ESJ Beach Hotel — Hotel in Carolina

ESJ Beach Hotel (aka ESJ Towers/ESJ Apartments and formerly known as Mare St. Clair Hotel) -- making this clear to avoid any confusion that pops up if you see these names on any apps or research.. is not to be confused with the "Fairmont El San Juan Hotel" next door. ||||Its a cool hotel. Right on the beach. Very safe surrounding area. Staff are friendly and helpful. They keep it clean as it could be. Hopefully they can make the touchups needed to make it better aesthetically, but I was very comfortable. My only issue was that the room had somewhat of a musty smell that I later realized came from the dresser. I dealt with that with air sanitizer though I could have switched rooms right at the very beginning. The trade off was that my room had perhaps the greatest air conditioner of all time. I could only leave it on for 5 minutes at a time as it quickly cooled the whole unit down.. and it stayed cool for hours. Also, hot water went out twice in my unit but it was promptly dealt with when reported.||||T Mobile and Boost Mobile signals extremely strong in the area.||||No food served here that I know of.||||No dishwasher in room, no detergent or sponge to wash dishes either. No space for strainer, though its a in a cabinet under the sink. Ran into housekeeper in hallway who poured 1/3 bottle of detergent in a cup for me, but didnt have a sponge to give me. I bought cheap pack at Walgreens and put strainer on top of the stove. I recommend just buying a few disposable plastic cups and plates if possible. ||||I really don't know how room service works here. Someone told me you have to pay extra. I was cool doing my own thing. They do knock on your door and ask if you wan your trash taken or if you need towels, etc. ||||No bathmat on floor, so you're stepping on straight tile when coming out of the shower. Could always put one of their smaller towels on the floor for comfort. They give you a lot of them.|| ||Had Cable TV, Wi-fi (didn't work well for me), also there were 2 wall outlets, both obscured by the bed frames that I didn't notice until leaving. So if you're ever wondering why there isn't an outlet close to your bed... its there. You have to pull the bed out a little to access it. ||||There is a game room in the lobby with arcade games and a pool table and an exercise room and a wash room each on the two sub floors. I'm talking down in the underground parking lot areas. You have to buy tokens at the cashier in the lobby to use the washing machines (top load) and dryers. A token each for a wash and a dry. Need your own detergent.||||Beach is open 24 hours but only accessible from the hotel beach gate from 7 AM to 7 PM. Outside of those times you can enter from the public entrances on the street. Extremely peaceful and relaxing, especially at night if you're that type of person.||||On weekends, right outside the hotel's beach gate is a stand that makes the greatest pina coladas of all time as well as flavored shaved ice (piragua). Not sure if its there any other time, but I only saw them there on Saturday.||||Jetski rental and instruction right on the beach.||||There's a 2-3 minute walk from the lobby entrance to the main street via walkway.||||Food (plenty of options), casino (next door), a Walgreens (called Caridad Farmacia), a convenience store (24 Marketplace), and full fledged supermarket (Supermercados Pueblo) are all in walking distance. ||||Uber and Doordash are in full effect out there. Used Doordash to bring me a charger after I brought the wrong one on the trip. This was before I knew Caridad Farmacia was just like a full fledged Walgreens and I could have just walked a few blocks and bought one. Either way, I had a new one in less than 20 minutes.||||I saw a person picking up an amazon package from the cashier area in the lobby.||||There was an episode early AM on my last day where my phone accidentally fell down the trash chute on the 6th floor. I went to the lobby and told the first worker I saw. This man dropped what he was doing and walkie-talkied one of his coworkers. The guy quickly came and we all went to the trash room which is in a section somewhat outside the hotel. After a few minutes of nasty work involving flies and pigeons, they were able to get my phone back with just a cracked screen protector. Big shoutout to them.||||All in all, I would definitely stay at ESJ again as long as my room smelled fresh. Its quiet and...

I booked this through my airline because it came up as a different name (Mare). It had 5 star reviews under that name so I was happy to treat myself to a one night stay here before my flight the next day. A few days before, I looked up the address to make sure I knew where I was going, and the name Mare did not come up. Instead, it was ESJ towers and the reviews were vastly different and was rated lower. I also received reservation information via email from a realtor from Maryland, which I found super odd. Because of this, I called my airline to be sure I had booked the right hotel, as I was worried about safety as a solo woman traveler and the situation seemed weird. They assured me it was a 5 star hotel named Mare so I didn't cancel the reservation. The email I got from the hotel rep giving me instructions let me know that the pool, cafe and bar were all closed for repair, which I wish I had known when I booked.

