DAY 3-Traveling from Fajardo to Isla Verde

Today was the day that we had to leave this beautiful resort. I started questioning myself about why I didn't book this place for the entire time because there was just so much to see and do here. But, I had always wanted to go to Isla Verde, so Isla Verde it was.

I woke up to the room alarm going off at 7 am!!! I had really wanted to sleep in. But, I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. After multiple attempts, I decided I was just going to have to get up. I thought it was weird that it hadn't went of prior to this.

So while I'm waiting on the family to get up, since they sleep through blow horns, I'll show you the "map" of the resort they gave me at check in. This will give you an idea of just how big this place is. When they say "resort", they mean RESORT.

So the family finally got up and we put our bathing suits on and packed the luggage.

We checked out fairly early since we had plans to stop at Puerto Rico's prettiest/best beach (so I was told) and then our drive on to the next hotel in Isla Verde.

We had decided since breakfast at the resort runs around $52 that we would eat cheap today and find a McD's along the way to the beach instead.

We checked out. There was no line. We caught the bus to our car. Drove car back to hotel. Packed luggage. Headed out.

We quickly found a McDonalds and stopped for breakfast. A few hand signals, mouth gestures and pointing and we had our breakfast and was sitting down. I ordered a meal with "toast"....It was extremely fascinating when I found out my "toast" was actually Texas toast! But it was good. Just a different than normal concept to me. They also gave you 3 of them with your meal. I believe with our meal, we get biscuits instead.

The hubby had ordered the "Tostada burrito". Now at home, we have the breakfast burrito meal and it comes with 2 small burritos filled with eggs, cheese, sausage and peppers. When the hubby got his, it was only 1 burrito, and as a LOT bigger than ours.

After breakfast we headed to Walgreens to look for some "back-up" 100 spf sun tan lotion and some more pop. We were unable to find the hubby his "Dew" fix, but they did have diet for me. I'm still finding that they only come in 8 packs. Where are the 12 packs in this place???

I thought these little baskets were neat. It had a handle and some wheels on it. I didn't have to carry anything. Why don't our Walgreens have this at home???

I text Kendra this picture and she did say she's been to a Walgreens that had that before, but don't recall where. They should ALL have them.

Then I receive this back from her...

Does anyone think she's a little excited that she was able to pull this off??

It was a 18 minute drive to our destination. Not bad at all. But, it did start to cloud up and start to sprinkle some. But I wasn't going to let it ruin my day. I mean we were going to the beach...where you get wet...so why does it matter?

WE HAVE ARRIVED...LUQUILLO BEACH!!

 To read about our day at the beach, click the following link:

Now I'm really super sad to say that we did not make it to El Yunque rain forest. I was really hoping to go there before we left the area. I had done my research, printed off some maps, knew exactly what to put in my GPS to get us to the entrance (instead of the back wrong entrance) and which paths I wanted to take. But, after finding out about the private beach at El Conquistador, I just KNEW I had to do that instead. Also, since we are beach people, I also KNEW I had to visit the "prettiest beach" in Puerto Rico while I was there. But I was super bummed about not getting to the rain forest. NEXT TIME!!!

We headed out, set the GPS, and was on our way to Isla Verde. We made a few pit stops along the way for the hubby to potty (I swear his bladder is worse than mine and I've had 4 kids). As I was sitting out in the car (at Burger King) a guy came out, got in his jeep and proceeded to leave the lot. I guess he also decided he wasn't waiting in traffic and just went up and over the hilly grassy area and onto the highway. I guess that's how they do it in PR. (It wasn't a small hill either and remember it had been raining toward this way for quite some time).

Now I truly believe the people here are on island time. The speed limit was 65 in a lot of the areas we were in and people were only going 40. It ended up being a longer trip than I anticipated (or at least it seemed like it), but still only took around 30 minutes or so and we were in the area of Isla Verde.

Another thing I noticed were the really weird traffic signals. I could be in the far left lane pulling out to turn left and the lane beside me would have traffic going straight and some would turn left. It was weird. There were a couple of times I'm pretty sure people were just doing their own thing and turning whatever way they wanted whether they were in the right lane or not. I had been in lanes that go straight and had someone to the right of me turn left in front of me. I also wasn't really sure if they had the "turn right on red" rules there either, so I didn't take any chances.

