San Juan, Puerto Rico’s Royal Sonesta Resort is a seafront fiesta and siesta
My mother, Gladys Marie Jurczyk Shiels, celebrated a milestone birthday. I do not dare reveal a lady’s age except to say the first digit would be pronounced, in Spanish, ‘Ocho.’ I brushed up on my Espaniol because I took mi madre to Puerto Rico for a winter getaway at The Royal Sonesta San Juan, a resort on Isla Verde Beach. My mother would get some sun…with her son. She is the one who taught me to travel by taking our family on vacations to Houghton Lake, Colchester, Disney World, Cedar Point and more.
“Five minutes, senior,” the taxi driver, Luis, told me the trip to the resort would be from San Juan Airport. The drive’s duration was far shorter than the wait for travelers in the TSA line trying to fly out. Luckily, my mother and I would depart San Juan four days later aboard a Crystal Cruise ship instead.
Michael Patrick Shiels and his mother Gladys in Old San Juan. Photo by Harrison Shiels
It was still only a 10-minute taxi ride from the Royal Sonesta to the cruise docks in Old San Juan (circa 1521), but we also went into town one sunny afternoon before that to look around. My mother and I got dropped at the corner of Fortaleza and San Justo streets, where I bought a cigar in a shop attached to a stylish art gallery. I showed the gallery owner a photo of a vibrant location on Calle Fortaleza I was seeking. It was a photogenic, fancifully-tiled, narrow street bordered with bollards and canopied by countless colorful parasols, supposedly near the Governor’s mansion.
“First of all, this photo is not even in Puerto Rico,” the smiling, sweet shop owner laughed. She pointed us in the direction of the spot but warned me a display of umbrellas, such as the similar one in the photo, no longer hung there. So instead, Mom and I toddled a couple blocks down to the fountain at the little waterfront Plaza Darsenas. We drank daiquiris at the adjacent, cherry red-colored La Casita, a cute indoor/outdoor bar where I finished the cigar in honor of my recently late father, Arthur. Ironically, “Long Live the Guest” was the message printed on nightstand cards back at the Royal Sonesta.
Royal Sonesta’s oasis style pool. Photo by Harrison Shiels
Nearness to the airport was not the only convenience for the Royal Sonesta. The layout and footprint make its resort amenities easily accessible. From the balcony of our second-floor room, my mother could chill and still see the lagoon pool with its chaise lounges; the big jacuzzi with a geyser in the middle; the gardens shading a classical statue; the Aleli poolside restaurant and the fire-pits at the upper-level Karaya lobby bar…plus a lovely outdoor, twilight wedding taking place and the ocean horizon beyond.
I felt like a boy again as my mother kept an eye on me swimming in the pool…and drinking at the swim-up bar by charging drinks with Royal Sonesta’s convenient room key-embedded waterproof wristband.
When she ventured down for a float in the turbulent jacuzzi, my mother, Gladys, encountered a Puerto Rican hotel staffer refilling the towel machine and wearing the name “Gladys.” “My mother and my sister are also named ‘Gladys,’” she told us. That family sure loves the name “Gladys!”
Royal Sonesta’s happy staff. Photo by Harrison Shiels
“Rolanivette,” another very sweet Puerto Rican staff member, welcomed us to the club lounge. “My parents had different ideas for my name, so they combined them,” she explained with a shrug and a twinkle from behind her designer eyeglasses.
“Erica” also wore stylish glasses: sunglasses because all day outside, she provided security at the gate to Isla Verde Beach with its free resort chairs. She laughed and elbowed her male colleague each time I passed through and told her, “Gracias, Bonita senorita!”
“Gracias, ‘Senior Bonita!’” she responded, nodding and smiling.
MPS and Security with a smile. Photo by Harrison Shiels
Beauty and love abounded in the soothing setting. As I wandered in the warm water along the shore, I saw a man introduce himself and plant a bucket with champagne and two glasses in the sand beside his new, bikini-clad friend. It reminded me of the two actual lovebirds I’d seen cooing by the pool as sandal-clad and barefoot guests stepped around them.
“Diego” was the name of the tall, bearded waiter who, during a poolside lunch, served my mother shrimp and sangria. I know she was relaxed because she admitted to the young Diego: “You look like the handsome stars I see in Hallmark movies.” Diego was flattered and asked her if she could recommend a Hollywood agent.
“Mom, maybe there is a casino around here?” I wondered, taking out my phone and using the Google Maps app. “700 feet,” the device revealed. “There is a casino right next door at the Fairmont Hotel!” U.S. currency is used in Puerto Rico and is often lost in the casinos, but my mother won nicely on a spooky, fun slot machine called “Mo’ Mummy.”
It is shorter to reach the dark, old-fashioned-style, historic Fairmont resort property from the Sonesta by the beach, but we walked front entrance to front entrance, where one side of the street is beachfront hotels, and the other is admittedly convenient drug stores and strip malls with chain fast-food restaurants.
Local treats at breakfast. Photo by Harrison Shiels
Royal Sonesta kept us satiated, though. The daily breakfast buffet featured a Puerto Rican “Local Corner” serving empanadillas de pizza; pastelillos de carne; and oatmeal with cinnamon and vanilla. It was not “home cooking” since my American mother is of Polish descent, but the entire experience gave her a taste of Puerto Rico.
Contact Michael Patrick Shiels at MShiels@aol.com His new book: Travel Tattler – Not So Torrid Tales, may be purchased via Amazon.com
Hear his radio talk show on WJIM AM 1240 in Lansing on weekdays from 9 am – noon.
