El Conquistador Resort

El Conquistador has many good things to offer -- a water park for children, lots of restaurants, a beautiful view, several pools, game rooms, etc. However, my family's experience there was negatively impacted by the fact that there was loud music blasting everywhere much of the time. For example, it was impossible to sit and read a book, while lounging and watching the kids play in the water park, because the music was so incredibly loud. Another problem was that they were so understaffed that it sometimes took over an hour to get a pizza. It is true that we did go at a busy time, Feb school vacation week -- but there were long lines for everything. For example, there is a ferry to a lovely little island with a beach. The line for the ferry was brutal, and, if you didn't make the cut, you had to wait another hour for the next ferry. (Is it just me, or is it weird to be at a resort in Puerto Rico that has no beach on its property??) Finally, our room on the marina level was very inconvenient. In order to get to the main area of the resort, you had to go on a funicular! Then you had to walk down a hall and go on an elevator. It wasn't easy or convenient with children. That said, we did have a good time overall, but would be unlikely to stay there again.

This resort functions like a nightclub 24/7. There is music blasting at the pool, the waterpark, the beach, the lounge and every restaurant all the time—there is no escape from oppressive noise. Our room was in the marina area between the line for the boat to the island, the Ballyhoo restaurant, and on the other side was the Furnicular. Every day there were steel drums playing between 4:30-6:30pm playing at full volume for the boat arrivals, so we couldn’t rest in our room before dinner after being in loud spaces all day with our kids. The resort calls it “Music Entertainment” but it is more like a “Music Migraine” and it is completely not necessary. In fact, the experience would have been way better without it even though this place has other big problems… There are long lines everywhere. For example, if you do not make dinner reservations for every night, then good luck getting dinner. On our first night it took about an hour and a half to get service and this is not easy with little kids. There is no daily option for a good breakfast in the marina area. There is a small market with coffee and pastries but the line usually takes an hour because of the line to get to the island. If you want to go to Palomino Island at 9, the line starts at 8am and gets long until about 1PM. My idea of vacation is not standing in long lines to do everything, including getting a coffee. My husband and I ended up spending a half day of our trip taking an Uber to a grocery store to get fruit, breakfast supplies, and snacks for our room once we realized how difficult it was to have a proper meal that wasn’t frozen, sugar filled junk. We also ordered meals an hour before we were hungry because that was on average how long service would take. Lastly, we were traveling with my elderly mother and having to go up and down the Furnicular multiple times a day, walk a long path, and then go up another elevator to get to the main pool and lobby area took about 20 minutes each way and there were often lines at the Furnicular and the elevator. Our room location made everything harder. We will never go back here and I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. Our favorite memory was walking out of the resort on the service road, having dinner at a local restaurant, and doing the bioluminescence bay night kayak tour!

The property is nice but there is no service because it is too crowded, and not enough staff or amenities to accommodate. It feels like a cruise ship that forgot to prepare for the amount of people. Must be thousands, yet only 1 person on the entire earth has the capability to make dinner reservations (completely pen and paper system) which were a must if you didn't want to wait hours. We had to leave the resort to relax and actually be on vacation. When it was time to return we joked "time to go fight for basic needs to be met at... El conquistador." Bartenders ignore you, food prices somehow rise in between ordering from the menu and receiving the bill, the ferry won't return for another hour even though they couldn't fit everyone who was waiting for 30 minutes.... The warning signs were there starting at check in. They put us in a room type that we didn't reserve and couldn't sleep all of us but didn't tell us this, leaving us to find out after the 30 minute trek to the room. Then they pressured and argued us to accept it due to "availability". You get what you get. We called back to get someone else to argue with and we must have finally won that battle because they found a room that had enough beds for us and we had to move. At that point we had no idea the battles that were to come for mass produced overpriced food...

All the staff were wonderful just not enough of them for busy restaurant times. Check in check out super easy and staff were helpful. Food… overpriced and not great. Taco spot was the best one but we ate off property after day 2. Many great local options nearby. Always nice to support the locals! Ferry service to the beach was slow and only ran every hour. Plan to wait 45 minutes during the busy times. Miniboats are a must! So fun and great way to get to some nice private islands. Coffee is hard to get in the am plan ahead bc the line takes forever. Overall a great resort and will come back but disappointed in the food and overpriced menus. Rooms were great except be warned of the birds who start making noise early it feels like you’re sleeping in the jungle with all windows and doors shut. Part of being in a beautiful location, but it was very loud at 6 am. The tour desk ppl were wonderful book some activities off property after. The rainforest is close and horseback riding was great.

We arrived and got in line for check-in and there’s about five people in front of me and it took one hour and 45 minutes to check in. It was a complete crap show from the beginning. Our room was not clean. The line for coffee is astronomical. We then wanted to just get pizza later and it was an hour wait and my husband put our name on the list in an hour later we went back and they had lost our name. We finally got pizza that was undercooked and chips that were stale. The food here is terrible. But the cherry on top was when I went to concierge to book a cabana for the entire day and she told me I was all set at the waterpark from 9 to 6 PM and we got to the waterpark around 11 to find out that she had never actually made our reservation. The explanation was that when she went to book it it was full, however, nobody bothered to email me or call me even though both of contact were on the reservation form. Would I believe it happened, Is that she put it aside and forgot about it. Because they are completely understaffed. It took us an hour to get açai bowls this morning. This place is terrible. The employees are nice enough but incompetent. I would not stay here again, might as well go to Disney because at least i get a ride at the end of the 2 hour wait. Other people have had similar complaints. I have heard- this place is so slow. We should have just got an air bnb. For what i paid to stay here for 2 rooms, i would expect better food and faster service. No one wants to spend a “luxury” resort vacation waiting in line for hours.