Villa Serena San Benito — Hotel in San Salvador

I just stayed here for two weeks on a business trip, and it's all been said already. The staff speak little to no English, but they really know how to run a hotel smoothly. My room was spacious for the price paid, with a nice A/C, TV, and shower. It also came with a small patio / safe zone (for earthquakes and emergencies) that had a few tropical plants. Daily housekeeping was great, and the breakfast crew will cheer you up as you start your day. The portions are somewhat small, but it's good homemade (made to order) ...and it's free. Overall it seemed like a mostly younger/local crowd, but with the exception of one night things were very quiet by 9 or 10.||||It's easy to catch a cab, as there are three drivers who hang around the front entrance most of the time. I got overcharged pretty obviously on my one ride down the street in a rainstorm, but there's a pricing chart available for common destinations (and you should always ask ahead of time). The reason I didn't need cabs is that the surrounding neighborhood has 8-10 very good restaurants within a 5-10 minute walk. I highly recommend The Green House and Pomodoro for "foreign" cuisine, and any of the local small cafeterias for assorted Salvadorian lunches. The area is relatively safe (largely residential), and there are guards on just about every corner any way (as is standard in the city). The two museums (MARTE and Museo de Antropologia) are both within walking distance, and the latter gives a wonderful history of the country with most exhibits translated into English.||||If I'm nitpicking, the only complaints I can come up with are some small stains on the sheets and the noise on the patio when it rained. Neither of these would prevent me from returning.||||On the other hand, the wi-fi was outstandingly reliable, and everyone on staff was happy to have you staying with them.||||Heads Up They charge your card the full amount upon check-in, which surprised me but ended up not...

We arrived late at night to find out the lazy owners had not even checked the emails sent from Booking.com and they had rented out our rooms. Yes, you are reading right. We reserved on Monday for two double rooms on that same Thursday and we arrived with our confirmation to a full hotel, we were not even on the reservation list. When they checked their email, our reservation was right there with all the other reservations they did not bother to read. Even worse, they had not even bothered to take down the rooms from Booking.com and on line you could still reserve in the hotel even when there was no vacancy. Very irresponsible people, stay away from this dump that advertises free parking but had cars parked in the street. After a very long 45 minutes at 1 AM, the owner, Ms, Bellini Siguenza, tried to get us into a hotel in a not so nice part of town even though the Sheraton next door had space...they just did not want to pay for it. We chose San Benito for safety reasons, I was not about to go to a not so good part of town at that time in the early morning. There was no compensation whatsoever (not that I wanted it, I just wanted to sleep) and we even got a nasty attitude from the person at the front desk: "how dare we get mad for them not keeping up their part of the LEGALLY BINDING contract". Horrible attitude. Stay far, far away from this hotel, they should not be allowed to run a hotel with such poor attitude. First time in my life I have a situation like this and I am on the go about 120 days every year...just plain...

We stayed here for a couple of nights with my friend on a backpacking trip. Here are a couple of pros and cons I spotted during our stay:

Pros: Staff was kind The WiFi was good The A/C was good

And then the cons: Sound isolation was very poor (could hear the neighbor snore) We had ants in our room (a lot of them) Dirty towels TV did not function at all Hot water came out of the shower depending on the angle of the moon Bed headboard banged against the walls when turning in your sleep The breakfast (even though delicious), was very meager and the A/C was on full blast making the room literal Antarctica

All in all, the state of this hotel is poor and need of urgent maintenance. The staff, being fantastic and kind, sadly do not make up for the lack of services expected on a 4,3 star hotel on Google.

The tourism ministry of El Salvador has given this hotel a rating of 3 stars. I might advise them to revisit...