Twenty Dollars In PR

Twenty Dollars and Twenty Minutes Can Get You Where You've Been
By Tara Miller

The Wyndham El Conquistador in Fajardo, Puerto Rico is a beautiful resort. Boasting six swimming pools, a championship golf course, The Golden Door Day Spa, a Casino, a marina, and even its own private island, the El Conquistador has plenty to keep The pools at the El Conquistador can provide daily entertainment for most vacationers. even the busiest body occupied for a few days. With anything and everything that the guest could possibly dream up on site, the El Conquistador gives you no reason to leave the property until your final moment on the island as you board their shuttle heading back to the airport.

Containment is fine for most, especially at a place like this. Palomino Island, privately owned by Wyndham for use by their guests only, sits just off the rocky cliffs where the resort hangs over the ocean and is only a 15 minute ferry ride away. There you can snorkel in crystal blue water, jet ski, horseback ride or just play in the sand all while sipping a piña colada. Snorkeling, scuba diving, and deep sea fishing trips leave daily from their marina. And then you still have the golf course, spa, shopping and casino if you get bored.

It wasn’t that we were bored. It wasn’t that the resort didn’t live up to all we had imagined. We were just in a new place on a new island and we wanted to explore. We wanted to see more of what Puerto Rico had to offer, not just the resort.

Wade and I had planned our adventure out of the confinements of the resort for Saturday morning. According to the guide book, a ferry left from the Fajardo marina to St. Thomas at 8 a.m. and we saw this as the perfect opportunity to see something new. I woke up bright and early at 6:30 a.m. and called the concierge hoping to arrange a ride to the marina where we The El Conquistador Resort in Puerto Rico has all sorts of amenities, like a casino and its own island. could catch the ferry. To our disappointment, the concierge told me that reservations were required on this ferry and reservations could only be made Monday thru Friday…bummer. We were out of luck. I then inquired about other similar possibilities explaining to the concierge that we had already seen the resort and wanted to see something new. They offered their shopping tour…the iron bars closed all around us. There was no escape. We were stuck. Oh well, it could be worse. Spending the day next to the luxurious pool overlooking the beautiful ocean…what torture! Still, the frustration built up inside both of us.

Later that afternoon, we again asked the concierge to recommend a restaurant off site in the center of Fajardo where we could enjoy traditional Puerto Rican cuisine. They offered a few suggestions, places that resembled say a Denny’s…not exactly the Puerto Rican fare we desired. Finally we simply asked the bellman to call us a cab hoping that maybe the non-Wyndham employee could give us a non-biased recommendation of something to do or somewhere to eat.

As Wade and I patiently waited in front of the resort for our cab, a black hotel tour bus pulled around into the circular driveway. You can imagine our surprise when the bellman explained that the bus was our cab. We laughed as we reluctantly boarded the tour bus turned cab. The fare was $15 to anywhere in Fajardo and that is exactly where we wanted to go, anywhere outside of the El Conquistador. The driver, a very charming Wyndham employee, explained to us that Fajardo didn’t really have a city center but there was an area down by the ocean with a few restaurants and bars where the locals hung out…that sounded perfect!

Our laughter about our transportation situation continued as we wound through the streets of Fajardo. Definitely not the luxury we had become accustomed to at the El Conquistador, but Fajardo certainly had a charm of its own. After about 20 minutes we arrived at the boardwalk. A small, grassy field separated the four small open air restaurants from the ocean. Locals relaxed along the water’s edge, some played chess while others listened to music. As the delightful driver collected our $15 plus tip for the ride, we inquired about the best way to get back to the resort later that evening. She simply pointed over her shoulder to a gate not 10 yards from the bus. “Walk through that gate and you are in the resort at the marina,” and then she drove off. 20 minutes and $20 later, we were right back to where we started…at the resort!