Diamond Palace Hotel, San Juan

[MszKitty]

I would NOT recommend this hotel.

 

We stayed there July 10, 2004 pre-cruise. What a dump! We had 3 rooms....ours was a suite (king bed with a sofa bed) Two of the lamps didn't work, or the bulbs were burned out...not sure. The air conditioning was almost non existent....didn't work worth beans. The floor next to the bed was wet, smelled like old beer. The sheets on the sofa bed looked like they hadn't been changed, so we had to request new ones.

 

My sister's room was worse. The toilet kept backing up, the tub was backed up with dirty water, and the ceiling in their bathroom was leaking. When they tried to change rooms, they were told there were no more rooms available. They had workers in her room all night...until 5am in the morning. They still never were able to use the shower and they had to wait until they got on the ship to shower. Their air conditioning didn't work well either. When my sister tried to get some compensation for the inconvience she had in her room,(workers there all night long, no shower available, overflowing toilet, leaking ceiling) she was told because she booked it thru Hotels.com, she would have to take it up with them. Its been almost a month and she is still waiting to hear from Hotels.com. Diamond Palace wouldn't do anything to compensate her.

 

My nephew's room was "ok" except for the lousy air conditioning and filthy carpeting.

 

The only good point is that we didn't check in until late Saturday night (10:30), and we were out by 11am the next day. If we had to stay any longer in San Juan, we would have changed hotels.

 

Bottom line...DON'T STAY AT THE DIAMOND PALACE. It might look nice on the website, but believe me, its not!

[pholter]

Thanks for the warning! We had a similar experience with a room we booked through Expedia.com (in a different city). We also had to get the refund from them since they were the ones we paid, not the hotel. Good luck to you with your reimbursement....

I will probably never book through the discount hotel sites again unless I'm desperate, cuz the lowest of the low rooms seem to be assigned... Hopefully others are having better luck than both of us though.

[MszKitty]

An update on my sisters troubles with Diamond Palace Hotel and Hotels.com.....

 

She finally got a response from Hotels.com. They told her they couldn't do anything about it since she didn't make the complaint until she returned home. She was told she should have called Hotels.com while she was still at the hotel, while they were having the problems and before checking out. WHAT???? They expected her to call them between Saturday midnight and 5am on a Sunday morning?

OR try to get thru to them on a Sunday morning before we left the hotel at 11am for our cruise? Gimme a break....like they could really help her at those times.

 

TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR BOTH DIAMOND PALACE AND HOTELS.COM. I WOULD STRONGLY ADVISE NOT TO USE EITHER BUSINESS.

[kc320]

Not sure if it would do any good but if she paid by credit card I would dispute the charges. Sometimes getting a 3rd party involved helps, sometimes it doesn't, but it couldn't hurt to try.

 

We will be staying in San Juan 1 night prior to our Oct. 30th cruise, sure hope our experience at the Coral Princess Inn is better.

 

Another tip for future hotel bookings, check out the hotel reviews at TripAdvisor.com. A lot of negative reviews would raise a red flag for me.

[MszKitty]

I'm not sure if my sister contacted her cc company. I'll have to ask her about that. It does make sense though, so maybe she did. She's pretty diligent about that sort of thing.

 

As far as TripAdvisor.com. Unfortunately, I didn't find out about them until after I had already made the reservations. I saw that Diamond Palace didn't have good reviews, but Hotels.com charged a service fee for cancellations. That wouldn't have been a problem for hubby & I, but my nephew & wife were travelling on a budget and every penny counted.

 

Live and learn :)

[Procajlo]

Months ago I posted a request for information on the Coral Princess Inn. Unfortunately nobody responded. Please give us your valued opinion on the Coral Princess Inn after your return. We are booked there in January and would love to hear about your stay there.

Thanks in advance