The Last 6 Months on Gem: San Juan

In order to share the last 6 months back working on cruise ships I have decided to do a few posts looking at each port in turn.

Just to catch you all up, I used to work on cruise ships as a photographer and I loved ships, and my photography improved, but actually the job was pretty rubbish! I returned to ships 6 months ago with Norwegian Cruise Lines because they offered me the position of Shore Excursions and now I get paid to help ship guests to choose and buy tours, organise guests and tour operators and, best of all, know the tours and ports!

As with all cruise jobs it has it's highs and lows and my desire to photograph, particularly with my cumbersome D700, dropped off completely. Finally at the end of this contract I bought myself a compact camera with waterproof casing so I have some better photos to share (some early ones are from my iPhone!) and next contract will be even better!

So Norwegian Gem's first stop for the last 6 months was San Juan, Puerto Rico. Did I mention that I am required to go on tours...

Like visiting the El Yunque Rainforest



Or even zip lining through it with my best friend on board Dee



Also visiting the Bacardi rum factory





This next picture was taken on a walking tour of the city, a fountain on the waterfront



And this is the view outside of the parliament house, out to the atlantic ocean



However what you really need to see in San Juan are the fortresses. One surrounds the city:



The next, possibly the most famous is El Morro, located on the furthest point out to sea the views from there are amazing!



However the biggest fort, located just above the old city and facing out to the atlantic is San Cristobal, more of a museum I took my new camera up there and had some fun!













And for a final image this posting, a proper, stitched and edited, panorama taken from the top of the fortress and look out for the Gem and I think Westerdam in the top left...