Residence Inn San Juan Isla Verde

(Note: We stayed at this hotel twice in two weeks. Once on our way to the BVI and once on the way out.) Where do I start? I’ll start with the good; it’s a much shorter list. The location is fabulous if you travel through SJU because the hotel is right off the end of runway 8. The good news is that you really cannot hear the airplane noise from the inside of your room. The pool area is another matter—it's pretty noisy. Another “good” is that the restaurant you really have to eat at if you want to recoup your $40 (now $45—it went up between our visits! Now you get $40 at the restaurant and $5 for the marketplace. More on that later.) resort fee isn’t nearly as bad as some of the reviews make it out to be. The first time, I avoided the chicken wings because of previous reviews and ordered the burger. It was okay—prepared as ordered. The second time, I went with the wings, and they were much better, IMO. The “free” breakfast buffet was gawd-awful too. Stick with a bagel or toast. The hot foods were pretty, pretty, pretty bad. Now for the bad. Mold. Smelly mold. Allergy-inducing mold. You'll smell it from the moment you step out of the elevator. (This was on two different floors during the two different stays.) It gets worse when you go into your room. For me, it was immediate sneezing, then itchy eyes. During the first stay, I felt festive and used an SNA certificate to upgrade my room. That was a mistake because the second stay had an ocean-view room. The first room also had an inop HVAC unit. When we arrived, the room was warm, so we pushed the buttons on the thermostat to lower the temperature. It did nothing. Turns out the circuit was turned off on the electrical panel in the room. We clicked it on and found out why it was off. It would not stop cooling. I had to dig out my Connecticut flannel jammies that night to keep from freezing! So, back to the $45 resort fee. The additional $5 is supposed to be used in the marketplace. Okay, so we checked what was there. Nothing we wanted at the prices they were charging. After dinner, the allergies (from the mold in the room) got the best of me, and I chose a $2 packet of Benadryl from the marketplace. I showed that gal at the desk, and she said “You’re good.” I hoped it meant I wouldn’t be charged, but lo and behold, there was the $2 on my final bill. I guess the $5 only applies to things you don’t need. And it’s not that $2 is a lot; it’s the fact that you need it to breathe! At least I did. One more issue: The reception staff really need to learn how to receive people. On both check-ins, despite being the only person in line, I was asked to “hold on” while they did other things. I felt as if I were intruding on their time.

When we arrived at 4:30 our room was not available. It took consistent trips to the front desk to finally get a room 45 minutes later. Once we got to the room the room's temperature was 62°. After several attempts to adjust the thermostat, we realize that the thermostat was not accepting any commands. We then called down to the front desk to advise them of the issue, which they replied they would have somebody from engineering come right up. 30 minutes later we went down to the front desk and asked when engineering was going to come to the room to fix the air conditioning. Once we got to the front desk manager the engineer was going to meet us at the room. At this point the engineer commented that we would have to use "Old School" tactics. What that meant was that we had to shut off and turn on the air conditioner at the circuit breaker box. OMG.