Hosteria Del Mar — Hotel in San Juan

If I could give this place a negative 5 stars, I would. I reserved two "beach access" rooms and had to pay the $250 per night up front four months before the stay. When we arrived, we learned there is no longer a beach (due to the hurricane) and that fact was never revealed to us; not in the many communications I had with the hotel and not on the website. The website still shows pictures of the beach as it used to be. Now, it looks like a war zone, including a boarded up broken window that has never been replaced. This $250 a night room was an absolute rip-off. When we arrived at 5 pm (check-in is 3pm), the manager spent 20 minutes 'verifying' the room. Not sure exactly what she was verifying. The room had no hangers, no Kleenex, no wash cloths, no hair dryer, no clock radio, no bath rug, no hand soap, no drinking glasses. I waited about 12 minutes at the front desk to ask for what was missing and nobody showed up. My husband returned 20 minutes later, requesting the items and was given 3 hangers. When he asked for more, the manager said, "you need MORE than that?" She gave my husband beach towels and when he told her he wanted bath towels, she said she wasn't sure she could find any. The towels finally arrived at 8pm. WiFi is advertised on the website, but what they don't tell you is that it isn't available in the room itself. There was a laminated card listing mini bar prices, which was a joke since there was no mini-bar or fridge. The room was filthy and full of stains - rust running down the doors and walls, stained curtains, windows so filthy, you couldn't see through them. The bath faucet was so loose, it rocked back and forth at least 6 inches. The shower curtain was too short to keep the water in the shower - a very dangerous situation when there is no bath rug for the floor. The toilet hissed after every flush and we had to remove the tank lid to adjust it every time we used it. That evening, from the bar, I ordered a dirty martini, which was made with olives and olive juice so old, I couldn't drink it. There was someone else's lipstick on the edge of the glass as well. At the bar and in the restaurant, we had to purchase water - a small bottle for $4, because we were refused tap water when we asked for it. In the morning, one of the rooms was so infested with ants, we asked for bug spray and towels. Apparently the gal at the front desk didn't believe us, because she had to see the ants for herself. She went back for ant spray, used our towels to wipe them up and never said ONE WORD of apology. The food at the restaurant was actually very good, but the hideous service matched the rest of the hotel. When our entrees arrived for dinner, one was missing and the waitress, obviously realizing she didn't place that order, rushed to the kitchen. That 4th entree did not arrive until the other 3 had finished their meals. We had to pay $100 per room for ‘incidentals’, but then were told, at the bar and in the restaurant, that we had to pay them directly and couldn’t charge anything to the room. What is a possible ‘incidental’ charge anyway, if it isn’t the bar or restaurant? The chocolates in the non-existent mini-bar? $250 a night for this dump?! I wouldn't let a...

It's a shame that maintenance is not a word that Hosteria owners and management have in their vocabulary. This property has the potential to be the perfect cozy, luxurious, ocean front guest house but instead it's crumbling, rusty, low maintained, declining, not to mention lack of housekeeping and rude servers at the restaurant. We stayed at Hosteria del Mar for 6 nights early June, starting with a late check-in processed by a weird employee, who kept talking about masks not working to avoid covid, his “military service" in Ukraine, and insisting he's not a front desk employee, but the accountant instead. Super early check-out was unfortunately handled by the same individual, who after having to call the facility several times, finally showed up at the front desk… maybe we woke him up???

The room... what a joke! Windows are broken, letting heat and humidity in 24/7. A/C was cranked up at 62 degrees Fahrenheit for the whole stay and it was still warm and humid inside. Balcony is filthy, only 2 cheap dirty chairs out there, next to the noisy and heat producing A/C outside unit. Inside the room the floor was dirty, furniture was flimsy, bed linens on uncomfortable beds were stained. Electrical outlets barely worked or sparked when plugging in a phone charger. The bathroom was dark, ants crawling all over the vanity countertop, the shower doesn't have a barrier to stop water from flowing on the floor all the way to the sink, so the floor mat got ridiculously soaked!!! Towels were OK, though, but only 2 bath towels, 1 hand towel and 1 wash towel were provided. Only 1 cheap, stinky bar soap was provided - we had to buy our own soap. No tissues provided - we had to buy our own box of Kleenex. Only 1 toilet paper roll provided - we had to buy our own toilet paper. Wouldn't we had requested clean towels around day 4, they wouldn't had replaced them. Same with trash removal. Parking is scarce around the property. The restaurant... we only went there for our first breakfast. It was deserted and had to ask the front desk clerk to call for a server. We just went in and picked an empty table only to make the rude server mad, telling us that the table was reserved - he just pulled out a piece of paper with an "R" on it that was hiding under the salt dispenser... so we moved to the table next to it... the rude server requested us not to sit on the chair closer to the "reserved" table, due to covid restrictions... we ended up paying $50+ for eggs, toast and super small, cold cup of coffee, and no one ever showed up for the “reserved” table. The same rude server yelled at us from the inside of the property later during our stay, to tell us not to park behind his car or we would get a "$2,000" fine. We’re going back to PR in August, and will stay at Numero Uno Beach House instead, which we just discovered when walking 3 blocks from Hosteria, to get access to the beach. Hopefully we’ll have a more pleasant stay over there – wait...

We stayed for two nights. I would give zero stars if not for some very helpful staff: Marlene on the front desk, and the bar staff. |The positives: 1. The location is tremendous, literally feet from the waves, with a sandy beach; we could see and hear the waves from our honeymoon suite. 2. The bar staff were very helpful and prompt. 3. We felt safe in the neighborhood as it is a gated community. 4. When we arrived 2 hours before check-in, the helpful desk clerk offered to store our luggage in her office, and then later she let us check into the room about 30 minutes early. 5. There's a nice outdoor shower to wash off the sand before going up to the room. 6. The air conditioner unit in the room was efficient.|The negatives: 1. Our patio door was stuck and would not open; it took them a full day to fix it, and only after we had reported it to the desk clerk three times. We paid for a room with a balcony but could not get to the balcony. 2. The room was clean but small and had no facilities: a coffee maker but no coffee provided, no bottled water; nowhere to set suitcases; a razor set and toothbrush set were available in the bathroom for a fee. 3. The TV volume control did not work. 4. Breakfast was not available; the desk clerk told us the chef did not show up. There wasn't even coffee in the lobby: we had to leave the hotel to get coffee and breakfast a third of a mile away. 5. Many of the drinks on the bar menu were out of stock for two days as they ran out of pineapple juice and other items. 6. The restaurant was very expensive: for example, $18 for a margarita, and $4 for a side of toast, which was a single slice of wonderbread. 7. When we woke up after the first night, there was a large roach in the closet, not quite dead. 8. The internet did not work in the room; this was never resolved after we let the desk clerk know. |We had booked directly with the hotel six months earlier, when the website showed that the room cost included breakfast, and that checkout was at noon. What we were not told meanwhile was that these terms had both changed, apparently, when new owners took over earlier this year. We arrived to find out that breakfast was not included, and checkout is at 11.|I do not...