.  

However, if you find hearing other languages spoken uncomfortable--no cruise will be right.  All cruises have a huge  percentage of people speaking a language other than English.  I find that to be similar on all cruises--the staff speaks at least 100 languages.  Most cruises have passengers from over 25 other countries.  If you are not comfortable with that, a cruise is not the place for you.

Answer 4

We just took a Royal Caribbean cruise out of Puerto Rico in May this year and true, there were 700 PR's on the ship and another 60 from Mexico.  Then there were hundreds of passengers from about 15 other countries. So there was a lot of Spanish translations of all of the announcements.  But they were 760 of about 2500 passengers and didn't take away from the cruise at all.   WE had a table for 2 at dinner and so didn't encounter any problem with dining.  Most of the time when people passed on ship you could not tell if they spoke Spanish or French, or English, unless they spoke to you.  The only detraction for me was that many of the PR families were large groups who traveled together around ship and would fill an elevator when it came.    But otherwise they minded their business and I minded mine.

Answer 5

Yes and No.  There will be about 1/3 to 1/2 of the ship that is from the local port. This is pretty much true wherever you sail from. So yes there will be a lot Puerto Ricans onboard. However, most Puerto Rican's are bilingual and the ship language is English.  You will not feel uncomfortable at all. I have taken 3 cruises out of San Juan and have found that these itineraries are my favorite and that i enjoy myself and feel just as comfortable on this cruise as one that leaves from Florida.

Answer 6

I'm on the Royal Caribbean AOS out of san juan in September. I've met some others on the cruise message board from the states and canada that are also on my ship.

I'm guessing it makes sense that there will be more people from the homeport, as was the case when I sailed from Philly!

Not to be entirely politically incorrect (ok, I am) " you will find it uncomfortable because spanish will be common among passengers" -- do you live in the U.S. ????