My husband and I just returned from PR (March 14-20). I'll try to keep this short...

We flew into SJU and caught a Vieques Air Link flight. We rented a Jeep Wrangler from Martineau, which we reserved a month in advance (very important or you will not get a car!) They were a little disorganized to say the least, but we liked our jeep and we had no problems when we returned it.

We stayed at The Crow's Nest which is located in the middle of the island, but with a car we were less than 5 minutes from everything on the island. We were very happy with our room. We had a private balcony overlooking the pool and we could see the ocean from there. The room had a kitchenette and a couch which was nice for holding all the electronics that had to be charged. Maritza and the other staff were very kind and took great care of us.

The pool was very nice here. Hardly anyone was using it, so you can almost be guaranteed to relax there alone after a long day at the beach. I did however meet a nice man one day from Boston that has also made Vieques his home away from home. Hi CARL! Hope you enjoyed our leftover cold Medalla's upon our departure home! OK - back to the report.

Day One - Drove through Esperanza and Isabel II. Everything is so close if you have a jeep. We saw all of the horses and roosters along the way. We had cocktails at Al's Mar Azul in Isabel II and caught the end of a stunning sunset on the deck. Al's is a great place to hang out and relax with other travelers. It reminded us of Key West. For dinner we got takeout from Chicken King and ate on our balcony. The food was great and the price was even better!

Day Two - Bring your earplugs!!! I was up with the roosters at 4AM! We didn't use the A/C because our room had a great breeze. Did use the A/C the remaining nights to drown out our feathered friends. The breakfast at Crow's Nest is GREAT. Bagels, bread, cereal, juice, fruit, etc. The banana bread is reason enough to stay there. We went to Sun Bay and it was absolutely beautiful. We were there by 9:30am and the sun was already intense. Only 8 people were there besides us - so this is not a "crowded" beach by any means. Then we toured all of the other beaches in our jeep to plot out where we would go the next day. We drove to the end of the road from Sun Bay and saw Orchid Beach, which is rocky, but a great place for photos. Had lunch at Duffy's on the strip - Mahi tacos and a burger with Rum Punch drinks. This was a great little place to relax and you can go in your just-got-back-from-the-beach attire. That evening we did the bio-bay tour with Abe. He is quite a character and made the trip a great time! I wished I had brought swim shoes because you do have to walk over sharp rocks to get in your kayak.

Day Three – Seeked out Secret Beach. It was a postcard scene. Surreal almost. Only two other people there. We never felt unsafe, but we did take an Aquapak for our camera, money, etc. to go in the water with. Something about the sun here – it is a mix of clouds and sun, at least when we were there, so you do get a few minutes of relief from the blaze now and then. In the afternoon we went shopping in Isabel II and stopped by the fort, marina, and the 400 year old Cieba tree. A must see! Then we stopped by Green Beach – this looked like a scene from “LOST” – very cool. We enjoyed tapas from a roadside stand for lunch. Had dinner at Tradewinds during sunset. We had Grouper and Tuna specials, which were wonderful!!! The service is great here and the prices are worth every penny. Had cocktails with Randy at the Island Steakhouse at our hotel. Again, very nice hospitable people that made our hotel feel like home!

Day Four – Our last day… so sad. Went back to Sun Bay, then celebrated St. Patrick’s Day at Duffy’s for lunch. There was even an Irishman there to enjoy the Jameson’s with! Got some great travel tips for Ireland from him! Thanks Michael! We got pollo BBQ from the vendor at Sun Bay then shopped a bit. There are places to shop in spite of what some posters have said! Had dinner at El Quanico in Esperanza on the advice of some other vacationers. Good call – the food was GREAT!

Day Five – Said goodbye to the cat that hung out with us during our stay – only because we “invited” him in… ☺ We had lunch at a roadside BBQ near the ferry and then traveled by boat to Fajardo. We rented a car from L&M and the gentleman that helped us was so unbelievably nice! He even gave us his own hand drawn map to the drop-off point for our departure in San Juan. From here we went to the Fajardo Inn. The hotel was lovely, but our balcony was tiny and bus loads of kids were being dropped off for field trips.

