Bacardi Factory, San Juan

Although the Bacardi factory sounds like good use of an afterenoon, your time would be better spent touring Old San Juan. The factory is your standard tourist trap, and not worth a visit. Sure you get two free rums, and a semi interesting tour of the factory, but visit the fort instead.

Waste of time and effort. Of all the things we did during our trip, this is the one we should have skipped. First of all, in the incredible heat, the trip there was exhausting and the tour did not justify the cost spent on the taxi and ferry getting there. They give you two free drinks which is nice, actually found a new drink I really like. But otherwise, not worthwhile. They take you to watch a little movie and then show you a facade of an original distillery and the first bar in the original bacardi building. You don't see anything they are actually doing now and turns out the headquarters. This isnt even the headquarters or the original site of Bacardi. Unless you love rum/bacardi, its probably not worth the effort.

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When we walked off the ship we went to catch the ferry to old San Juan then a public bus to the Bacardi Rum Factory. Once we reached the factory we joined a group for a tour. The tour was interesting and then we had two free drinks each at the welcome center. My personal favorite was the cherry flavored rum. We bought one bottle of the cherry rum to bring home.

If you plan to ride a public bus make sure you have money in the form of coins. They do not take bills. It was only 50 or 75 cents but we did not have coins so the bus driver let us ride for free. He said it was his treat. That was nice of him. The driver would not take a tip either.

If you have spare time on your trip, the Bacardi tour is great. You can take the Ferry from Old San Juan to Catano for 50 cents and the cab ride to the factory is another 2 dollars. You can also take the bus. Once there you are handed 2 drink tickets per person. But with my friends and I, we went up 3 times for a total of 6. So we were pretty much buzz when we went on the tour. The tour was great in that it allowed you to learn the history of Bacardi and all that other good stuff. You can even buy some rums (2?) that aren't sold anywhere else.

Make sure you make time to visit the Bacardi plant. The tours are free, and you can leave with a buzz from the free samples!!

This is an interesting tour to take albeit a bit too commercial.

This is the largest distillery in the world.