Wow that looks a little intimidating.

Touch down...we made it. Look out Puerto Rico! Here we come!

Our arrival time was 12:10...ish.

We blindly headed out of the airport, after gathering our rather "loud" luggage so it's easily spotted and looks like something from the drug induced days of the flower child, to try to figure out where the car rental place is.

Directly out of the airport terminal you will see the rental area across the traffic picking up passengers. It's time to play frogger and hope for the best.

Inside we went and we would find the line to be a little long, with only 2 people working the counter for both Budget and I believe Avis...ALL TOGETHER. Ugh. It was about an hour wait. It was long, we were tired, it felt like the clock wasn't moving this time.

I had originally thought I would rent from Charlies, as suggested on here, then I received an email from Southwest stating that if I rented with Budget I would get a discount and earn double points or something like that. So, that's why I ended up renting with Budget.

When it was finally our turn, we were assigned our keys and told to head to the parking garage to find our car.

Once we made it out there and found our "parking spot number" assigned to us, we noticed 2 ladies in the car with it running. Ok, did they just assign us a car that was just returned? I stood there not knowing what to do. I questioned the hubby several times about "are you sure that's our car?". We double and triple checked the tag number, the type of car, and the location it was sitting in.

When we noticed the lady in the drivers seat put the car in reverse, I was shocked. I immediately banged on the car several times and she stopped and rolled down the window. "Um, you have my car?!?" She said that the worker told her this was her car and she double checked with them. I showed her my paperwork. She pulled back in and got out and started taking her things out of the car. A worker came up and looked at my paperwork and told her "Yes, you have this persons car". Then, they started looking at her paperwork...well guess what...it was HER car too! They had assigned us both to the same car! UGH! At this point I'm getting really agitated, which usually doesn't happen for me but we are all Hangry at this point. Life is never good when we are hangry.

Once again, we were stuck waiting in the line outside now to try to get answers and figure out what car was ours while the ladies put their things back in the car and proceeded to leave in my assigned car.

They finally managed to assign us another car and we were on our way. We ended up with a Ford Focus and if you are an owner of a Focus, I'm sorry (for you). This had to be the slowest piece of crap I have ever drove before. Seriously. I was the little engine that couldn't in the hills of Puerto Rico. Next time I need to request a car with some power. The size was fine and the gas mileage was AWESOME, but the car...geesh. I think my kids have go-carts that run quicker than that car. Are they all like that?

We headed out of the building and onto the road...and had absolutely no idea where we were going. I was trying desperately to get my googlemaps to work and it just wasn't. I ended up pulling over to try to figure out how to get my phone to work and what setting it needed to be on while in PR to work.

Once we got the map working, we just wanted to head to the nearest food place we could find...and that said it was Subway. Ok, fine with me!

​

One thing we were told by others on these boards is that there shouldn't be any problem communicating with the locals because I "would find that most speak English" most of the time around tourist. Well.....I'm here to tell you that this isn't the case for us. LOL No comprende. No hablo ingles. This was an interesting adventure to say the least.

We arrived at Subway and attempted to order. We would proceed with hand signals, pointing, and other gestures to attempt to order subs. It was probably quite amusing to the workers and who knows, maybe they do this to English speaking customers to have a little fun in their daily routine. I do believe my hubby took the award for the most hand gestures though. He was even entertaining to me.

He said he didn't want it toasted...they proceeded to put it in the oven. So he says ok...I guess I'm having it toasted, but just a little. HEY I knew that...un poquito! That one year of high school Spanish taught me something I guess.

While we were there I called Verizon to get the scoop and make sure our phones weren't going to be charged some outrageous roaming charges while we were there. As I was talking to the representative, I told her we were in Puerto Rico and just wanted to double check. She proceeded to tell me that we could use our phones, but would incur international charges. But why??? It's still the US! She said, "Well, when you are in Mexico, it's not the US". :eek: Um...lady, this is not Mexico, this is Puerto Rico. After several confirmations to her that this was not Mexico, she made the comment that "I've even been to Puerto Rico before and I thought I was in Mexico and told everyone I had been to Mexico". At that point, I could not hold in my laughter and I let it out. The hubby had this look on his face wondering why I would be laughing like that. I couldn't wait to get off the phone to tell him. I'm still wondering what all of her friends and family are thinking when she told them she was in Puerto Rico, Mexico. :o

After our bellies were full and we were no longer hangry, we programmed my phone to take us to our first hotel.

EL CONQUISTADOR!!! It was supposed to be about a hour away and it was pretty darn close...57 minutes to be exact.

The maps sent us to the wrong "entrance" and when we pulled up to the gate, the worker (who also was limited in English and used a lot of hand signals himself) told us wrong entrance and did a few hands gestures about turning around and heading out and to the left...and out we went again and down the road.

We finally arrived...

The entrance was extremely long. You go past golf courses and down and up winding roads. This resort is way back there. But it had a nice view.

We pulled up to the entrance and it was a grand entrance for sure.

Behind these doors is a closet with bath robes and places to hang clothes, there's a thing in there with drawers and plenty of storage...along with iron and ironing board.

I swear I thought I took a picture of it open, but can't seem to locate it. Oh well, just know it's the biggest bathroom and area that I have ever seen in a hotel before. I was very impressed. Plenty of room for people to get ready at the same time if you are a family or dare I say a bunch of women traveling together. :D

​

On to the balcony. WOW!! That's all I can say. Well actually, I can say a lot more. This thing was HUGE! You could throw a party out there and never bump into each other huge.

It had a nice "garden" view (which is what they called it) but it was a view of the tennis courts and basketball courts, but still very pretty out there. You could see the mountains in the distance (which might have been the rain forest? Or just mountains). You could also see the ocean off in the distance.

It had a bump out (some of the rooms had them and others didn't).

It was a little cloudy and I wondered if we were going to get some rain. Remember I had an excursion planned for tonight, so while I don't mind if it's cloudy, the rain might be a little different.

There are several birds located inside one of the buildings off to the main reception area. They had 2 birds in one cage and another bird in another cage (then we would later find another huge cage outside too).

Would you look at the age of one of the birds? The other bird was really old too but I forgot to take a picture of it.

We are going to move on to some night time pictures of the hotel. This hotel has lights everywhere you go and they are bright and they are pretty. I really enjoyed the landscaping, architecture, and layout of this hotel...and of course the lighting.

I also have to mention that the sky, the night these pictures were taken, was so blue and made for some interesting pictures.