Although we had only six nights in Puerto Rico during our first trip there, we wanted to experience the "Spanish Virgin Islands" of Puerto Rico during that short time. This post is about how we traveled to and from Puerto Rico's Isla Culebra.
The two primary methods for getting from mainland Puerto Rico to Culebra are via ferry or small airplane. We made our arrangements during the height of COVID-19 and the status of the ferry for transporting tourists was frequently changing. Even in the best of times, the ferry has some well advertised dependability issues and residents get priority over tourists.
Because we had so little time in Puerto Rico and because we wanted to improve our chances of getting to and spending a minimally reasonable amount of time on Culebra, we opted for the more dependable (but also more expensive) airplane ride there.
This turned out to be a prudent decision because our scheduled kayakaying tour (Culebra Island Kayak and Snorkel with Turtles Adventure) was cancelled the day before when the tour operator was not able to get its tour guides on the ferry to the island in the morning of our day trip to Culebra.
Our flight to Culebra was out of the airport in Ceiba (José Aponte de la Torre Airport (RVR)).
The photograph above shows the entire "terminal" and the parking lot in front of it.
The parking was reasonably priced (especially as compared to parking in garage parking at Denver International Airport) and very close to the terminal.
After entering the building and having our temperatures scanned by members of the Puerto Rico National Guard, we were already in the main room of the terminal (shown in next photograph and the only other public room being a smaller room by the door to the tarmac).
The preceding and following photographs show how uncrowded this airport was (our group was the only group of passengers in the airport for about 20 minutes before a couple that would be on our flight with us showed up).
There are no restaurants or dining options in this small airport, but there are vending machines with reasonably priced (for vending machines) items.
When we were purchasing our airplane tickets online, the two main alternatives were Vieques Air Link and AirFlamenco. We had no particular reason to prefer one over the other and the prices were similar, but we ended up selecting Vieques Air Link (VAL) for both our flights to/from Culebra and to/from Vieques.
The flight from Ceiba to Culebra and back to Ceiba from Culebra were 15 minutes each and cost $45 each (included single bag up to thirty pounds) at the time of our reservation.
We only had to be at the airport 45 minutes before departure time and there was no TSA line to worry about.
The low-flying flight was beautiful and fun and was one of rare times I wished the flight was longer!
The airport on Culebra (Benjamín Rivera Noriega Airport (CPX)) was even smaller than Ceiba's airport.
Although the Culebra airport is even smaller than the Ceiba airport, the Culebra airport does have a vendor selling food items and beverages, but that vendor's hours are limited.
No comments:
Post a Comment