After my pretty awful stay at the Intercontinental San Juan, I cancelled my second stay there and rebooked the Radisson Ambassador Plaza Hotel & Casino San Juan. This is further away from the airport in San Juan and is about a 20 minute ($18) cab ride from the airport.

The hotel itself is located near the ocean (about 2 blocks away) and the hotel is in a tree lined residential neighbourhood.

Located short-end on to the street the property is divided in to two parts. The main tower and the area reserved for their ‘high rolling’ guests and frequent stayer elites. As a Gold member of Club Carlson I was directed to this area. To access it you go to the back of the property, past the casino and lounge bar to a separate set of lifts.

Check-in was in the Lounge on the 9th Floor and I was told that I had been upgraded to a suite on the 8th floor as a Gold member. This seemed pretty good to me and I took the stairs down to my room.

The stairs I late discovered had opening hours, which enabled the staff to control entrance to the lounge.

The Room

The suite consisted of two rooms, the sitting room which was accessed from the hallway and the bedroom which had a balcony and overlooked the car park, but from which you could see the ocean.

The living room was dark as the light had a long way to come from the balcony windows in the bedroom. There was a TV, Microwave, Fridge, desk, chair, sofa bed and coffee table.

A small doorway led to the bedroom

Although small the bedroom was light and airy with a large bed near the windows:

Plenty of storage space in the room and also another TV:

The bathroom was off the bedroom and bright and airy. Probably it needed some extra cleaning as there were several long black hairs hanging about. I had trouble getting water hot enough to shower, but this may have been a result of the power problem I mention below.

The balcony, whilst not large, was enough to be able to sit on if you did not mind the view of the car park below:

To be fair the ocean was visible between the adjacent buildings

I slept well in the room, until about 4am when there was some sort of local power failure where all power was lost after a huge bang from the street. The power came back fairly quickly but burglar alarms were sounding for some time.

The Lounge

The lounge was, to my thinking, slightly odd. Whilst a huge contrast to the pathetic offering at the Intercontinental – they charged even for soft drinks in the evening – $2.25 for a can of coke. There were nibbles, including a warm item. Breakfast was more generous with plenty of cold items available.

The staff were universally friendly and I enjoyed my brief stay at this property.