San Juan Condado Overview

By Ramon

Ramon is the creator of Travelling Companion. He focuses on flight review, hotel reviews, and helping stretch your travel dollars, miles, and points further. ​​

San Juan Condado Trip Report
San Juan Condado Trip Overview 
American Airlines Boeing 767-300 Economy PHL-SJU Review
AC Hotel San Juan Condado
Avianca VIP Lounge 
American Airlines Boeing 737-800 Economy SJU-PHL Review
American Airlines A319 First Class PHL-DCA Review

Condado Beach San Juan

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Introduction 
In the Spring of this year Christina and I headed to San Juan to check out potential event venues near Condado Beach. We booked these tickets about six months after Puerto Rico was hit by Hurricane Maria and with all of the reports of devastation we did not know what to expect when we arrived on the island. However, I am a Boriqua and really wanted to support the island where I spent so much of my childhood so we decided to head to Puerto Rico. We are so glad that we decided to go. What we found in San Juan was a city that had been through a serious disaster in Hurricane Maria but recovered faster than the rest of the island and was ready and eager to welcome tourists. 

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Despite the fact that I have been to Puerto Rico numerous times I still get excited coming back. The food is amazing, the people are friendly, and the beaches are beautiful. I can tell you that Hurricane Maria did not change any of these things. This was Christina's first time ever visiting Puerto Rico so I was really excited to have her along as my traveling companion. In this report she is going to share with you some of her first impressions of San Juan. This trip report will focus on some of the very interesting flights we took to and from San Juan and our great hotel stay along with Christina's  impressions of Puerto Rico. 

Booking Flights
In the past year I have seen some amazing sub $300 deals to San Juan and when we decided to go to San Juan in the Spring we were able to score one of these great deals from Washington D.C. We booked two regular economy roundtrip tickets on American Airlines for $266 each. While not quite as good as my sub $200 deal to Mexico city I was pretty proud of finding such a good deal on a full servicer carrier. For more tips on finding cheap airfare check out this post. We were also happy that our trip started and ended in our most convenient airport Washington Regan National (DCA). We ended up leaving from DCA and connecting through Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) in both directions. Because the flight from DCA-PHL is so short and there was nothing of note I am going to skip that flight review. However, I am going to include the review of our flight from PHL-DCA since we got upgraded to First Class and it is my first time ever experiencing American Airlines domestic First Class. Overall, American Airlines got us from Philadelphia to Puerto Rico but I was really unimpressed with both the inflight and ground experience at Philadelphia which I will talk about more in my flight reviews. 

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Flight Routing Map generated using the Great Circle Mapper-copyright Karl L. Swartz

Booking Hotels
On my most recent trips to Puerto Rico I spent most of my time in Dorado a city with a beautiful beach about 30 minutes west of San Juan. However, this time around I was excited to check out Condado, a neighborhood in San Juan were I hadn't spent much time on my previous trips. We chose to stay in the Condado neighborhood of San Juan because most of the hotels in this neighborhood are on or steps to the Condado Beach and it has a strip of hotels, bars, and restaurants we could explore by foot. 

We only looked at Marriott hotels since Christina is a Marriott Platinum member, which at that time was called Marriott Gold. There are three Marriott hotels in Condado two of which have direct beach access, La Concha Renaissance and the San Juan Marriott Resort, and a third which is one block from the beach the AC Hotel San Juan Condado. When we booked our hotel La Concha and the San Juan Marriott were completely sold out so despite our poor experience with the AC hotel brand in Barcelona we decided to book the AC Hotel San Juan Condado which ended up being a great decision. In total we paid $680 for our three night stay including taxes and a daily 18% resort fee. Our rate also included two signature cocktails and two tickets to the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico. We ended up really enjoying our stay at this hotel and I thought we got a good deal considering the location and amenities. 

AC Hotel Condado

Summary
In between our event planing we really enjoyed our stay in San Juan. It was great to introduce Christina to Puerto Rican cuisine, check out a new area of San Juan. Any down time we had we spent enjoying the great food, hotel pool, and Condado Beach. San Juan is open for business and I strongly encourage everyone who has not been to check out Puerto Rico and support the recovery. I hope you enjoy this trip report and thank you for reading. ​​