We made to the hotel at 3:30 and when we pulled up, there were people at the entrance ready to "valet" your car...for a nice chunk of change of course.

The people told us in order to park there, we would have to do valet. It would cost $27 and we could come and go as we pleased. If we planned to do the self-park, it was $22 and we would have to drive down the street, park in the building across the street (on one of the top floors and this building must have been about 25 stories tall) and then walk back to the hotel. Well, for $5 more, we decided on the valet and the car was parked right next to the hotel.

However, most of the garage wasn't being used and being remodeled, but they parked the cars up on the top level and we could see the car from our hotel room.

Now I have to say that I was really nervous about booking this hotel. I had originally booked The Courtyard at Marriott. But the opportunity came up and we got a SUPER good deal on this place from a "friend" on these boards. So we cancelled our reservation with Marriott and booked this place.

Now I DO know that this place was getting renovated. According to their website, it stated that there were some renovations going on in certain parts of the hotel and that the big winding river looking pool was going to be closed for remodeling. However, it did say that they had another pool and it would be open. So, I figured why not. I'm just going to roll with it. We were only going to be there for 1 day and I had planned on spending it at the beach anyhow.

THEN....2 days prior to us arriving, someone on these boards posts that the hotel would be closing down permanently during the last half of the renovation and that closure date was THE DAY WE WERE CHECKING OUT!! YIKES! Ok, that probably means that the renovations are a lot further along that I had anticipated and that service would probably be a little spotty. Ok Kim, suck it up. You got this and it's not going to spoil your last day in Puerto Rico. Then I broke the news to the family to prepare them for what they might see or experience. Hey, as long as there was a pool and beach, Sakari didn't care. The hubby, eh, he's just along for the ride and rolls with the punches too.

However, I do have to mention this...When we were at El Con. we were talking to a guy out by the pool that had came there for a wedding. He ask how long we would be staying there and we told him our plans and about leaving to stay at Isla Verde for a day. He said he had just came from there yesterday and the place was a dump. Construction going on and almost everything closed. He said the service was almost non-existent and the staff was rude because they all acted like they didn't care since it was closing and they were going to be out of jobs for awhile. He said half of the staff was already let go and it was running at a minimum. Then he said there was so much construction going on that he was stepping over construction stuff (boards, drywall, and a mess) and that at one point one of the floors became flooded and they weren't doing anything about it. He said it was a terrible experience. Sigh!

We got our things out of the car and handed over the keys to the valet attendant. Of course they wanted to take our luggage and "help you check in", but I know this game. You just got an extra $5 out of me to park my car, I can handle my one luggage that has wheels and rolls. It's not that hard.

They had a temporary "entrance" with a ramp leading up to the doors.

Now this is normally not the entrance nor will it be the entrance once it's finished. This section is the "shopping mall" located in side the hotel.

It also had a bunch of restaurants in there too. It was just like the hotel we had just came from at El Conquistador. Plenty of shopping and food within the hotel. Just not as big or as much of course.

Everything was open from the stores to the food. I only noticed maybe 2 stores that had brown paper over the windows and were closed being remodeled.

Notice the sign? Tour and Travel? Well there was a lady that worked in there...and she was there until the last day!! Tour and Travel! Last day! Seriously!

So here we are at this make-shift temporary desk down the hall and we are checking in. I felt bad because remember we had just came from the beach. We were a hot mess. Clothes a little damp, bathing suits with a cover up, hair a hot mess, no make up and just wanting to get our room key and go shower. They were checking us in and they said they were checking to make sure the room was ready. I had to potty and they pointed me in the direction of the restrooms. Down the hall, past the rest of the stores, come to the end, turn left, down that hall, out the doors to outside and they are on the right. Whew! They ended up being bathrooms that were located on the outside half-enclosed patio where you could watch t.v., drink, eat, and swim. It had a roof over it and was huge, but yet it was also all open on the side.

