Condado Vanderbilt Hotel — Hotel in San Juan

I looked at many Google reviews before our visit. I would like to say thanks for all your help. We met up with friends at Condado Vanderbilt to celebrate our birthdays. Let me say booking thru my AMEX Platinum card was a great deal. Breakfast buffet for two daily. Ends around 11 am daily. The value alone for the buffet for two was $100.00. Plus we were able to check in at Noon, if available. We couldn't as our room wasn't ready. Late check out at 4pm. Plust $125.00 resort credit to use for food or drink. We had a Commodore Ocean Front suite which was very nice. Two balconies. PLUS, we had our own butler. Enma, our butler was FANTASTIC!! He emailed me a few days before our trip letting us know he would be our butler and asked if we needed any help. I asked for him to help us arrange ground transportation to and from airport. NOTE, BAHIA Transportation was nice, etc. but was expensive. $110.00 to the Hotel which was about a 15 min ride. Our driver did not lift one finger to help me with my luggage, which we had two large suitcases and two carry ons. I pulled my back the day before so this wasn't good. I asked Enma after arriving to cancel our ride back and got an UBER Black to take us back at the cost of $24.00. Would recommend UBER Black for transportation. Anyway, back to hotel. The staff was so GREAT!! I mean best staff anywhere we have stayed. We have stayed at many fine hotels, Ritz, Intercontinental, Willard in DC,etc. They didn't have no in their vocabulary. When we celebrated my birthday on a Saturday, my wife reached out to Enma, our butler for help. He set up the room while we were at the pool with a bday cake, balloons, plates for charcuterie board my wife wanted to prepare, 8 champagne glasses, as well as a bottle of champagne on ice!!! I didn't see any charge either on my bill for all this. My wife wanted to tip him specifically for this occasion, so she found him and gave him a tip. Victor, working the entrance area of hotel was spectacular. Made sure to greet me by name every time we entered or left hotel. Paiulo, hostess in buffet was so great in making sure we got what we needed in the restaurant where the buffet was. Amid made spectacular omelets for us at the omelet station. Enma, our butler was very instrumental in checking in during our stay seeing how were were doing via text. Like having your own assistant. He was very helpful giving us ideas on restaurants of what we were looking for, then he would call and make our reservations for us and confirm back to me time, etc. Ropa Vieja was one of our favorites. Tayzan, Chinese, Sushi, and PR food was not great. I would not go back. Serafina, next door to CVH was awesome as well. Great walking distance to Marriott Stellaris Casino. LaConcha Casino didn't do it for us. Highly recommend the walk to Stellaris. Also, there is a market right across the street called H & R Food and Liquors that has a quite a bit of selection of liquor/beer, as well as food items and prepared food such as sandwiches prepackaged. We had a nice sub zero smaller fridge in our room as well as a nice ice maker. Nespresso type machine that uses the pods which were provided. Alto Grando was the pods of choice. The cigar lounge was quite small as I generally sat outside to smoke a cigar once in a while. Tacos and Tequila was good as well. They gave me and my wife both a margarita on the day of my birthday. The pool drinks were awesome. Condado Express was our favorite. Medalla Beer is awesome as well. Low carb with great taste. Airport Duty Free Store sells liquor, beer, and coffee on your way out so you can take home some treasures. Alto Grande coffee was our favorite. Again, CVH was spectacular stay. We want to go back again soon. Knowing what we know now, wouldn't change a thing. Was so relaxing and again, STAFF WAS...

