The Condado Plaza Hotel — Hotel in San Juan

To be clear, this review is not at all about the service and the people who work/run the property. A+ for the cleaning staff, bar, and everyone who provided service. This review is mostly about the property itself, and mainly about what happens when a corporate entity buys an advantageous independent property.

It’s advantageous because if you see where it is on the map, you see it’s a great location. Easy to get to Old San Juan and everywhere else. Have fun riding a scooter or you could spend a couple of bucks and Uber anywhere. The pictures online of the Condado Plaza Hotel look top notch and inviting. Not to mention you have a choice of oceanfront or lagoon.

We got to the property and it was a different story - the pictures sold something that was not the reality. We understand that we came right before hurricane season, so naturally, it might rain some days. The first thing we walked into was water pouring out of the ceiling in the lobby during a downpour, while we were checking in. Then, we opened the door to our assigned room and there was a big puddle. The staff apologized and we went back downstairs to find another room.

When we got to the next room, we started to notice little details that maybe wouldn’t bother us at first, until we thought about the money we paid. The central air unit was leaking, so there was some water on the floor by the entrance every day for a week, the central air had a noisy compressor, which kept my girlfriend up at night for 2 days until we were able to get an engineer to come fix it (thank you Rigobelto, he was great), the drain in the shower was draining so slowly that within 30 seconds you were up to your ankles in bath water (which also keeps the bath tub dirty), there was mold under the sink that we eventually noticed, a loud sound when turning the hot water off and on which only went away after pounding on the faucet, I took a shower where the water turned brown, and the elevators on our side of the hotel went out quite a few times, causing us (and other people we talked to) to have to wait for up to 10 minutes at times.

To add insult to injury, we noticed that the lagoon side of the property is brand new. There are brand new Hilton branded restaurants and amenities on that side. If you book on the oceanfront side, you don’t automatically have access to these things, like the gym or the breakfast buffet. We used the “old” gym every day, but it was literally an old conference room with equipment placed in it. We tried accessing the brand new gym but our keys did not work.

One day we went to the private beach, and should be noted that this sliver of beach is shared with the neighboring property. Funny enough, the neighboring property had beach umbrellas for almost all their chairs - for whatever reason, not only were our chairs limited, but our side was lacking in umbrellas. We enjoyed the beach anyway, it is a nice enough touch.

The last thing that can be a bit annoying, but expected, is how everything can feel like a money suck. Obviously things bought on the premises are way overpriced. Do yourself a favor and take a trip down the street into the city, you will find everything you need for way less. I’d go as far as to say the drinks are overpriced for what you get.

We all in all had a good time, but our expectations were not met, and there was even a promise of some compensation for our trouble (didn’t happen). I planned this trip to propose to my gf, and while that went well, we could have stayed at any number of places for a similar price without these issues.

We were told that the place is due for renovations, so I hope that happens because it is a waste for a such great location. Hilton needs to do better - they obviously invested greatly in building up the lagoon side, and they need to do the same to the oceanfront. It was blaringly obvious that the Condado Plaza side needed help. The pools are good.

With all the options in the area, including the overwhelmingly positive experiences we had with AirBnbs in the past, we are positive we would...

BEWARE! Reservation March 24th to March 28th. On March 24th the day of my check in, is when it all started. When I went to check in at 4:00 PM, they told me that my room wasn't ready yet. They said it would be a little while until it was ready. They couldn't give me a time. I went back to the desk at 4:30 and said the room is still not ready. went back at 5:00 and again the room wasn't ready. they told me at that point that they were short staffed! At this point they offered me a room with a city view when my reservation was for an oceanfront, which I paid for. I spoke to the general manager and told him how disappointed I was. He checked on the computer and said the room would be ready in 30 minutes. Well, the 30 minutes went by and still no room. I also had my daughter and her service dog a 14Lb Aussie, with us and my dog barked once at the agent. I guess this got him agitated. He kept telling me that my dog wasn't a service dog!!! How disgraceful. An employee of the Hotel denying that my daughter has a disability and needs her service dog. I had my dog off leash at the time and she is very obedient, as she has been dragged around for hours waiting for our room. He said if you don't put the leash on your doing, "YOU ARE GOING HOME" and not staying here. To make a long story short, our room wasn't ready until 7:30 and we had plans at 7:00 which were ruined. I told them I wanted compensation and the front desk agent told me that they were going to refund me for the first night, as I had already prepaid through expedia. She told me that she put it in the system for the one night credit and I had to follow up with Expedia. So when I got back home, I checked with Expedia to see when my refund will be applied. She didn;t see any notes in her system, so she told me to hold and was calling the Hotel and said there is no refund and also sent me an e-mail. See Below

Hello Michael,

We wanted to follow up after our last conversation, where you asked us to reach out to your property to see if refund was possible.