The instructions on the email said I didn't need to check in with the front desk; the hotel is keyless and after I parked I would use a code to open my room. But when I was driving down the road, I was stopped by an employee outside and told to park by his podium, so I turned my car around to do that. He immediately told me I shouldn't have turned around that way as if I would've known that. It's a private road and no other cars were around so I hadn't seen an issue with a quick turnaround. He told me to check in so I figured the instructions were wrong and I left the car to go inside. The lady at the desk was nice but told me I didn't need to check in since I had booked a private room. I went back outside and let the man know this. I try to always be very nice because it's a luxury to be able to pay to stay at a hotel and I used to work in customer service. I was smiling and tried to say thank you as much as I could while he got my information for the parking pass I needed. He then told me I was too high energy. I was taken aback by the comment but tried to make a lighthearted joke by saying it's because I had a cup of coffee earlier in the day. To which he responded, "just one? Really?". I immediately shut down because I was so hurt by the comment coming from a complete stranger, an employee, and someone I was just being polite to. I hadn't made any conversation beyond giving him my information. It left a huge sour taste in my mouth and made me feel really upset. I remained quiet the rest of the process besides asking a clarifying question about getting to parking.

It was a very bad way to start the stay and end my time in Puerto Rico, where everyone had been very kind.

I parked in my spot but there were no visible signs in my part of the deck to get into the hotel, so I found some stairs and walked up those with my luggage until I found the lobby. At that point I realized there was no elevator to get to the parking levels anyway. I took the elevator up to my room from the lobby.

The room was okay upon entering. It looked clean but a little run down and more like an old apartment. The washer dryer had a sign on it not to use. There was no proper blanket on the bed, just uncomfortable sheets. The towels were super scratchy. And it smelled a bit moldy, which I know can be typical of places by the sea . The view was nice, as I had paid for an ocean view. There are fob keys to get through the ocean gate and back in, so I changed and went out to the ocean. Most of the amenities were closed as noted in the email, but again, I didn't find out until a few days before.

The ocean was nice and I spent most of my time there since I didn't care for the hotel. The area was fine and it was only semi crowded so I enjoyed it.

I showered after, and the water was only hot for about 5 min before turning lukewarm. There was also a weird LED function on the showerhead that you couldn't turn off. I'm sure they thought it was fun but on top of everything else it felt super cheap. The towels were terribly scratchy.

I watched tv the remainder of the evening since everything was closed & checked out the...

I planned to visit Puerto Rico on one of the busiest weekends since the lockdown began back in 2020. Absent-mindedly made reservations for Memorial Day weekend; the dubious travel agency i used to make hotel reservations came up short and kind of failed me. I received an email stating that the  hotel that i originally booked was cancelling my reservations due to overbooking, and the travel agency relocated me to Máre St Clare hotel. Now, if you go into your stay here knowing and accepting the fact that this is originally a 40-something year old apartment building, re-purpossed as a hotel (resort) - then you'll be ahead of the game. As i just mentioned, the building is old/dated and it is obvious in every corner you look at. However, few hotels in the area are as exceptionally situated as StClare is.

As it is the case with many businesses around the immediate Isla Verde area, service and the excellent staff, im my humble opinion, is what keeps them afloat. Although, also as already mentioned, when you are situated in such prime area, demand is going to be high regardless.

If you rent a car, you will relatively rest assured that your vehicle will be sort of safe as the parking garage is gated. However,  the  garage itself is horribly dated, looks structurally risky and scary from a safety standpoint. The complex is gated, and the garage itself has also a gate within the complex, but the installation is poorly lit and eerily isolated.

When you make it into the lobby, you'll be pleasantly surprised, but somewhat deceived because that is just about the only part of the installations that has been renovated so far. The elevators look relatively new and safe too. However,  when you get to your floor that's where the pleasant surprise ends.

The rooms were adequate if your visit was in 1983. We were accommodated in what looked like a suite, with a dated but complete small kitchen, horribly dated bathroom with a non-functional shower head, and barely functional toilet, clean but worn beds, original musky rugs from the 1970's, and equally dated furniture all over. The view, however, was spectacular from the terrace/balcony. As mentioned earlier, the property is absolutely perfectly situated; step out of the building lobby to a rear dated patio and you'd immediately step into the gorgeous Isla Verde beach. Literally a few steps away from the building is this fabulous beach.

Due to the many COVID 19 restrictions,  you have to make reservations to use the hotel pool. This, in my opinion, is a welcome initiative since at no point was the pool crowded as you are allotted blocks of three hours for the pool usage. I absolutely loved and enjoyed this. The food (reasonably priced) at the pool bar was very adequate.

NOW, if you are still reading this, i just want to let you know that the staff EVERYWHERE in this hotel, was professional and courteous, happy to assist you in any way. This more than made up for the lackluster installations. You really felt you were in a 4 or higher Star hotel by the way the staff treated you.

I would surprisingly and begrudgingly give this place another try considering that they are in the middle of a huge and complete renovation project. Location,...