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Trolley Stop #18, San Cristobal
I take public transportation regularly at home and try to do so when I travel as well. It’s an inexpensive way to get around and get the lay of the land when you’re tired of walking. As a solo traveler, I also welcome the opportunity to interact with others, and that’s easier when using public transportation than when renting a car.
I took three forms of public transportation during my trip to San Juan: The free trolley in Old San Juan, the ferry to Catano, and the public bus. The first two were the easiest. The free trolley makes the rounds of tourist sites in Old San Juan. Each site is numbered, so you can follow along on your tourist map and know where to get on and off. A trolley stop looks like the photo above.
Seating on the ferry
Even if you’re not interested in the Bacardi Rum Factory tour, as I was, it’s still well worth the ferry ride from Old San Juan to Catano and back for the lovely views of Old San Juan from the water. It only takes about 5 minutes each way and costs $1 round trip. This is definitely not a budget-buster.
View of Old San Juan from the ferry
The ferry to Catano leaves from Pier 2, which is across the street from Senor Frog’s and the Sheraton. Once you get to Catano, start walking toward the street, and you’ll see someone there asking if you want a taxi ride to the Bacardi Factory. There’s a little garage, a short distance away where they park and wait for passengers. It’s $3 per person to go to Bacardi.
Pier 2 is across the street from Senor Frogs
The public bus was a bit more complicated.
Before my trip to San Juan, I researched the public bus system and read other people’s accounts of using it. What I read was not encouraging. People spoke of how unreliable the buses were, how dirty, and that they should not be ridden after dark. I normally take comments like these with a grain of salt, since people sometimes say the same things about the Chittenden County bus system, which is ridiculous. Usually the people who say such things are prima donnas who have no experience riding public buses at all. But one person told a particularly vivid story of his experience on a bus from Old San Juan to Isla Verde at night that gave me pause. So just in case, I figured I’d avoid riding the bus at night.
The unreliability of the bus schedule was reinforced for me by one of the valets at the Caribe Hilton, who said he takes the bus to work every day and it’s frustrating because sometimes, you only have to wait 10 minutes, and sometimes, you have to wait two hours–it’s unpredictable.
I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of having to wait two hours for a bus, but on the last full day of my trip, I wanted to head into Old San Juan, so it was either $24 for roundtrip cab fare or try the bus for $.75 each way. I decided I’d try the bus. Eric, the concierge at the Hilton, provided me with a terrific map that outlined where the nearest bus stops were, and which bus to look for (B-21).
Caribe Hilton Bus Map
The map made it quite easy to find, though I’m sure I could have found it with just verbal instructions as well. All you really need to know is that the bus stop is on the side of Luis Munoz Rivera Park away from the Hilton. Bus stops in San Juan are marked Parada, like this:
Parada = Bus Stop
I only had to wait 5 minutes for the bus into Old San Juan to arrive. It was not dirty, and everyone on the bus was well-behaved. It was like every other public bus I’ve ever taken, filled with a combination of tourists and commuters. Which was pretty much what I expected.
The bus terminal in Old San Juan is down near the piers. To be precise, it’s in a building across the street from the Sheraton. The entryway is beyond a gated archway in a building that also houses some small retail shops. On the trip into OSJ, I had gotten off the bus before the terminal in a neighborhood I recognized and walked the rest of the way. So on the way back, I wasn’t exactly sure where the terminal was. When I went looking for it, I ran across a young woman, Amy, who was also looking for it. We wandered in together and were directed toward the correct stop for B-21. Turns out she was staying at the Caribe Hilton as well, attending a cancer research conference there. We had a good time chatting while we waited for the bus, but it was definitely a long wait.
About ten minutes after we entered the terminal, the B-21 bus arrived, passengers got off, and the driver got out and walked away from the bus. It then sat there for another twenty minutes. More and more people gathered at our stop. Some sat, some stood, all looked bored. Meanwhile, we had seen two C-53 buses come and go. Amy was getting antsy because she had to get back to the Hilton for an evening session. Finally, we decided to see if the C-53 went by the Hilton, and it did, so we hopped aboard. The trip back to the Hilton seemed much quicker than the trip into town, so our abrupt arrival at our stop took me by surprise.
Unfortunately, there was no crosswalk anywhere near this stop, and three lanes of busy rush hour traffic to cross. We had to wait for a break in traffic and make a run for it, our flip flops slapping on the road and our backpacks slapping on our backs. But we made it back to the hotel in one piece.
The best advice I can give about the buses in Puerto Rico is make sure you are not in a hurry to get where you’re going, but otherwise, go ahead and use them, at least during the day. It’s a whole lot cheaper than renting a car or taking a cab, and they were perfectly clean and safe, if my experience is at all typical.