We have contacted The Condado Plaza Hotel to see if they could make an exception and grant a refund.

Unfortunately, after multiple tries, we weren't able to obtain an approval from the property manager to waive the cancellation fee. This means the current rules and restrictions for your booking apply and a refund can't be granted.

We are sorry this was not the case. Due to the inconvenience, we are offering a OneKey Cash of 125.00 USD to your account which can be applied towards a future hotel booking.

We're really sorry about this; we always try to contact suppliers and advocate for our travelers in these situations. Properties often have strict policies around refunds, and there's nothing more we can do in this case.

Again, we're sorry that a refund wasn't possible. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out to us.

Regards,

Kristine E.

I than called the Condado and asked to be switched to the General Manager. I went right to his voice mail but, the mail box was full!!!

So, I never received a refund.

Besides all that, One of the main elevators was down and there are only two. I found out that the elevators had been down for months.

Also, If you want to go to any stores or restaurants on Ashford St, you will need to walk 15 minutes. This Hotel is in a horrible location. There is no restaurant at the Hotel except outside for lunch by the pool. They tell you to go to their sister property across the street, where I paid $24.00 for a small pizza.

In conclusion, I would avoid this Hotel at any cost. There are many other Hotels on the beach in the center of everything.

Their response will be the same as every other negative review. I will be nice if their response would be to apologize and give me my...

There wasn’t much redeeming about this place. We needed a layover spot for 2 nights. Was a total mistake even for the cheap price. I would just like to say this has been one of the worst hotels and experiences I’ve encountered in a long time. Not only did I pre-checkin on the app early and chose to pay for an upgraded room on the 10th floor ocean view - once I physically tried to check in I knew I was 2 hrs early which was fine but they said they would txt me when the room was ready - totally acceptable. I got the txt a while later and so headed to the hotel to physically check in and pick up keys. When I arrived they told me they gave my room away that I reserved and paid for the upgrade on the app - AND they tried to give us room 211 on the second floor! I paid for an upgrade to the top floor. They were very annoyed with me for not taking the second floor option - Finally they said they have a room on 6 they can give us - but it’s not ready and they would txt. Well they never txted and I checked back starting at 5 like every hour (checkin time is 4) - not ready until almost 7:30pm. Off to a great start!

Then we get in the room and this place is completely run down - it was clean as in no noticeable dirt but This hotel is very run down and in disrepair inside and out. It needs a major overhaul. My room was just so run down, dirty window overlooking the ocean - yes ocean view is great from the balcony! but it is spoiled by a roof below with garbage in it and broken furniture on the ground level where staff has been building a pile of broken outdoor pool chairs etc. One of the shower shelves is broken off, the bathroom doors are both broken, the AC is extremely noisy, the door to the balcony doesn’t latch or stay closed. Even the door to the room felt like a hollow core plywood door - like tired junk. The main pool was so full of people in the late afternoon it was gross yesterday. my younger daughter said it was full of hair and trash on the floor of the pool when she was swimming with her goggles on and then she wouldn’t swim in it any longer and she opted for the colder empty salt water pool.

Then this morning I asked nicely for just an hour or so late check out - rude front desk man said absolutely not and turned away from me. This has been an awful experience at this hotel and now I’ve been painfully reminded why I continue to choose other brands.

I will say the ocean view from high floors is gorgeous. There is not a good option for food on the property but this location is very walkable with to some excellent authentic PR places near and you can also go across the bridge to the nice Hilton - we ate there at Rustico for a meal and it was fine. My best advice is to just pony up a few more bucks and stay at the nice Hilton across the bridge. This hotel - the Plaza - is not worth it no matter how cheap. Now I fully knew we weren’t staying at the Ritz - but the cost of this place was on par with the nicer 4 star and above places. The discount should have been steeper so you get a better idea about...