Coral Princess Inn

[Retired not Expired]

Pre-cruise. We flew in two days early and stayed at the Coral Princess Inn in Condado. Although I was disappointed when I saw the outside and the office in this quaint little boutique hotel, I was quite satisfied a short time after checking in and getting settled. Rooms run from $120 to $160 a night. I do not recommend the $120 rooms as they are quite small. We got a mid-grade room for $145 and loved it. All the floors and bathroom walls were done in marble with the exception being the patio floors done in a brick red tile. Our room, number 25, was adequate size with two double beds, microwave, refrigerator, and had DSL internet provided through the TV cable. It opened onto a patio on the second level with wonderful padded chairs and love seats as well as glass top tables. I recommend rooms 22-26 as they open on this patio rather than an interior hallway.

 

This is a non-smoking hotel but smoking is allowed on the patios. Two ashtrays are provided in the lower patio for the breakfast area but none on the second level. Smokers may want to take a small metal ashtray for their own use out on these patios.

 

Breakfast is provided and is a quite good Continental breakfast of fresh and canned fruit, croissants, bagels, hard rolls, toast, luncheon meats, cheeses, yogurts, oats, cereals, sweet rolls, tarts, sweet breads, juice, and wonderful coffee in a lovely setting. One drawback is coffee is only available at breakfast.

 

The hotel is kept very clean and secure as you must be buzzed in to enter. It has a small pool and the patio areas have some nice plantings to enjoy. The staff is top notched, very friendly and helpful. I mentioned we would like to do the Rain Forest tour and they set it up with Rich Sunshine Tours for Sunday and called us with the particulars. It was $45 a person for a five hour tour and well worth it. Rich was very knowledgeable and gave the eight of us on the tour much history about the island. Since I can’t walk long distances, he was also kind enough to wait for the wife and I after the others stated walking the trail. We were able to walk part way in to enjoy some quiet solitude along a babbling brook in beautiful surroundings before we met back up with him and he took us to another beautiful setting with a small snack shop where we had a lunch of one of the best hamburgers I’ve ever had prior to meeting up with the others. I highly recommend Rich Sunshine Tours for your stay in San Juan. The only concerns we had were watching the 15-25 foot breakers coming across the road we traveled to the rain forest, looking more like the North Shore of Oahu in January rather than the Caribbean. Couple this with the people coming off cruise ships that weekend telling of outside doors being locked to keep people off decks and their glee of being off the ships due to rough seas made us worry about our time on the small Empress. But, we need have worried, our cruise was quite different and pleasant.