Not a bad little place, it was cozy and had a fridge and microwave - I was pleased at first, thinking I was walking into a little kitchen, but sadly, it was just a sink, no stove. So, for our 5-day visit we relied mostly on eating out and getting cereal and fruit. It would have been great to be able to cook a couple of meals.
There was a nice little pool outside which was a nice bonus - although we didn't end up using it, it was nice to sit outside at night and hang out by the patio.
The owner was very nice, friendly, and helpful - he drew us out a map of everything we'd need, which is something not many people have done for me when traveling.
He explained because of their low prices, there was no daily maid service. I'm ok with not using new towels every day, but I felt like I was imposing asking for a changing of bed sheets so we ended up not doing that either.
The internet was f(*&'ing HORRIBLE -- part of the reason we went with this place is because of the internet - I knew going in our phones wouldn't work well in Puerto Rico and internet was one of the only ways of connecting with the outside world. The signal was very weak, even though we were in the room next to the manager's office (he lives in the hotel) and it went down VERY often. It was useable about 30% of the time which was very unacceptable. On the second to last day, we asked why it was down again, and he said he'd go turn it back on - apparently all of those times it was down... he took it offline himself for whatever reason. Maybe it was to save power (he asked us at the beginning to turn off all the lights and the AC etc when we weren't in the room..) but I was pretty infuriated with the lack of functioning internet - sometimes I'd go down the street and use one of the eateries' plentiful wireless connections instead of the hotel's.
Parking was an issue towards the end of the week - many guests were staying there as well as the owner being there so we were forced to park on the street several times which made us uncomfortable (petty crime/theft can be high in Esperanza, and we were warned about not keeping any valuables in the car by locals several times)
We also realized later on that he never gave us a copy of our receipt for our stay which would have been nice to have for our expense records. Now I have to wait for my credit card statement to remember how much it ended up costing ... don't really want to have to call back and ask...
Overall - for the price it was just fine, they're definitely one of the cheapest places to stay. It was clean, the owner was friendly, it was just very basic and again the internet situation was just awful. It would have been nice to have maid service at least every couple of days instead of us having to go to the office and ask for towels or a change of sheets.
The location was great, and it had a nice atmosphere. If you're ok with lower end places, and don't care about unreliable internet access, this will be a nice stay. It seemed nicer than the Esperanza Inn across the st.
ps - if you do stay here, bring some earplugs, because this spot had an unusually high number of roosters in the neighborhood that would crow during ALL hours of the night and day (obv not the hotel's fault, just a note!!) read more