Villa Eshta — Hotel in San Juan

TERRIBLE PLACE, UNSAFE DO NOT GO

We are two girls that travelled there ans were supposed to stay 5 nights. Instead, after one terrible night in a disgusting COVID unsafe place, where we could not even have a warm shower and the shared kitchen isunhygienic, we decided to leave. THEY DO NOT WANT TO REFUND US FOR THE 4 NIGHTS THAT WE DID NOT SPEND THERE.

This is what we told them, to what they did not even bother answering:

While I am aware of the cancellation policy of that place, and the criteria for cancellation prior to arrival at the location for full-refund - unfortunately, that was not our initial intention or expectation going into our booking. We were obviously looking forward to our stay at Villa Eshta.

However, we were both extremely disappointed and uncomfortable with the lack of Covid-19 safety measures and privacy policy that the place offered. Despite the pictures that are showcased on Booking.com, the place lacked basic sanitization in its bathrooms, private rooms, and kitchen. To give you a example or two - since we were meant to share the bathrooms with the other occupants of the floor - the toilet was clogged, and it felt extremely unsanitary to use it after, the kitchen cabinets that is meant to be shared did not have proper utensils, broken hardware and not even a simple cup to drink water. Lastly, we noticed other occupants not wearing masks, and not following the most basic rule of Covid-19 protocols.

If the idea of living arrangement is a dorm/hotel format - I kindly request you to advertise your listing as so. We unfortunately did not feel comfortable in the setting provided, and we both have experience of living at a hostel arrangement before in the US and Europe.

Based on this experience, we both felt the best decision was to cancel our stay as soon as we could. We tried to reach out to the girl who checked us in the night before to ask about the policy, before taking any sudden measures. Tried twice in fact. She was not around, so we tried calling reception or the contact number provide - (we have proof of the call attempts in needed in case). When there was no response, we proceeded with the cancellation and paying for the cancellation fee that was required through the booking app. Before leaving, we tried again to see if somebody was around, we could discuss our cancellation with and found the cleaning lady to whom we had to leave the key with.

Once again, I assure you that we both, having travelled to many countries around the world and living in different housing arrangements felt this check-out experience was simply unethical and unacceptable from any property, and especially during a pandemic.

To this point, we kindly request you to refund the money of the nights that we did not spend at your property and charge us for the one night we had. It is unreasonable to charge us for a booking that did not feel comfortable to us to stay any additional nights and forced us to leave at our earliest convivence. Given the time of a pandemic era, I request you to kindly consider our request. Our experience was an unfortunate one, and we tried to modify our decision as soon as we could.

Looking forward to your reply and consideration in this matter.

THEY SAID NO REFUND. They probabbly rented that gross room again to someone else making more money and cleary taking advantage of people. We are going to take measures against it, but PLEASE GO SOMEWHERE ELSE. There are plenty of other better places at a...

The worst hostel experience ever. And I stayed & worked in many all over the world. Reason: First of all the hostel from the outside looks so bad with stuff pilled up on the gate that we thought it was a run-down place (I understand the hostel got flooding due to rain, so let's ignore this for now). When we check in our rooms, oh the shock on our faces. Two very old noisy small AC's with Tape wrapped on the wires, the mattress are uncomfortable, and my bed didn't even have a blanket. I only realized this in the night when the reception was closed ( I slept with my towel as a blanket because someone didn't do their job right!!)

TRUST ME, with all of this we haven't made any complaint and were talking to staff with smiles like nothing happened. UNTIL,

At checkout, we are going to Vieques Island only for one day, our flight was in less than an hour at 8 am in a small airplane that cant fit our luggage. Came down to the reception and it was closed, I looked around and by coincidence saw one of the staff awake near his room (New guy & Super Nice). I asked him for help to store our luggage in the hostel and we will come back to pick them next day. He nicely said they can't, and was trying to think of a solution. Behind him, came out a woman from the "Bathroom", he pointed me to her as she is more senior than him. (She only woke up so I already felt bad asking her right away, which I appreciate).

However, this woman was extremely rude!! (i don't know her name, but she had a tattoo under her breast and she is tall, my guess is she is from the USA maybe). After making all excuses of not helping us (99% of hostels, hotels accept taking luggage and if not the staff will at least do their best to help the guest). But this lady was just "making up excuses" and she is a liar who made feel like a begger, unlike the guy who had a nice atitude.

As I gave up and went down, I saw her come down to check something in the office, I tried to beg her again as our flight was only 40 minutes, our talk got more intense as I notice she was faking excuses, she even rudly said to my face, your noise woke me up to make me feel guillty!! What!!! I saw her coming out from the bathroom when I came around their rooms! I couldent handle a woman who claims to be the manager and laying to the guest in their face, and refusing to help or even think of a sollution!

Horrible!! Will never ever stay there, and will even pay for friends to stay in other hostels like santurcia san juan (which we stay at later, and they happily stored our luggage with them, staff...

I really appreciated:||• the staff||• the security||• the murals & Egyptian themes||• the clientele (other guests felt like instant friends!)||• the price ($37 for a co-ed dorm bunk when I booked from SJU on the hostel's website, day of.)||• the location: tons of great beaches & shoreline to walk to! and a 1 hour early for any flight in PR!)||||• Sleeping was difficult/almost impossible due to:|| - the ceiling fan above my bunk did not work, although the one at the far end of the room next to the A/C unit did...|| - the A/C was on at 61°F, but blasting cold air straight out a hot window. ❄️🔥🥵|| - two of the GIANT windows were closed tight, but 2 were broken and stuck wide open, so the a/c was a big waste of energy and only helped maybe the two people in the bunks right next to it.|| - it must have been 85-90°+ in my far upper bunk. i tried closing both the busted open windows in every way I could so that the a/c could work its magic, but they were just totally jacked.|| - (Also there was a fun, raging, funky party at the bar next door til 10pm that was pretty darn loud, but I didn't mind that so much - decent music and happy people; that's my jam 😊🎧 would have been nice to close the windows and muffle the sound around 9 though for the early risers.)||||Pros (in addition to the ones above in intro):||My dorm mates (besides the super drunk guy passed out, but even he was pretty cool, lol) were great! Immediate friends. The crew went out dancing to the hottest spots in town with staff! and invited me but I had a super early flight to catch so I (tried to) sleep instead. I did get to take a fantastic walk to the beaches and have Italian food with a great new buddy I met there!||||Conclusion:||Villa Eshtal is pretty rad, but they need to fix the windows + air conditioning issues (dorm 7) for when it's real hot (for the top bunkers at least! 😋) (Heat rises, but so do we brothers & sisters 💗). ||I do recommend the place besides...