The Royal Sonesta San Juan

This is a clean and comfortable hotel. Beachfront and pool are convenient right in front of the main building. Plenty of towels. Hotel restaurants are also good and reasonably priced. Kid friendly environment. We enjoyed our stay as a family.

We loved our stay at this hotel. The beach and pool areas were fantastic and the restaurants were delicious. Pros: Great location Nice property- very well maintained Restaurants in the hotel are great Within walking distance to various restaurants and shopping Chairs and umbrellas on the beach are set up each day at no additional cost Wonderful customer service Cons: We would have liked some more daily activities like the other Sonesta hotels we've stayed at (especially at night). However-it's a short walk next door to the Fairmount and they have a lot going on at night. The rooms do not maintain consistent ac, which lends itself to humidity and a musty odor. Nothing fully dried the week we were there, but we've experienced that in other beach resorts. Not really a big deal to us as we didn't spend a ton of time in the room. This was our first trip to Puerto Rico and we loved it! The location of this hotel just cannot be beat! We will definitely be back.

The location and views can't be beat. The hotel is on a very nice beach with a great (although sometimes crowded) pool and hot tub. Our room was cool, comfortable, and quiet. Power stayed on even when it was out in other places in SanJuan. Service was decent. I'm giving 4 instead of 5 stars because of a lot of small issues that seem too petty to mention specifically but added up to a less than stellar experience. It wasn't bad, but there was room for improvement. They charge $100 resort fee per day in addition to the relatively high room rate. The restaurants are good but expensive (although everything in PR was expensive and the hotel was on par). On Sunday on the beach you could hear loud night-club thumping music during the day (not the hotel's fault, but it was a detraction for me).

Pros: Location is 5 minuters from the airport, right on a pretty beach Staff at reception and elsewhere at the hotel are great. We stayed in a city-view room. It had a view of a lagoon. If it's your "thing" (we loved it) the planes do their approach to the airport right in front of you. Rooms are large. The food at the various restaurants is good enough. Lots of overlapping on the menus. We got food delivered from outside restaurants a couple of nights. Pool towels are readily available. No issues exchanging for clean/dry ones mid-day Beach chairs and umbrellas will be set up for you on the beach. It felt a bit tight out there and we would have appreciated more room. There is a system for ordering food and drinks to your pool/beach chairs. We found it cumbersome and took a really long time so we just went up to one of the restaurants and ordered there. The hotel was booked for part of the holiday week that we were there. I thought they did a good job keeping things clean and orderly. Cons: From 11 AM to 9 PM, without a minute's break, there is loud dance-type music playing through several speakers at the pool. The age of the guests probably ranged from newborn to very senior citizens. I am used to either no music at the pool (which is fine with me) or a calmer more beachy vibe...Jimmy Buffett, Bob Marley...etc. To add to that problem the main restaurant is at the end of the pool deck. They play, also loud, a totally different play list. So you're listening to two different intrusive play lists at the same time. Another pool issue. The pool is fairly large but there are a LOT of people staying there. They have these water spouts that shoot an arc of water to 6 different places in the pool. That makes that part of the pool unusable. So people were crowded into the pool and there is a large swath that is empty. Makes no sense. Not enough pool chairs. Have to get there at 8 AM to put stuff down to reserve. But everybody else does also. The beds are too soft and uncomfortable. Pillows need updating also. Air conditioning is anemic. It never gets below 74 degrees. It works on a sensor so it goes off as soon as everyone is asleep. Unacceptable. Carpet in the rooms need to be replaced. They're stained and old. There is a "coffee bar" in the lobby which is the only place in the hotel to get a take-out coffee in the morning. Lines are very long. There is a strange assortment of foods including unappealing sandwiches, a pasty case that was empty for 2 of the 6 days we were there and half-empty for 2 more. There are supermarket packages of cheese and pepperoni. Yogurt parfaits. Hershey bars. Cassava chips. That coffee bar should look like a Starbucks...packed with food that people want to eat. The coffee was good. The floors in the bathroom and the tub are DANGEROUSLY slippery. There is no grab bar in the tub. I had to stand on a towel in the tub to avoid falling. The balconies are tiny. You can stand on them but there is no furniture. There is room for a couple of small chairs. Why not have them? All things considered I would probably go back there but only if they can do something about the music.

Excellent!!! We had a marvelous time. Plan to return! Staff is extra ordinary! The pool was amazing, the views were amazing, and we enjoyed the drinks and the breakfast buffet was fabulous and the upstairs outside bar overlooking the pool area was a great way to end a few of our nights.