Hilton Garden Inn San Juan Condado — Hotel in San Juan

I was disappointed in this hotel in so many ways. We stayed here 6 nights after staying at the La Concha hotel for 3 nights. While the photos look great, and it appears to have been renovated, it just doesn’t fit as a Hilton Garden Inn (HGI). I travelled for business for years and stayed frequently at HGI’s because they were comfortable and geared toward business travelers.

The room was quite small, no space to work or even a place to sit except for one chair or out on the balcony, which was very nice but not very useful.

The bathroom faucet was broken and wouldn’t turn straight over the sink and it was detached from the base. This made washing your hands difficult because water would run all over the countertop.

Our body wash was empty when we checked in and they never refilled it. Not even once in 6 nights… we just used the shampoo the whole time.

The bathroom door was useless, there was a 1.25 inch gap all the way around.

The shower water takes forever to get hot, luckily I don’t mind a cold shower so I would get up first and by the time I was almost done with my shower it would be hot…

HGI’s always used to give free breakfast. I stayed at them for years and liked that they had a restaurant where I could get a meal when I arrived late and a hot breakfast with fresh eggs in the morning. Sooo, one day we went to get breakfast, we just had some dried up scrambled eggs and a couple pieces of bacon from the chafing dishes on the table. They brought us a bill for $33.00 and said only the cold items are included in the continental breakfast. There was no sign or anything. $33 for some foam eggs and wimpy bacon...

When we checked in we were given a list of benefits that are included with the resort fee, one of which was a piña colada tasting. When we inquired about it they said sure, and brought one small thimble full of piña colada to my wife… not much of a tasting.

I booked the room via the HHonors customer service line and because I had a free night reward and there was a promo going on they for some reason had to book my stay as two reservations (still not sure why…) but they assured me we wouldn’t have to check out and back in and we could use the same room and keys. Guess what? We came back to the room loaded up with cold beverages and were locked out… They had checked us out and I had to go downstairs wait in line, and sign new paperwork and get new room keys…

Which brings up another issue, checking in takes really long at this hotel? I’ve never had it take so long to check in, and then I had to do it again partway through and it still took 20 minutes and I had to stand and wait for them to finish up with the person ahead of me. Why does it take so long? They have my info and I’m already staying at the hotel?

The Condado Plaza hotel is across the street and is connected by a skybridge. We thought it would be nice since there are restaurants over there but the only thing that was open was the Starbucks. None of the other restaurants were open. The store over there is ludicrously expensive, they wanted $9 for a 1.5 liter bottle of water. I only went over there because the tiny store at the HGI had very few options and kept running out of bottled water.

There is only two elevators for the whole hotel so you end up waiting a lot for the elevator.

The TV channels weren’t programmed right. The guide would say one thing was on but it would be something else entirely, not a big deal but annoying.

There was also some construction going on which was annoying but not much they can do about that.

There are some good things:

The location is nice, right on the lagoon with beautiful views and a lot of nice and new outdoor seating, shaded areas, and amenities.

There are limited options close by for food but if you don’t mind a short walk there are some nice places and...

