My fiance and I stayed 4 nights at El Con, along with two of my siblings. The decor was too cute. My room came with a balcony and a great view. The bathrooms and walk-in closets were perfect. However, my brother's room had a horrid view (what a pale concrete wall), and they would not improve the room, despite the fact that the hotel was NOT bustling at full-occupancy. This was my brother's fifth time in PR, and undoubtedly, his only stay at El Con. The pools were beautiful.

Everything seemed to be an inconvenience. The resort was incredibly far from the airport and night life in San Juan or Loiza. You'll be driving/riding for at least 1 hr. The caves (which are a big tourist attraction in PR) is 1.5 - 2 hrs away. Breakfast buffet was $25 per person plus tax with NO traditional PR fare. To get to the beach, you had to take the elevator to the lower level, walk across the back of the hotel, take the tram down the mountain, show your hotel ID to get an ID bracelet in order to wait on the dock for the ferry to take you on a 15 minute ride to Palomino Island -- and the ferry only runs on the hour. The latest you can stay on the beach/Palomino Island is 5:30p. What kind of nonsense is that?! It's still nice outside at 5p. The wind is finally blowing off the water. What a waste. The alcoholic drinks on the island were nasty, expensive ($8 for a 12 oz. frozen pina colada from a machine) and WEAK (are you sure that's rum?). To add to one's inconvenience, the self-parking at $15/day was a joke, and it was a hike to get there to/from the lobby. Yes, they had a shuttle to take you to the self-parking lot, but it ran sporadically, and one of the primary drivers was rude and consistantly MIA. You could be waiting for 20 mins. Plus, you had to keep getting the cheap paper tix validated at parking services, instead of them just giving you a key card to come and go. The food at the Iguana Bar and Caribe Cafe were sub-par.

Overall, after that experience, I wouldn't stay at El Con again. It was just a mediocre hotel with a hefty price tag, considering you're in PR. We passed a number of resort hotels on Route 3 to get to El Con. If I had to go back, I'm sure any of those would do.

My husband and I spent a night at this property and I was truly amazed at how beautiful and high end this place is. The rooms are decorated in a very modern style, very cozy and inviting. We had a view of the tennis courts and the ocean and it was perfect. The property is huge and we coudn't believe all the amenities on site. I was specially surprised to take their tram down to the marina so the catamaran could take us to the hotel's private island, Palomino. We had a wonderful experience there, we snorkeled, rested at the beach, had some delicious drinks and even got to feed the local fauna (rabbit, chicken and a rooster) which mingle with the tourists at the restaurant. In a few words, this hotel is truly a mega resort which takes several days to fully enjoy (great spa, golf course, tennis courts, water park, etc.). The restaurants at the hotel are also top notch, we had a fancy although expensive dinner at the Italian restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful bottle of wine. We definitely plan to go back.

We just returned from Puerto Rico on May 2,2008 after being there for 1 week with our family. We had travelled with our kids 3 and 6 years old. We had booked the reservation directly thru the hotel website and purchased the Coqui water park package including breakfast for 4 and I am glad I did. Our kids had a great time at this resort. The waterpark was perfect for them. They had a zero entry pool with a little kids slide and the pool goes as deep as 4'6 so you can actually swim a little. They had 3 larger waterslides and my 3 year old was able to go onto the slide that requires an intertube (they have tandems and singles) and my 6 year old could do one of the other slides by herself. There are additional pools up at the main hotel to use also. Everyday we went to Palomino Island to unwind a little and we all enjoyed this part of the day as well. The boat ride was something my kids thought was fun to do. The island is nice, has bathrooms, and a restaurant. I would be careful into the ocean as it is pretty rocky initially but gets better as you go further in. It remains shallow for quite a distance from shore. The Island and the Coqui waterpark only takes room charge and no cash transactions. Everywhere else they give you a choice. The rooms were nice and clean and maid service came early and did a good job. Believe the reviews about food prices. The food prices are very inflated however, if you prepare yourself then there should be no issue. The water in the room is $7 per bottle, however in the main lobby you can get a bottle for $2.25 or at Starbucks for $2.50 per bottle. Ballyhoo was the only place that we had a bad experience with dining. We ate at Stingrays and had good food and good service. There is a restaurant up by the main lobby that overlooks the pool that has the lowest priced menu that we had seen...the menu is limited but with kids a hotdog or pizza is just fine for them! As I mentioned we had purchased the package which included the daily buffet breakfast for 4, daily entry to the water park full day, and our transportation to and from the hotel. For us this worked out well. There was one small error on our hotel bill and it was easily taken care of no problems at all. There were no surprise surcharges other then the ones you had charged to your room. The package includes all the taxes and resort fees so you have a clear idea of how much your vacation will cost you. The hotel is large..but this should be no surprise to anyone if you read how big the resort is on there website. So plan on walking a little more then if you are at a smaller resort. We had an ocean view room down by the marina but closer to the water park and thought this was a great location for us. If we were to go back to Puerto Rico we would definitely stay at this resort again.

We had a group of 13 ladies between two casitas and we had a great experience at the resort. Everyone on staff was very helpful but there were several who stood out. Carmen, a concierge, was extremely helpful prior to our arrival and answered many questions and helped make transportation arrangements. Wilfredo, our butler, was fantastic and took care of any requests very quickly. Omar at the Ballyhoo bar was great, too.

The food was really good throughout the resort. The pools were beautiful and the property was very well maintained.