We eagerly awaited the release of the 2017 Spring Itineraries from Disney Cruise Line. We’ve taken Disney cruises for our past three spring break vacations and have always enjoyed them. We haven’t been too adventurous with the spring break cruises: they have all been 5 night cruises on the Disney Wonder, with two sea days, and port days in Cozumel, Mexico and at Disney’s private Bahamian island, Castaway Cay.
As we discussed in a prior post, we decided to forgo our regular spring break cruise in 2017, for price reasons. That left our spring break wide open with no plans. We talked about different locations we could head off to for the week, ranging from Disney World to the beach to the mountains. Our discussion turned towards the Caribbean. We enjoyed a few of the islands we have been to (St. Maarten/Martin and St. Thomas) and talked about going back. We wanted to invite a friend of my older daughter, but leaving the country would add complexities such as passports. One location became the front runner quickly and that was Puerto Rico! Puerto Rico met our requirements of traveling to a Caribbean travel destination while still remaining in the United States.
The next issue became taking care of the basic travel logistics: flights, lodging, and rental car. The flights are always the most difficult portion, since it dictates the dates for the hotel and the car rental period. The flights presented some problems this time since we are taking one extra person and traveling outside the continental United States. We found flight options via United, American Airlines, JetBlue, and Southwest. We had United miles, American Airlines miles, and Ultimate Reward points that can potentially be transferred to United, JetBlue, or Southwest. Going to the Caribbean from the mainland United States costs 17,500 miles one way or 35,000 round trip on United. American Airline charges 15,000 miles on way or 30,000 round trip.
I started looking at flights as soon as the booking window opened at 330 days. United had availability going to San Juan, but not coming back. American had availability coming back, but not going. So, we booked two separate one way award tickets. The United flight isn’t optimal, but it was the only one available. The flight leaves Dulles at 5:45 AM (before the crack of dawn) and goes to Houston, which seems like the wrong direction. Our next flight leaves from Houston and takes us to San Juan, landing at 3:50 PM. Five one way tickets cost 87,500 United Miles, which was a few more than we had. I transferred enough miles to my account to get two tickets and enough to Nancy’s account to get three tickets. That took care of getting there. Lots of travel and lost time at the destination unfortunately, but free (except for fees). The American return flight leaves at 9:00 AM and flies to JFK, landing at 1:00 PM. It then leaves JFK and lands at Reagan National at 5:00 PM. I had more than enough miles in my account to take care of the 75,000 miles. Despite the less than optimal flight times, we did get them taken care of.
I probably don’t even need to mention that I booked the rental car through costcotravel.com. We booked a large car that hopefully will take care of the luggage as well as transporting us around the island. I’ll keep checking back in to see if the price falls any and rebook if necessary.
The lodging was a different issue. Our plan, as of now, is to stay in San Juan. There are a number of choices in the city, from Hiltons, to the Intercontinental San Juan, to various Hyatt locations. We needed to sort through the various options. Nancy and I both have the IHG rewards credit card, so we had two free nights at whatever IHG property we wanted, including the Intercontinental San Juan, which is a very nice property. The first issue staying at the InterContinental would be the other 4 or 5 nights at a minimum at $250 a night. The second issue would be that we would need a second room, since we will be a party of five for this trip. I looked at a few of the Hilton properties, but the same problems popped up, including a lack of Hilton points at the time. I looked at the St. Regis Bahia Beach Resort as well, but our SPG points total wouldn’t give us more than 2 days at this resort.
Our choice moved on to the various Hyatt locations throughout San Juan. The Hyatt Place has rooms that hold five, so the room size would work. The room was available for 8,000 Hyatt points a night, so we would need 48,000 Hyatt Gold Passport points. Luckily, we had a large pile of Ultimate Reward points that would transfer 1 to 1 into Hyatt points. We transferred the points and secured the room.
So, we took care of the basics of flights, lodging and rental car. Now we just need to figure out our plans for what to do once we get there.
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