Please do not stay at this hotel I traveled with a group of 31people in November for my 40th bday. Two days before arrival, they canceled several of our rooms upon calling and trying to get a hold of someone we got the runaround couldn’t get a hold of no one at the front desk the main hotel reservation department for Hilton couldn’t get a hold of people at the front desk they gave us case numbers. Finally talked to someone still got the run around saying it was nothing they can do all the rooms were sold out. When we made these reservations in July. So once we arrive, we got to the front desk. Some people was able to check in some people wasn’t because they were saying they didn’t have rooms and we were trying to figure out why they canceled our rooms so they said that they were trying to blame it on like Travelocity but the whole time the hotel was trying to charge people credit cards when they wasn’t supposed to because we chose to pay a hotel. They kept lying to us saying that they did not try to charge the car in which when we proved them wrong from our transaction history then all of a sudden the manager Jessica whatever her name is Rooms for people one of my friends rooms. They did not have hot water so the hotel front decent maintenance up maintenance told them to basically turn the sink water on turn the shower water on and flush the toilet at the same time to make the hot water come out of the shower Other people we were out on the town and here it is the hotel is charging their card several hundreds of dollars for no reason when we got back to the hotel oh they didn’t have any reason to why they were doing it. They play like they don’t know what was going on. They just said we had to wait until they fall off and basically stealing people money. It was fraudulent activity Not to mention we were racially profiled every time we went out to the pool area or the cabana area we were being watched like hawks the minute you sit down to relax or anything you look up on the staircase area by the pool I mean they’re looking directly at our group and all 31 people wasn’t even out there at the same time and they were treating us like we were some young teenage thugs. We couldn’t even relax they’ll come down to us and find something to say we’re not even doing anything so when we made a complaint to the front desk again about their staff and the way they were approaching us. Oh well we we don’t know what’s going on. It was just run around after Runaround And then one day we were in the pool and one of the employees that worked there I forgot his name he came and told us all the pool is closed. He just walked straight up to us at the Jacuzzi said the pool is closed. He walked past six other people they were sitting out in the lounges and sitting in chairs and did not say one thing to them of course we were black. They were not so as of today they have not returned the holding fee the incidental holding fee two people cards they have not removed that hole. They have charged them that whole complete amount the hotel stay plus the end of den fee can’t get a hold of anybody at the front desk. Can’t get a hold of anybody to find out what is going on with money what is going on with these extra charges nothing this has been a horrible horrible experience and I would not recommend the Hilton Garden Inn, Conado, San Juan to anybody please do not stay...

This hotel upon arrival is amazing, very beautiful. However I was not prepared to be charged an extra 38.15 a night outside of what we already paid for our room to use their amenities like the pool. That is absolutely bizarre if I’m paying all that money for a room there why would that not be included in the room rate or mentioned upfront when you book. I actually went back to the website to go through the booking process again to make sure I wasn’t going crazy and it actually says * price includes $35 amenity fee but excludes tax* on their own booking site. I was also aware there would be a nightly hold of 80 incase of incidentals which would be 320 my total for my room charge after the fees I wasn’t aware of went from 935.22 to 1087 and then the incidental hold of 320 since it would have been 4 days should have brought it to $1407 but for some reason they charged my card over $1500. No early check in no early or late check out no additional fees on the receipt other than what I just explained so where is the extra $100 I was charged coming from? Your guess is as good as mine because I only got the $320 refund . On top of that being frustrating the experience we had with housekeeping was awful upon getting into our room there was sand on the floor and clumps of hair stuck to the carpets. Initially no big deal we asked them if they could kindly re vacuum to which they agreed and we went out. When we came back the sand was gone but there was still hair all over the carpet. Fast forward 3 days our last full day there housekeeping did not service our room at all we came back from snorkeling and the beds were still disheveled, we had no clean towels, no clean wash rags, and our shower soap was completely empty. We went down to the front desk and mentioned our room was not serviced and asked if we could have towels as we had none in our room and we wanted to shower from being in the ocean all day and the lady said she could not give us towels that we had to get them from housekeeping. We go to leave for dinner so we go back to the front desk to let them know we would be out if housekeeping would be kind enough to go do our room and literally the man in front of us is speaking to a different employee and is handed towels which we were just told by a different employee they were not allowed to give to us. We spoke to the new lady that was there and she kindly apologized and said that when we got back our room would be serviced and everything would be put in the room for us. Fast forward we get back from dinner and walk into our room and our room was still not serviced by housekeeping! They did drop off towels and soap as promised however our room was still completely in disarray which I can deal with a messy bed but we are literally on the beach so it’s not hard for sand and things like that to accumulate on the floors which was frustrating to me I wanted to be able to have a clean floor and get into a clean bed before my very very very early flight home but unfortunately that just is not what happened. I would like to mention that aside from the one employee that would not assist us with towels all the other front desk associates were very kind and lovely. They really just need to look into the employees they have in housekeeping that either half ass or don’t want to...