The ferry is $2. Getting to the ferry is the expensive part, and the decision most people get wrong is renting a car in San Juan to drive 90 minutes to a boat they cannot take the car onto.
The thing almost nobody has published
Puerto Rico Ferry runs its own ground transport between the Ceiba terminal and seven mainland destinations, with a published tariff. It sits at the bottom of the rates page under a heading that tells you the problem:
“INLAND TRANSPORT TARIFFS — GROUND TRANSPORTATION SERVICES ARE NOT AVAILABLE ON PUERTORICOFERRY.COM.”
From the Port of Ceiba:
| To | Fare |
|---|---|
| Ceiba (town) | $2.00 / carpooling |
| Luquillo (town) | $3.00 |
| Fajardo | $3.00 / carpooling |
| Río Grande (Wyndham) | $4.00 |
| Humacao | $5.00 / carpooling |
| Río Grande (city) | $5.50 |
| Canóvanas (Int. 185) | $7.00 |
| Río Piedras | $9.00 |
Returning, from Río Piedras: Canóvanas $7.00, Río Grande city $5.50, Luquillo kiosks $4.00, Luquillo town $4.50, Fajardo town $5.50, Port of Ceiba $9.00.
And the condition attached:
“Minimum of $30.00 — A minimum of four (4) tickets will be charged.”
So the practical floor is $30 regardless of party size. For two people to Río Piedras that is $30 rather than $18; for four it is exactly $36. Against a rental car plus fuel plus parking for the duration of an island trip, $30 each way is not a bad deal at all.
The catch. It is not sold on the operator’s website, and the rates page gives no phone number, operator name or timetable for it. The ticket counter at Ceiba is where to ask, and ask about the return leg before you rely on it: the day you come back off the island is the day you most need a ride waiting.
Driving, and the clock
The drive from San Juan is 75 to 90 minutes, longer in San Juan rush hour. Ceiba is next to Fajardo, and the terminal is on the old Roosevelt Roads base, not in Fajardo itself.
Parking is paid, on site, with signs inside the terminal to ticketing and boarding. If you are leaving a car for a week on the island, that is seven nights of parking to budget before the ferry costs you anything.
The timing rules, from the operator:
- The terminal opens one hour before the first scheduled departure and closes with the last ship.
- Arrive one hour before your sailing. Check-in closes 10 minutes before departure.
- Payment at the counter: “Only the payment methods indicated on the updated signage at the terminals are accepted: cash, debit cards, and credit cards.”
Terminal address: Marina Dr., Roosevelt Roads, Ceiba, PR 00735.
On the pre-dawn sailings, those rules put you at the terminal by 2:30 or 3:30 in the morning. Our page on hotels and apartments near the Ceiba ferry terminal covers Ceiba and Fajardo, and when San Juan is close enough.
The mistake that costs the most
People book a rental in San Juan, drive to Ceiba, leave it in a paid lot for a week, arrive on the island with no vehicle, and discover that island rentals were supposed to be booked months ago. The car has then cost you money at both ends and moved you nowhere.
Discover Puerto Rico tells readers that “car rentals aren’t available at the ferry terminals.” On Vieques that is not so: Coqui Car & Island Jeep Rental’s office is about 100 feet from the ferry port, and Maritza’s Car Rental and Vieques Car Rental both pick up at the dock. On Culebra the counters are at the airport and on the road to Flamenco Beach. What the tourism board has right is the part that matters: book before you sail. Who rents what, and where, is on the getting-around page.
If you are going to the islands and staying there: take ground transport or a taxi to Ceiba, and book your island vehicle before you leave home.
If you are touring the mainland too: the rental makes sense, and the parking at Ceiba is the price of keeping it.
Going for one day, not the week? A booked day trip can take the drive off your hands. The packaged Vieques day from San Juan includes pickup from a set list of hotels and stops between San Juan and Luquillo, and the ferry tickets, and gets you back to San Juan close to midnight. The Culebra catamaran leaves from Puerto del Rey marina in Fajardo, not from the Ceiba terminal, with transport from San Juan at an extra charge, and its captain picks the beach that morning.
The other option on the same former base
Ceiba’s airport — NRR, on the same Roosevelt Roads land as the terminal — is served by Vieques Air Link, with a 25-pound total baggage allowance. If the drive is the part you are trying to avoid altogether, Cape Air flies to both islands from SJU itself, and the flying page sets the two carriers side by side.
Once you are there, the sailing times are here, every boat to both islands and back. And if the trip is for the bio bay, the Mosquito Bay page has the new-moon dates and the tours that leave from Vieques itself, so you can time the crossing to the night.
