Mari M.
Yelp
Awful. First a list of what they don't have : hot water, competent staff, modern amenities, decent food, and a clue of how to run a hotel.
Now for the long story:
We "stayed" here for three hours. Arriving exhausted after a flight to San Juan and a long drive to Ponce we were starving and all wanted showers. We ordered room service, not expecting miracles but maybe a hot decent meal. NO SUCH LUCK. It was inedible. I was given soup that tasted like watered down dog food. This is not an exaggeration. It smelled and tasted like Alpo.
After that charming food, I decided to take a shower. I turned on the water and waited a few seconds for it to get warm. Then a few minutes.Nothing. I turn to leave and the door won't open. I had to pound on the wall to get one of my family members to open it from the outside like a prison cell. Did Ariel Castro design this hotel? We called the front desk and no one answered so one of us went down to get help.
Two maintenance men finally showed up and fixed the door by replacing the handle. Then they "fixed" the hot water by running both the tap and shower at the same time, which produced about 3 mins of hot water. Enough time for them to leave and dupe us into thinking it had been fixed.
The excuse they gave us was that it took time for hot water to reach the 5th floor. Do these jibaros think we've never stayed in a hotel before? They also told us that Puerto Ricans shower with cold water. Uh huh ok. We're Puerto Rican so we were like "Um no.Nice try. Does that work on gringos?"
Anyway shower attempt #2 produced 3 minutes of warm water followed by gulag cold. Once again a trip had to be made downstairs (their phones are decorative, I guess). Another attempt of the glorious "have two taps on at once" method failed. They offered us two other rooms, each one with equally cold water. The manager offered to go find a room that DID have hot water and call us when this precious gem had been found. We returned to the original room, packed, took one look at each other and decided to leave. I was exhausted, angry, and on the brink of tears.
We called corporate from the car on the way to another hotel. A formal complaint has been lodged. My father is a platinum member at IHG and we have stayed at many Holiday Inns and never had such a terrible experience.
PS: The other Hotel, Pichi's, had hot water immediately and it was the best shower I ever had :)