The hotel is beautiful. You’re presented with such a beautiful smell on entry. The winding stairs and the ocean view in the distance secures your vacation mode. We were booked to stay Thursday - Sunday. However, that first impression was immediately disrupted by my welcoming. Thursday - There was quite a wait to check in given that it was after 4p. I was greeted with kindness, but did not receive the same welcome as others. I booked the 2 bedroom suite and was told that one of my rooms was available. She mentioned that I would receive a phone call when my other room was available. She gave me one wristband (key), and didn’t offer any more (5 ppl were staying in the suite). She then pushed the welcome letter to me stating that this is our welcome letter. I clearly saw the other two guests getting a full layout of the welcome letter, with traffic control-like directions to where the amenities were. Also, we were not offered any assistance with our luggage, whereas the other two guest were. The entry way door to our room looked to have been kicked in, so I notify the front desk via phone. I never received a phone call that the other room was ready. The door wasn’t fixed so we slept with both inside doors latched and locked. Friday - No one came to check on the door, so I again mentioned it to the front desk. Spoke to Alejandro about the door and he said he’d have someone take a look. No one came the entire day. Saturday - Still no fix to the door. Received a text at 1:38p, from Krystal, our supposed butler stating “don’t hesitate to contact me if you need anything.” That was the first I’d heard from her the entire trip. HUGE disappointment! I spoke to Alejandro again and a butler should have been waiting for us at check in, checking in with shift changes, and provided contact information. I received NONE of that until Sat. I also reminded him of the door that no one had fixed. Alejandro gave apologies, and offered at $400 credit. The service guys came up to fix the door at 7:37p and bottle service sent at 7:44p and 7:50p. The guys “fixed” the door but the lock the wouldn’t even lock!!! Sunday - I asked for a late check out given that our room wasn’t ready on arrival, which was approved, and a bell hop would gather our luggage 15 minutes before 1p. Nonetheless, our luggage was still in our room when we came back. At check out, with Leena, I owed more money despite the applied credit (the 20% gratuity was NOT worth it because we didn’t receive the treatment that came with the room). Heavily disappointed!!! Again, the hotel is beautiful. The common areas are modernized. The turndown service was great. The staff, at face value, have immaculate customer service, but there’s a lack communication to certain guests of amenities and amongst staff, AND the follow-through is an after thought. We were a group of people of color (POC), from the states, and one of very few groups of POC seen on site the entire stay. The blatant DISCRIMINATION was subtle and loud all in the same breath. We found that discrimination against African Americans was isolated to the Condado area. I expected the red carpet to be rolled out being that we were in a suite with a butler, as advertised on the website, and that it was my birthday celebration. All I expected in return was genuine communication and apologies, follow-through, and what we paid for. Yet, that was far from the case. We were given false information, subpar treatment in comparison to our non-POC counterparts, and bottles of champagne. I did not associate our treatment here with all of San Juan, because we had an incredible time, and encounter genuinely wonderful people elsewhere, so I will revisit the island. Thus, I would NEVER recommend this place to anyone nor stay here again, which would most likely be fine for...

An absolutely brilliant hotel. We had looked at various hotels in that area, and finally settled on the Vanderbilt. We were not disappointed.

The front desk staff are very accommodating, very friendly. I was hesitant to take The offered champagne at check-in, but then I thought, I’m on vacation. Why not! And it was very good.

The room was a very nicely sized room, with all the expected amenities, and a table with a couple of comfy chairs. You even get a few treats on the house too (i.e. A chocolate bar, couple bags of chips, etc.). The view from the room was wonderful; we looked out over the pool below, and the ocean and everything in the distance. We were very happy to have a real, normal bathroom, with a real normal door ; so many modern hotel bathrooms have farm doors, or half the bathroom open to the rest of the room, or some such nonsense. There is, however, a full length frosted window between the bathroom and the rest of the room, but it’s off to the side, behind the door if the door is open. It was the one senseless thing about the bathroom. Modern hotels just love to do senseless, ridiculous things with bathrooms for some reason, but this one wasn’t too bad. The shower was excellent; a full shower, no bathtub.

If you like to sleep with the windows open, keep in mind there is often music playing well into the night, and even overnight. It’s not horribly loud, but definitely audible. Wasn’t sure if it was coming from the Vanderbilt or the hotel next door.

As for hotel amenities, the two outdoor pools are fantastic! The smaller one is a vanishing edge swimming pool that gives you a full view of the ocean. The larger pool is great for swimming, and has an upper area with beach chairs actually sitting in water. Both pools are heated, though the larger pool is much hotter, and so nice to get into, especially at night. It spoiled us for the pools at our next hotel.

The pool area is quite large with plenty of beach chairs, some of which have umbrellas. There’s a whole area of beach chairs that look out on the ocean, but people don’t seem to lounge in those as none have umbrellas. The luxurious outdoor seating and outdoor bar for the hotel’s Ola restaurant are also part of the pool area. However, beware, that if you sit at a table, you won’t be served. We made the mistake of sitting at a table thinking we could be served, and were ignored by waiters until we went to speak with the host. That was a huge letdown. It went completely against the accommodating guest culture that the hotel prides itself on. I would suggest to the hotel to put small signs on the tables telling people to check in with the host before sitting.

There are cabanas at the pool that you can rent, which are very spacious, and comfortable looking. The pool staff will set you up with a beach chair, and towel, though they don’t seem to do that all the time. You can also be served at your beach chair, but we didn’t partake in that/it wasn’t ever offered.

The hotel does have a spa. I didn’t try any of the services, but did enjoy the gym. It’s decently spacious with a good amount of cardio equipment. As usual, when it comes to strength training equipment, I think the gym could use 1 or 2 more things (i.e. extra pec fly machine or something; the one that’s there isn’t great), but I still got in good workouts.

One complaint I have is that we’d asked to have a minor issue repaired, which they didn’t do the first time we initially asked. But, each time they went into the room (we were out), they would also change things that we didn’t ask them to change such as turning on the a/c, turning on the TV, etc. They really should leave the room the way they found it; we’re not big on A/C.

All in all, I would highly recommend this hotel, and would look forward...