As I was walking around the corner looking for the restroom, there was a security cop that stopped me and ask if she could help. I told her I was looking for the restroom. She pointed out the doors and told me to turn right. On my way back in, she stopped me again, only this time asking if I was staying at the hotel. I told her yes and that she had just seen me come from the hotel. She laughed and said "Oh, you're right. Sorry about that."

When I got back to the desk, the hubby was waiting with the room key. We headed BACK down the long hall I had just came from to catch the elevators.

Now some of the halls in this area were getting some work done to them. No biggie, but there were NO MESSES ANYWHERE. Not even tools laying out.

The hall leading down to the casino

We made it to the room. But first I'm going to take the time to show you around this hotel and the grounds before I go on.

So here's the outside/inside area where the bathrooms I went to was.

There were a lot of people out there during our stay, watching the olympics.

This was still part of that outside patio area, but this was the dining area that you could eat outside (it also extended inside as well).

It was located in an area that overlooked both of the pools.

Outside of the area;

From this restaurant area, you could take a peek over at the nice pool area that was getting a make-over.

This is looking into that pool area from the beach. The security guard in this picture, I spoke with him a lot about the hotel. I had told him about the guy talking about walking over stuff and the flooding and so on. He said he was probably talking about this portion of the hotel (which was now completely closed), but yet it still had a walkway through it to get out to the beach. HOWEVER, he said it had been closed for 2 months. (There's several buildings on the property and it depends on where you book where you'll stay I guess).

He also said that they had just sold off the huge building beside this one (labeled OSJ Hotel) and it was no longer a part of this Hilton establishment. There was also a building located on the other side of the main pool, which they had just completely torn down.

He said they were actually putting in ANOTHER pool on the other side of the lazy river type pool, which is why that area is also getting redone.

He confirmed that they were closing down "tomorrow" and would reopen again in December. He would not have a job after that day, but he also "dabbles" in automotive work and that would tie him over until he had a job again. He said he had only been with the company for 4 months, but didn't want to lose his job.

His job consisted of standing at the entrance of the hotel by the beach. He was the "night shift" and worked all night long, making sure that no one entered the property unless they were staying there. I believe he said his shift ended at 7am in the morning.

OSJ building seen below:

This is what it use to look like:

This is the area where the other pool is located at in front of the bar/restaurant area:

The pool house. Even someone was working in there up until the last day.

This is what they had around the property areas that were being worked on. It led out from the pool to the beach area.

This was the building that had been completely shut down and not being used for the last 2 months. But, you had to go under the underpass to the building to get out to the beach area. The security guard said a few weeks ago they did not have anything up around the pool area and they were working on it. He said people kept walking through the area and it was dangerous, so they put up all the fencing after that.

Critters!!!

These little guys were everywhere.

There was an area off to the opposite side of the outside bar.

It led out to this little courtyard looking place with this HUGE tree

This tree was massive. I just couldn't get over how big it was and all of the vines hanging from it.

Waterfalls...

These little things were laying all over the place. They fell from the trees and they were really pretty.

So that ends my tour of the hotel. Although it's under renovation, it was still very pretty and still had a lot of public areas open.

Up to our room we went. We were located on the 4th floor.

The room actually felt really huge. It was a little dated though, but for the most part nice.

When we checked in, they gave us a gift bag that had bottled water and cookie/chips in it. I thought that a nice little added touch. Even up until the last day they were doing nice things for the guests.

This safe is the exact same safe they use on NCL ships. LOL So, Sakari knew how to work it and she put some of our things in there and locked it and I took a big deep breath, after my initial gasp, and slowly ask her if she knew how to work it and if she remembered what code she put in. (While I'm completely freaking out at the time). She said "Sure I know how to work it. I locked it. I know the code to it because it's the same code I use for the cash register in daddy's shop." LOL Well, alrighty then little girl.

Do you notice anything about the refrigerator? Well I didn't, even at the time I took the picture. I would later notice though.

Our room didn't have a balcony. But it did have a door that did open...to a fence.

Now let's talk bathroom talk. Normally most hotels have the bathroom right when you come in the door right? Not this one. It was all the way at the other end of the room across from the bed. It felt odd and took me a minute to get use to walking that way to the restroom.

Super nice shower with a 1/2 glass wall.

The toilet is as soon as you walk into the room. Notice the placement.