Day Six – We got an early start and were at the El Yunque Rain Forest by 7:30AM before the mobs of tourists arrived. We drove to the top and walked around the forest by ourselves. During this time, we only saw one other couple! After our self-guided tour we stopped by the Travel Center and I must say that this is a must to learn more about the rainforest. After, we drove to Luquillo Beach and had tapas on our beach chairs (which they carry down to the beach for you for only $5 rental each). The beach was large and there were a lot of people there, but a great stop nonetheless! There is nothing to see or do in Fajardo (that we could find) so we checked out and went on to Old San Juan for our last night in PR. Howard Johnson had a nice balcony room available for us. Much more $$$ than Vieques, but worth it! Old San Juan was a destination in itself. Next time we will stay longer here. Had dinner at Sophia’s Italian Restaurant and our waiter Josh was a sweet young guy that told us about all of the other amazing areas of PR to visit – including Rincon… My linguine and clams dinner was better than what we had in Italy! Great restaurant and SUPERIOR personal service!

Day Seven – We visited the Ponce de Leon Castle, the Cathedral, and the El Morro Fort. Everything is very close in Old San Juan. Don’t even think about driving! Old San Juan is clean and beautiful with blue cobblestone streets and an abundance of restaurants, art galleries, and shops. We bought some art and even some handmade teak dominoes. We will definitely stop back here again in our travels.

THEN… we had to go home. Please, please, please get to SJU early because there is an extra security line by the USDA on your way INTO the airport. We actually missed our flight because of the lines and I won’t get into that nightmare because our trip was too good to be spoiled by flight issues.

Thank you, posters! Your help made our trip better than we could have ever imagined. Keep posting!!!! It really does make a difference!

Loved your trip report, CandV. Vieques is an island that I would very much like to further explore. I visited once last year with three other people and we ended up being pulled in too many directions at once.

Did you try the flan from the Flan Lady?

CandV

Thanks for the trip report. You had a good mix of everything the island has to offer.
Don't you just love Secret Beach? One of my favorites. The last 2 weeks the water has been so calm, so blue, so warm...well over my head, I can still see bottom!
We stayed at the Howard Johnsons in OSJ also, and really liked it(we had read bad reviews). Love the little balcony, looking down into those wonderful streets!

Yes, we really liked Howard Johnson's. Especially our balcony. We were on the fourth floor so we had one of the huge private balconies. It was probably 10' x 10' with a table and chairs.

We didn't see the Flan Lady - too bad... That would have been a great stop!

I am surprised you found my post, I tried to put it under the Puerto Rico section and for some reason it posted to the Caribbean section of the forum???

Thanks for the replies. This was our first trip to Vieques and we will definitely go back again soon. We try not to repeat our vacations, but I cannot imagine missing out on another day at Secret Beach and Sun Bay!

Happy Travels!

Unlike TripAdvisor and other travel forums, all posts in the Caribbean forum show up here; there are no separate forums for different islands. Selecting the island is really only for searching purposes.

Glad you had such a good trip. We loved Vieques and it's choice of so many beautiful beaches. We had Blue Beach to ourselves several days and thought the snorkeling was pretty good as well.

I agree with the rooster comment!! My gosh, they were wandering outside our window crowing away at 4am!! I don't know how but I was sleeping through it at the end of our trip!

Thanks for your trip report. This is going to be very helpful for us!

we could not find the "flan lady" last february when we were on vieques. could you better explain how to locate her since i LOVE flan. i'm not sure if we went to "secret beach". how do you get there or is it a secret? the best meals we had were at trade winds in esperanza. i wasn't too impressed elsewhere. anybody have any suggestions? we will be staying at hacienda tamarindo and have already reserved a car. thanks for the info. in advance. by the way, we totally liked esperanza more than isabel II. we found people to be kind of unfriendly and some downright nasty in town.

putch, you're going back to Vieques and HacTam? That's great!

If you're leaving HacTam and heading into Esperanza, the Flan Lady lives in a house on the right side of the road just before you get to Tradewinds. We saw a sign on her fence that said Flan: queso, coco, vanille (or something very like that). There were small individual servings as well as 8" or 9" pie plate sizes.

Putch- I have a feeling that woman may not sell flan from her home anymore...I used to see the sign all the time, but last winter did not see it at all. Lots of the restaurants get their flan from locals who make it in their homes.
Secret beach is on the Garcia Camp road, between red Beach and Blue Beach...there is now a sign for it "pata prieta" something like that. Not a secret at all, but one of my favorite beaches.
When are you going??

The Blue McCaw has opened in Isabelle, has very good things being said about it.

