Coqui Inn San Juan

You get what you pay for

I stayed here one night in Feb. 2002. To be honest one night was all I could take. The room was super small. I don't go on vacation to stay in the room but it was uncomfortable to sleep in. I'm 6 feet and the room had to be 6x10. The TV was old(rabbit ears) and I think I had to change the chanel with a pair of pliers. The neighborhood wasn't bad as refer'd to by a previous reviewer. However, it wasn't good either. It's within walking disntace of everything but it's not a comfortable walk. You have to go around through a bridge up and down steps. Also, the bathroom was leaking.

The only reason I stayed here was that my girlfriend and I couldn't get 3 days at our chosen hotel. So we decided to do one at the Mango and two at the other Hotel. At checkout, the hotel's owner drove us to the next hotel for free. I though tthat was a nice gesture. Also, the staff seemed friendly enough.

If you need a place to stay one night. The mango inn isn't bad. It just isn't good.

Ann/REka's Second Honeymoon

The aformentioned negative reviews had to have been written by individuals expecting five-star accomadations, the inn is supurb for the price.. my wife Karen and I (reka) were celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary.. being of puerto rican decent we wanted a quaint place where we could be near the beach and resturants.. the mango inn is perfect, it is not more than 10 minutes from pr's beutiful beaches... We fell in love again.. don't believe the hype it's spectactular..

Never again

The room appeared clean, but the door didnt lock, used the chain, and a deadbolt, could still open door from outside, Was afraid to leave the room, During the nite, loud screaming and noise outside of room (all nite) Twice someone tried to enter room during the nite, Key didnt workon gate to leave premises.

Not bad

i stayed there once and will go back again. the hotel is small and cheap , but nothing bad the staff was really nice and the owner also was real nice and helped us with what to do on the island, the hotel is located across the street from the beaches , there is a walk way right at the hotel to get to the beach since the beaches are all public there is no reason to pay the top prices of staying 200 ft closer . the hotel was neat and clean has a small pool, rooms have a/c. i really enjoyed staying there , i will be going back there soon

Just not worth it

Just an absolute mess. The room was not cleaned properly. The bath was filled with soap scum and I had all sorts of hairs on my bed. The rooms have what I would call bathroom locks. So don't leave anything valuable in the room. Let me say this... You need to be buzzed in, in order to gain entry into the inn. Folks... ENOUGH SAID!!!!

The Grimy Mango

We had been expecting a quaint little inexpensive motel in the Isla Verde area. However, "quaint" does not describe the little dungeon into which we were shown at the Mango Inn.

To begin with, the key had to be jiggled considerably in the lock before the door would open. Once inside, we found ourselves in a room dimly lit by a single lamp. There was no other light source available in the room, though the bathroom was comparatively well lighted. To admit more light, we opened the curtain of the room's only window. Right there was the little lobby. Any conversation, sneeze, cough, burp or fart would be readily heard by anyone in the hotel lobby. The bedspread was grimy, the sheets had pubic hairs in them and the room had a faintly musty odor. The beds were soft and sagged and any movement was accompanied by a easily audible squeak.

Directly opposite this room was a little laundry and drink machines. We could easily imagine the difficulty we would have sleeping with washing machines churning, coins clinking into their slots and drinks tumbling down the machine shoots, not to mention all the conversations to which we would unwillingly be privy.

Returning to the recepionist, we requested another room. Her answer, in an irritated tone of voice, was, "No other rooms are available". Hearing this and seeing the attitude with which we were being confronted, we opted to find another hotel. For about twice the $61.04 price of the dungeon we had been put into, we found excellent rooms at another nearby hotel about an hour later. Of course. we were charged for the room that we had only briefly occupied.

We NOW know why guide books, the local tourist bureau and even our cab driver did NOT recommend the Mango Inn. The place is a lot "lower rent" than the above-mentioned price would indicate. Unless money is your ONLY concern, we recommend that you stay elsewhere.

Clean and comfortable

I felt compelled to write a review after reading the previous review. I stay at the Mango Inn and I have stayed there often. I stay there because it is the most economical place to stay, it is clean and it is comfortable. It is NOT a 5 star resort. If you want that, you can pay the $200+ per night that those places cost. I have had friends stay at the ESJ Tower (a 5 star resort nearby to the Mango Inn) and I have heard them complain about the noise from the airport. I pay much less than they did and I do not hear the airport noise at the Mango Inn. It is a short (5-7 minutes) walk to the beach and the casinos. There are plenty restaurants nearby. It is convenient to the highway and I feel safe and secure there. What more do you want for the price?

