San Juan Port

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San Juan Port.

The San Juan Port (or Los Muelles de Barcos in Spanish) is a seaport facility located in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is Puerto Rico's largest shipping facility, handling 90 percent of Puerto Rico's ship tourists and cargo^{[citation needed]}.

1 Information
2 Cargo Piers
3 Cruise Ship Piers
4 Tourist destinations

[edit] Information

Cargo ship unloading at the San Juan Port.

The "San Juan Port" is the general name used to call various cruise and cargo facilities located in lands around the San Juan Harbor (Bahía de San Juan). The San Juan Port is composed of a total of sixteen piers, of which eight are used for cruise ships, and eight for cargo ships. The dock, just like Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport and the "Lancha de Cataño" services, is a property of the Puerto Rico Port Authority.

The bay and its docks are located south of Old San Juan and the San Juan island, west of Miramar, the Puerto Rico Convention Center District and the Isla Grande Airport. The municipalities of Cataño, Guaynabo and San Juan compose the south side of the port and harbor. There are multiple daily ferry services to Cataño and back, named La lancha de Cataño. During the late 1980s, there was a cruise service that covered the San Juan area, lasting about one hour. The service departed and arrived at the San Juan dock, but its popularity was short lived and thus this service was stopped during the early 1990s.

[edit] Cargo Piers

All docks connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the San Juan Bay. Cargo ships arrive daily to the bay's south side, which offers inmediate connectivity to the island's freeways, commonly called "Autopistas" (toll expressways) or "Expresos" (freeways). Specifically, the Kennedy Expressway (PR-2 and unmarked Interstate PR-1) gives rapid access from the port to the island's vast expressway system. Being an island, most of Puerto Rico's imports arrive on these docks. As of 2005, the docks had eight cargo terminals, (Five in the Municipality of San Juan and three in the Municipality of Guaynabo). Combined, this allows for more than 500,000 square feet (46,000 m²) of space for loading and unloading cargo.

[edit] Cruise Ship Piers

Cruise ships dock at one of Old San Juan's cruise ports.

While the cargo ships dock on the south side of the bay, cruise ships arrive on one of the eight piers located on the northern and eastern side of the bay, allowing for tourists to walk to major attractions such as Old San Juan and the Puerto Rico Convention Center District. The short distance between the busy Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport and the cruise ship docks (7 miles) makes the docks a prime location for cruise companies. Cruise ship companies, such as Carnival Cruises and Royal Caribbean prefer this setting, and have made the San Juan Port one of their ports of call.

Some of the most recognized ships to have used the San Juan Docks during the late 1970s and early 1980s, were the Carla C, and Cunard's Countess and Princess ships.

[edit] Tourist destinations

Usually, destinations to and from a dock or seaport depend largely on the different cruise operators. Unlike airlines, cruise operators mostly include more than one destination for a trip. Typical destinations from the San Juan Port include, but are not limited to: