Coral Princess Hotel — Hotel in San Juan

I so regret booking here.

TLDR: Shower consisted of shivering in a slow trickle of water. They didn't clean our room 2 days in a row, despite my reminding them. They took no accountability for not doing it, and I ended up having to clean the room my self.

The owner has clearly decided to not hire enough cleaning staff or maintain the plumbing to save money, at customer expense.

I specifically booked here because I was looking to support Puerto Rican-owned businesses and not a US chain. (found out it was actually Colombian-owned) It was hard to find a non- US owned hotel that wasn’t shabby looking / have bad reviews. This one had 4 star reviews, and pictures looked nice. I could have put up with the shabbiness, but not combined with the rudeness, poor plumbing, and lack of service.

Pros: Outside of the building was nice looking Pool was pretty nice Room* A/C pretty good Beach towels provided

Cons: Low water pressure for showers

Water became freezing during shower several times

Hard to adjust water temp in shower. Goes from scalding to cold; hard to find something tolerable.

A/C in the hotel apart from our room was poor.

A bit shabby, beaten up furniture

You can’t flush toilet paper. You have to throw it in the trash or it will clog. I saw the sign in our room saying “don’t put paper in the toilet,” but somehow assumed it referred to pads/tampons. It immediately clogged. As I’m not used to putting tp in the trash, I ended up fishing tp out of the toilet several times.

Worst: 2 days in a row, of our 4 days there, they didn’t clean our room or replace towels AT ALL. The first time, we had returned from sightseeing in late afternoon to find unmade bed, unswept floors, trash not taken out. It’s important to note that, since used toilet paper couldn’t be flushed, and was in the trash, this was bad. So I went to the front desk and told them about it. They said they didn’t know why. I asked them to have it cleaned, but they said their cleaning staff leaves by 3 every day. I asked for some trash bags and took out the trash myself. I asked if they could clean it the next day, and he said yes. The next morning, on our way out, I reminded them to please make sure they get our room cleaned, and at 1:00 pm I called to remind them. He said they only had 2 cleaning people, and they might not get to it. I explained to him that it hadn’t been cleaned the previous day, and they needed to take care of it. When we returned around 4, wonder of wonders, it hadn't been cleaned. I went to the front desk and asked to speak to the manager/owner and was told that they weren’t available. I asked them to call them, and he said the owner was out of the country. I told him to call in the cleaning staff, and he said that wasn't possible. I asked for a partial refund, and he said I’ll have to take it up with the owner (but never got any contact info.) I asked for a broom and swept it myself!

One of the guys in the lobby was rude. I came up to the desk to ask him something. He barely looked up from his phone and didn’t even end his convo when I was talking.

I asked for a hand towel, since there was none in the room, but they said they didn’t have any more. I looked at the guy incredulously- a hotel that had run out of hand towels. He explained that they were a small hotel, as if that exempts them from having enough towels.

Sometimes there was no one at the desk, so I had to sit in the lobby and wait 5-10 min. Any time they had to go get something (such as a towel), it took them a ridiculously long time to return.

Conclusion: I wish I had chosen another place. Even if I could get a partial refund, which I highly doubt, I would have preferred paying full price and have normal hotel service (taking out the trash and reliable hot water with adequate pressure). It was really stressful to have to confront the staff about these problems. I came to relax and see Puerto Rican culture, not to fight to get...

canceled our reservation 4 days before our trip. We made reservations at the Coral Princess hotel in Aug 2017 (before the storm). Weeks after the storm we reached out and send words of hope for their island but also asked if we should consider making other reservations for our March 2018 cruise. It took a couple of days for them to respond but they said they hoped all would be ok by March and we should keep our reservations. We did. A couple of months later we again sent an email asking if they were doing ok and felt the hotel would be operating in March, Evelyn Ortega (supervisor) said "we are lucky that our hotel did not received any major damages" and everything should be good for March 2018. In mid-February 2018 I called them directly to ask about the hotel status one more time, spoke some words of hope, and asked some questions about possible leaving our luggage in a waiting area before our room would be ready. My reservation was looked up and question answered and there was no indication from the person I spoke to, nor on their website that they were operating under any "limited capacity". Fast forward to 5 days before we fly out to SJ/PR, on a Friday around 4:45pm I get a very short email from Evelyn Ortega basically stating that ..."we are still struggling to regain the consistency in the characteristic services we provide. However at this time, we are still very much limited in our capabilities to service you properly." Within 5 minutes I emailed her back and told her this was unacceptable. I quickly explained we had contacted them several times prior to our stay date specifically to ask if they (and the hotel) were ok and never once got any indication there would be trouble. I asked Ms. Ortega to contact us immediately and gave her my phone number. Obviously she has no intention to call me back after sending an email bombshell like that, right? First let me say this. We could have gone any where this year on vacation but we wanted to show some type of support for PR so we chose to take a cruise from SJ and visit the island before and after the cruise and happily spend tourist dollars there when many people are staying away. Of course we empathize with families and businesses that lost everything and we do want to do our small part in helping with recovery and getting the word out about PR is open for business. My biggest issue is the manner in which Ms. Ortega dropped a bombshell within 5 days of our trip that we now have no place to stay. There was no offer to help us find another place and even now as we are looking for comparable accommodations, we will pay considerably more. We were in contact with the hotel, they had to have known something and could have given us a heads up to secure a backup hotel when availability/pricing was better. Lastly, in my opinion, Ms. Ortega is a coward for sending out an email like that late on a Friday and leaving work? (going home for the weekend?) We were left scrambling for searching for a hotel. Before anyone bashes me, I'm not insensitive and maybe I don't know if there are very valid circumstances, but nothing was explained to me, no person was made available for me to ask and yet they are still taking room reservations for March 2018 reservations. Sorry. I consider this inconsiderate of the hotel and based on some recent reviews (this month) there is no mention of guests talking about any limited services. I think it boils down to a better rate we got in Aug 2017 that they probably don't want to honor; otherwise, I think a 'form letter' email could have contained much better information my my reservation got bumped right before my 8 month...

This hotel was such a disappointment. I don't know how anyone has positive reviews for this hotel. The service at the front desk was non-existent, see below. Let me start by saying I am a travel agent and have happy clients, including these same ladies, who have never complained about a property before. This is their story.

It is conveniently located a short walk from the beach but that is the best feature of this hotel. Upon arriving to the hotel, the clerk at the front desk would not get off of her cell phone in order to check them in. Then she tried to double charge, when the room was already prepaid. My client had to call me to intervene, even though she had a physical copy of her voucher from her travel documents. No-one answered the phone. My client called me on her personal cell. When asked about local restaurants, the desk clerk said she was about to leave and if her replacement doesn't show up, there wouldn't be a way for anyone to get back into the building. What?!?

They got a key and found their room, which still had not been cleaned. After waiting in the hall for the housekeeper to finish, the room had dirty walls and dust caked on the ceiling fan. The ceiling was bubbled where they had painted over mold. This is not the same quality of room we saw online.

They went back to the front desk and there was a different gentleman working. My clients told him the issues and he said there wasn't a manager on duty so there was nothing he could do. I was again called by my clients and attempted to contact the hotel. No answer. My client then called me again on her personal cell and told me the hotel clerk had the phone off of the hook to keep it from ringing. She sent me a photo as proof. She called me again on her personal cell. I spoke to the gentleman who stated there was not a manager but he would have them contact me. He would not allow even a partial refund, stating he was not a manager and they were not there. He would not allow my clients to cancel their reservation at all.

I booked them instead a room at the Condado Inn San Juan just down the street, closer to the beach, and they were extremely happy with that hotel.

2 weeks later, I have still not heard back from anyone at the hotel. I have called multiple times to no avail. This is a terrible business practice and I would not recommend anyone book...