Good but some works need to be done

The room is OK like the advertised pictures.

But the room was not ready on time : we checked in past 2pm but the room was not clean and ready yet, also the running hot water is weak and sometimes not running at all !

One night was enough

Remembering the old saying "You get what you pay for", I should have known better. Accommodations in PR are relatively expensive and the office a business acquaintance had picked up some internet hype and thought that the Mango Inn sounded like a bargain and booked a two night stay. It turned out to be no bargain at all at $75.00 per night per room ("Corporate Rate"). It is located on the "wrong side of the tracks" in a rundown area a few feet from a cemetery. They advertise as being a short walk from the beach. The term "short" is subjective and if over a mile through a neighborhood I would not want to walk through without an escort is "short" so be it. The first impression of the building evokes thoughts like "this can't be it". The lobby which is a semi open courtyard with some planters, one rundown couch and a couple of chairs and there is a small pool was passable, but the office consisting of a small room with a beat-up counter and an ancient computer and generally dirty was a preview of what was to come.

My second floor room at the end of a corridor confirmed my apprehensions. The temperature was in the upper nineties and my efforts to start the floor/wall mounted air-conditioning unit proved unsuccessful. I spotted another unit that had been designed to be placed in a window, but had been installed in a wall. Installed is not accurate because it had been hung in a hole in the wall allowing a generous view of the afternoon sky around it's perimeter. I stopped trying to turn the unit on when the front panel fell off and I still could not find an “on” switch. Back to the front desk to get some help and sure enough the young boy who appeared a few minutes later knew how to fix the problem. He opened the top of the unit and got it started. Thereupon all further conversation was drowned out by the noise of the fan. Outside of the room the boy advised me that there was no fan adjustment and that I would have to live with the noise. I had the foolish desire to get some air into the room and turned the crank on the louvered window. That turned out to be a mistake as the crank broke off in my hand and the lower louver fell out. I gingerly put the parts back together and made a mental note not to touch anything that could possibly break. I turned on the light switch, nothing happened. I tried the table lamp by the bed and lo and behold it worked. I surveyed my surroundings.

The floor was tiled. Some of the tiles were chipped and the grout was a sickly brownish-black color. The wall paint, which may have originally been white was various shades of gray and peeling everywhere. The furniture, what there was of it, is hard to describe except that the Goodwill people would probably refuse to pick it up. The 17 inch television that was supposed to provide cable programming did not work. The bedding, well what can I say, consisted of a couple of threadbare flannel sheets and I did not dare inspect the mattress, which evidenced signs of having been well tested. The bathroom, which by the way contained the louvered window I mentioned earlier and was the only source of daylight, was functional to the extent that there was running water. Otherwise from the discolored small round mirror, to the stained cracked pedestal sink without a stopper and the toilet bowl that was designed to comfortably seat a midget, I will withhold further comment.

It was really time to move out, but unfortunately my business acquaintance was coming in on a late night flight and we had no means of communicating. I resigned myself to the inevitable and became a one time, one night guest of the Mango Inn. On the way out in the early morning, I took a rain check on the Continental Breakfast set on a narrow sideboard and consisting of a partial loaf of sliced bread in the original store wrapper placed next to a once chrome toaster, now black and some syrupy looking coffee.

The moral of the story is that “If it looks too good to be true” then you can be sure that it isn’t. Unless you are desperate, I recommend bi-passing the Mango Inn.

Once was too many.

We found Casa Mathieson on Expedia rated with four stars. The price was somewhat lower than other four star hotels, so we thought we had a bargain. When we walked into the place, we thought that we were entering a slum area. While some of the description of the rooms were accurate, they didn't describe that it was dirty and poorly appointed (no hand towels, face cloths, lamps, bedside tables, carpets, etc.) There is a single flourescent light on the ceiling. The ice bucket was too dirty to use and there were no liners. From the look of the ice machine, we wouldn't have used the ice anyway. We cancelled our second night and stayed at the Howard Johnson across the street, a basic nice hotel that seemed like a luxury hotel next to Casa Mathieson.