Notice how close to the toilet the door comes?

Almost hitting the toilet paper holder

It was the weirdest thing ever. Think about it. You walk into the restroom and you can't shut the door. Why? Because there's no place to stand to be out of the way for the door. So, your options are to straddle the toilet and try to get the door shut. Or, walk all the way in, to the right over by the shower, pull the door away from the wall and push from behind to close, then back over to the toilet. It was just super weird. They should have put the door on the other side and had it swing the other way...therefore, walking into the bathroom and being able to shut the door. It was just odd. 

This was my view from the room. Just the top of one of the buildings below and the parking garage lot.

Yes, my door opened...

The people one floor down from us actually got a balcony with furniture.

Once we turned the a/c up to make it comfortable in there, notice the windows? It was so hot outside that the windows were fogging.

When I had opened up the door to take pictures of outside, everything started to fog. This is the window above the computer desk in the bedroom area

Sakari and I headed to the shower to get cleaned up before heading out to explore a little. I turned the shower on and started undoing our tangled salt and sand watered messy hair. We waited, and waited, and waited, and the water was not getting warm...at all. Sigh. I thought I was going to have to call someone. I threw a towel around me and headed out to gripe at the hubby about it.

Meanwhile, the hubby was trying to get the t.v. to work...

I went back in and still not hot water. I told Sakari we were gonna have to rough it and pretend we were just at the beach getting into the water. She commented that the beach water is not this cold. She had a point, but I preparing her for Alaskan snorkeling (now that I know about it)...and I just didn't know that this was the test at that time.

As we were showering and washing our hair, the water started getting warmer...and warmer...then scalding hot. Ouch! It took at least a solid 10 minutes (this is not an exaggeration either) to get any hot water to come out of it, but we were glad it was no longer cold.

After our shower, the hubby took his shower, with my hot water already warmed up for him, and then we all headed out to walk around and see if we could find some place cheap to eat. I believed we had passed a McD's on the way in and that was where we were going to attempt to walk to.

We headed out and down the street on foot. It was maybe 2-3 blocks down the road. So, easy to get to. We ordered using hand signals and gestures and received our food. (Just kidding, there was someone there that spoke English).

After eating we walked back toward the hotel and decided to head down a dead end street that led to the beach.

Usually we say she's our little Mexican girl. But now, she is our little Puerto Rican girl. That girl tans so easy and so fast.

It was still pretty hot outside, but tolerable now that the sun was going down.

Notice the waves are a little rougher here than at Luquillo.

The beach was really nice, but we had just taken our showers and I really didn't want to deal with salt and sand again so soon. As much as Sakari tried to talk me into it, I did not budge on my answer. I promised she could go to the pool instead.

We made it back to the hotel and took a look around at the different shops. There really wasn't anything there that I wanted and the only shop that had items I might be interested in, the lady there started following us around like a hawk. It was weird and it made me uncomfortable. She was standing right over us, staring at every move we made. She didn't even care that she was so obvious either. There's a few things about me that will ALWAYS make you lose a sale. Follow me around the store like I'm trying to steal something from you or try super hard to push an item on me...BOOM, you've lost a sale with me. I walked out and we headed back to the room.

Sakari was changing to get on her bathing suit and the hubby was trying to get the laptop connected to the internet. I called twice, getting instructions and verifying with no luck. It would not connect.

It worked on my phone, just not the computer.

I also told them about the t.v. not working the first time I called. They said they would send maintenance up. We waited for awhile and no one came. When I called the second time about verifying the way to get onto the internet, I once again mentioned that no one had come to the room yet to fix the t.v.

Immediately someone was at the door. They fixed the t.v. and I had discovered that the ceiling fan didn't work either. He messed with it for awhile, took the electrical outlet out of the wall and all. I told him I didn't need him to do all that if it didn't work. I just thought I was doing something wrong. We had tried flipping several switches on the wall, which also had a dimmer and this other small adjustment button, along with the switches, plus the pull string on the light/fan. I guess it wasn't me doing something wrong and it just didn't work. I told him not to worry about it. I just wanted him to show me how to work it, but it's actually broke.

