Priceline Hotel: Hotel help in San Juan?

[jayhjay]

We are looking for a pre-cruise stay in San Juan. We are not too picky as long as it is clean and safe b/c we will likely only have time for dinner and then to hang out before boarding (maybe a few hours to hang out the first day).

Is there any hope of finding anything this early? Everthing I have seen is so pricey, even Hotwire is $200 for cheapest. I looked at other sites and hotels are even more there. Should I try bidding now on PL? I am willing to pay anything reasonable so I don't need a deal of the century. I can't even find a backup hotel at anything reasonable. Any thoughts?

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

Not sure what you consider 'reasaonble' but here are some comments/suggestions:

Puerto Rico is known for two things:

-releasing discounted rates close to check-in

-poor hotel values (service relative to price doesn't give a good value)

Here is some of what i see:

You can book the El San Juan Towers for $180/nite HERE (i believe $10 cancellation fee applies if you use it as a back-up).

The Sheraton has a $157 (non-refundable) rate for your dates... $195 rate which is cancellable if you want to use it as a back-up.

The HOLIDAY INN EXPRESS has a $112/nite (non-refundable) rate and a $139/nite (refundable) rate.

Let us know your thoughts on the above and if you book a refundable or non-refundable rate so we'll know if you we should continue to keep our eyes open for these dates.

[jayhjay]

Sorry for being vague. I guess I meant that I would pay a little over a price line "deal" ($100-125?) to secure a good rate now rather than waiting for a great deal in April. Do you think it will be around March-April before I can find rooms on priceline?

In the meantime, I think I need to get a refundable rate somewhere. We will have to commit at some point b/c if we end up coming in the day of the cruise our flight will be different than if we stay overnight. How is the Holiday Inn? It is the cheapest by far of what I could find. I couldn't find anything anywhere near what folks mentioned on these and other boards for other hotels (where they had booked direct, not through priceline or Hotwire). Ever other place I looked was around $200, most closer to $300. So if the Holiday Inn is decent, I might book it refundable just to have something lined up. If I do that, I'll probably try to find a cheaper room through Hotwire/PL in one of the resort hotels.

Any advice one when to expect those rooms to open up? Seems like $75-85 is the most common price I am seeing, but I am not sure that applies to April as the hotels online I am seeing for that time seem higher than folks on the boards report paying. Any advice is appreciated! Julie

[thereuare]

I'd suspect that rooms will open up around mid-Feb... although when i last went to San Juan i couldn't get access to inventory unitl 3 weeks before my check-in date.

High/Low Season in San Juan is often a moving target with no definitive 'cut-off' date... as you approach the end of the season you can easily get a mix of expensive nites and cheap nites from week to week.

It sounds as if you don't have your plane ticket yet, but i'll offer you my unsolicited advice on that first... no matter how much a hotel room will end up costing you, it will still be cheaper than if you try to fly down the day your ship departs and your plane is delayed enough that the ship leaves without you.

I was fortunate enough to learn from seeing others... we were flying to Vancouver for an Alaskan cruise which was to leave the following day, others on our flight were cruising another ship that left that same day. Flight was scheduled for 8am (plenty of time... especially given a 3 hour time difference between east coast and west coast). To make a long story short: plane was delayed due to mechanical problem <yada, yada, yada> we land in Vancouver at about 6pm local time. We were quite relaxed the whole time knowing we would eventually make it to the embarkation city by the end of the day, but many others on the plane weren't so lucky. It was easy to tell by the expressions on people's faces which category they were in.

[jayhjay]

Ok, we went ahead and booked a room at the Holiday Inn Express (for $125 AAA rate) to give us a fallback in case nothing comes up in Priceline. I tried $85 resort just see what came up, but as expected, nothing. So I will keep trying and checking hotwire as well for nicer places than the HI. If anyone sees any good deals, I'd love to hear about them (we are staying April 15th pre-cruise). THanks! Julie

[thereuare]

Feel free to bring this thread back up to the top anytime you may have some new info, but i would encourage you to definately do so in mid-Feb as i think that would be the time you'd start to see changing prices for this stay (if you're going to see lower prices).