The difference between Isabelle and Esperanza is that Esperanza is a tourist spot and Isabelle is "town" where everything happens for the Viequenses, there are some who are not friendly appearing, there are still lots of negative feelings about the Navy;s occupation. However, there are lots of Viequenses who are wonderful, we have some great friends. So I guess what I am saying is that Esperanza is where everyone is on vacation and having a grand time, while back in Isabelle, it is life as usual for the locals!
have a great trip

i understand what you're saying about the difference between the two "towns". the reality was the unfriendly people were in a tourist type shop not at a eatery that locals frequent. maybe it was just one unfortunate experience that's not indicative of the people of the town. any suggestions for really good places for dinner.

we were extremely disappointed with the dinner at the bravo beach hotel. we made reservations but they said they never got them so they stuck us at a crappy table and the 2 hours we spent eating there the nicer tables were not even occupied so there was no real reason we couldn't have been seated there. everything is tapas size portions and entree size prices. we thought the food was okay and a bit pretentious. the service was not that great. in the end, we felt like we had stumbled upon a rerun of "miami vice". it was very south beach art deco...much ado about nothing.
we had a decent dinner at the island steak house. the service was very good and the food was okay. our 2 dinners at trade winds were the best tasting meals. if anybody has any other suggestions, please tell me. i'd love to be enlightened about a good place to eat. our first night we just walk down to inn on the blue horizon. the food was pretty good but it was very expensive. i look forward to reading some good suggestions.

Most of our meals were solid without being excellent. Our favorite and most interesting meal, including outstanding desserts, was at Cafe Media Luna, but there is more than one person on this forum who didn't have a great experience there. Our second best meal was at Tradewinds, so we're in agreement there. Banana's and the more casual restaurant at IOBH were perfectly fine in terms of food, service, and value but not outstanding in terms of any particular aspect. (except possibly the pina coladas at both, which were really good)

I have to admit to having a hard time recommending a really great place to eat. If I were going out, I would pick Tradewinds or Chez Shack. On Mon nights, they have BBQ which we really like. Other nights they have a lot of fish on the menu.
We also did the BBQ night at Island Steakhouse, that was very good and you could have seconds for free. I think it is about $25 per person.
There are 2 new places on the Malecon since you have been there, Duffy's (we ate there and was good) and El Quinipo(sp) with a "nicer" menu than Duffy's.
All in all, most places are overpriced and just okay...
There is a mexican night a couple times a week at Coqui Fire... good standard mexican food, good prices.

thanks for all the information. now i know i'm not overly critical when it comes to places to eat in vieques. some caribbean islands have both beauty and great food but most just have great beauty. keep the suggestions coming. we live and learn all the time.

Putch and mahobaygirl, I bought flan from her on our trip in August. There is no sign at all. It's a yellow house on the left going out of town on the opposite side of the street from Tradewinds. It has a gate across the driveway. When I was there a man and kids were playing in the yard. When I asked about flan, they yelled into the house and she came out. I thought the coconut was really good. As I recall it was $9. Pricey - but if you really like flan it could be worth it.

I so agree about Bravo Beach Hotel. We went there for drinks and appetisers. There was hardly anyone there and they kept us waiting so long to order our apps we finally decided to leave. We went to Blue McCaw instead, which was great.

We really enjoyed the food, reasonable prices and casual nature of both Bananas and Duffy's in Esperanza -- but we were not impressed by the more expensive food at Tradewinds. My husband had the Mofongo, and it was more like a pasta dish without much flavor compared to the Mofongo we had at the kioskos in Luquillo. I had one of their shrimp specials and it was very bland.

A couple of different locals recommended Richard's Cafe in Isabel, and I also heard good things about El Patio for breakfast and lunch. We ran out of time before we tried either one.

last year, we got to hacienda tamarindo about 6 p.m. so i made reservations for inn on the blue horizon for dinner so we could just walk over. the food was good but quite pricey. i was wondering if we should just walk over and sit at the bar. do they serve food at the bar? i hate to be "cheap" on vacation but it just was a lot of money and i was pretty exhausted and didn't feel like i "appreciated" the food.

They do serve food at the bar at Inn on the Blue Horizon. It is a tapas menu the last I knew, which we found very pricey, but overall will cost you less than "dinner" at the restaurant. The Inn always has a "schedule" of events going on there, see if it is on their website and it will tell you what nights are what for food, dancing, movies etc. When are you going?

we will be arriving in vieques on a friday,late afternoon, in february. the easiest plan is to take a short walk and go to inn on the blue horizon. since i have "free" calling to puerto rico, i'll probably call and see what the deal is for fridays. tapas may be just right after a long day of traveling.