By this time, I grabbed a can out of the refrigerator and noticed it was still very hot. I felt inside the refrigerator and it was not cold at all. So, he might as well fix that too? He plugged it in. (Geesh). In my defense, I did notice that the outlet where you plug it in had been pushed into the wall and was hanging there. So, I probably wouldn't have felt comfortable doing that anyhow. He did make the comment that sometimes the cleaning staff will unplug them after cleaning a room. Um....why? People are going to want it cold for when they check in. Why do this? (Although I do realize that they are closing the next day, so it's totally understandable if that was the reason they were doing it). They will start to mold and stink if you just unplug them for awhile. Not a smart move.

We headed down to the pool area and the human/mermaid morph began instantly.

We hung out for a little while and the sun was going down. I snuck off to the beach area to see if I could get any good sunset pictures.

I spoke to the security guard for awhile and then headed back in.

The hubby had a drink waiting for me when I returned. (You get a free drink with your stay). I think there's a halo around my hand. These pictures are horrid.

OH OH OH...I almost forgot. When we were at El Conquistador, if you wasn't in the water, you felt like you were getting ate up. I was constantly swatting and rubbing my legs and arms. (I guess the sand fleas or no-see-ums). I seemed to be the only one that felt it.

Well, here around the pool, I also felt them and the security guard assured that's what they were. He did carry some deep woods off and sprayed it on me. He said that would help. I did ask him about the mosquito's here and the whole Zika virus. He said they normally don't have any issues in that area because of the water and beach. He said more inland you would find the mosquito's.

I had also spoke with our tour guide from the bio bay about this and he said he was reading reports in the newspapers and hearing it on the news that they were reporting 1 out of every 5 people were getting bit by these and half of the people in PR was infected with Zika and he said it's all being blown out of proportion. So, who knows.

After a few hours of Sakari swimming, I was totally ready to call it a night. We headed back up to the room, running into the same lady security guard inside and we joked about "remember me??" She was very nice and friendly.

We got the munchkin dressed and we headed back out to take another walk and find some "snacks".

On our way out, I stopped at Starbucks to see if there was anything good. I settled on something that was supposed to be a "favorite" there in PR (at least it said so), and it was some type of pastry with cream cheese inside. He warmed it up, but I don't think that it worked out too well. It was blocks of cheese inside and not all of it was warm or melted and yet I don't think you could have warmed it much longer without the outside of the bread getting hard. It was ok. Definitely not a favorite of mine for sure and not something I would probably get again.

We decided to stop at the Market Place. From the road, it looked like a small diner and people were watching the Olympics on t.v. and it was packed. In the back, it was like a grocery store.

We really didn't feel like having dinner and just wanted something to take back to the room and snack on tonight.

The hubby ended up with some chips and I decided that this meat, cracker and cheese tray would suit my fancy.

We headed back to the room and watched a little t.v. while we snacked before bed.

I spoke with Kendra a few times while I went over everything I could with her and double checking that she wasn't forgetting any important papers or documents. As much as she travels, you would think that she would have a passport already. But, she still uses her birth certificate...which she's always losing or misplacing. I made sure to calculate her time she needed to leave the house to get to the airport, check in and be on her plane. I repeated how the following day was going to go, her plane switch, and where we would meet her at. I feel like she's still my little girl and I need to be there, at the airport, to direct her, to keep her safe, to keep her from getting lost. Sigh, my little girl is growing up (she'll be 28 in 13 days :eek:). This will be her second flight without me there to help her. (Well maybe the third if you count her very first flight where she made us ALL miss the plane and we had to split up. Next was when she added herself to our Pride cruise, late, and couldn't come home until a day after us due to no flights by the time she booked...and now this time).

She informed me that her and her finance were at some boxing match and that she probably wouldn't get home from there until about 2am. :eek: Yep, she wasn't about to get any sleep tonight. Then the mystery still remained on WHO was taking her to the airport. Either her finance, who was out with her that night and having a "few" drinks...or his sister, who lives on the opposite side of town and has 6 kids of her own plus Kendra's little one that night.

I told her I would probably be asleep in the morning but to text me when she made it to the airport and I would get the message once I got up and not worry about her.

We said our good nights and off to bed I went.