El Convento/San Juan Precruise Review

Hello Everyone! We had a lovely time on our cruise & I thought I would give you a review of our time spent in San Juan. We flew in a day earlier than our cruise, we had direct flight, very early out of Boston. Both airports were very slow, which surprised us since it was the day after Thanksgiving but maybe our 8am departure had something to do with it. It was a breeze getting on and off the flight.

We arrived in San Juan and after picking up our luggage we went to get a taxi. Their was someone waiting right there, asked us were we wanted to go and quoted a price. 18.50 for two people and 4 bags to go to El Convento in Old San Juan.

Taxi driver was funny, had lived in New York some of his life but born and raised in San Juan. He talked about the town and gave us some suggestions on what to do in the short time we had. Took about 20-25 minutes in moderate traffic, mostly in Old San Juan, to reach the hotel. Belman greeted us at the curb and took all of luggage and gave us tags, directed us towards the front desk. You need to go up the elevator to check in. It was quite busy around the hotel and it was nice to be directed were to go.

Our room was ready for us even though it was 1pm. We got our keys and headed to the room. The hotel was really unique with outside hallways that overlooked a court yard with beautiful tropical plants. Our room was small but well appointed with two twin beds, per our request. There was double doors that open to the side street below and off in the distance was the ocean where on Saturday morning we saw a cruise ship come in.

We ate at the Hotel due to being so hungry, it was a nice meal in the court yard. We explored around the streets onf Old San Juan, there were hundreds of shops and several little bars and restaurants. The buildings were interesting and cooble stone streets were quant. There is a beauitful Cathedral acrossed the street that is a must see. If you take a right just out of the hotel and go about a block you make it to the sea. If you then walk along to the right you eventually get to one of the three forts in Puerto Rico. We did this walk the next morning and it was beautiful, we got to see some rare green parrots that were very pretty.

The hotel has an hour of wine and cheese in the evening. It was refreshing to just relax on the porch and sip wine. We then went to a local bar just down the street and had a few drinks, their were several police officers as we walked the block & a half, we felt safe.

We went to bed early because we were exhausted from the early flight, the beds were the best hotel beds I ever slept on. We woke early with renewed energy and took the walk I spoke of earlier after the nice breakfast the hotel had for us.

We got some beautiful pictures and tomorrow I plan to scan them into my photos at the link below. I would definitely go in a day early again and would also stay at El Convento, the staff was pleasant and the food and service the best, well worth the money. We booked a Hotels.com and saved some money!!

Really appreciate your review. We are planning to go a day early in February and stay at El Convento. Unfortunately, Feb is high season and we did not get a deal. But it sounds like it is worth the money.

The San Juan & El Convento pictures are now posted at my website.

Just click the link below and pick the album. :D

I'd love to see your pictures, but the link isn't working :(

The link must of got screwed up when I redid my signature. I believe it is working now! ;)

Thanks for the pictures of San Juan; but I must confess that I fell in love with Moe. What a sweetheart. He is beautiful.

thanks

Mike :D

I posted in order to move this up to front page for you.