I stayed here for five nights while doing some work for a nonprofit. The primary pluses are location and cost. It is in the center of Old San Juan, on a nice little plaza. A full grocery store is one block away. The hotel serves a breakfast in the morning that includes fruit, cereal, etc., served on paper plates. Nothing great, but not terrible either. The hotel is apparently in an old apartment building converted to this purpose.

Rooms: You will want a room with a queen size bed or larger. Our group found smaller beds in other rooms that were unacceptable, even for one person. There are no windows in most rooms (except those facing the street). The rooms are very quiet, especially since there is an air conditioner in each room. Rooms are reasonably spacious and wi-fi is included at no cost.

Elevator: There is a single elevator that moves at a speed of about one minute per floor (literally). This is a four story building. If you have no problem walking up and down stairs, you will use the cramped staircase instead of the elevator. If you need to use an elevator, you are going to have frustrations. Depending on your physical condition, a lower floor might be desirable.

Staff: We found the staff to be quite pleasant and helpful.

Overall, this seems to be a hotel used primarily by cruise ship passengers for a single night stay on one end or the other. So long as you are not looking for luxury and have no problem with stairs, the hotel is quite acceptable. If you intend to spend any meaningful amount of time in the room or hotel, you will find it a bit dreary, but a bargain. We did not encounter issues of cleanliness mentioned elsewhere, but this is not a corporate hotel, so one could expect variations.

I had booked one night at this hotel after a Caribbean cruise. It’s in a great location of old San Juan, with plenty of shops, restaurants and right next to the Plaza de Armas. At first glance it seemed like a great place. I booked two rooms on separate floors and was shocked that both rooms contained beds with hairs. That’s right- multiple hairs in both rooms!!! They blamed their linen service company then changed the sheets; even so it was no excuse. One room had a balcony that over looked the city. On this balcony were ashtrays packed with cigarette butts as well as a dead cockroach by the door. Walked into the hallway, another dead cockroach!!!??? I couldn’t believe that these rooms were serviced by house keeping and left in this condition, especially after reading the good reviews. The best part was that I found a vacancy at another hotel, and that the Howard Johnson willingly refunded all of my money. It was such a shame for what a great location this hotel has. It may have just been a fluke that we had a bad experience with this hotel, so buyers beware...

My husband and I stayed at this hotel for one night after our cruise. We decided to select this one after just reading a few reviews. After 7 days of cruising, we decided that we wanted something with no windows or phones. It was more that we expected. We were literally in the heart of Old San Juan. We didn't have windows, but they did install a phone. The people at the hotel were wonderful. If you needed anything at all they were excellent at helping out. For instance... Our boat docked at 7am, and we were trying to decide what to do with our luggage. My husband suggested that we just go to the hotel. Well upon letting the staff know that we were quite early they told us not to worry about it and stored our luggage. They gave us a map of the area and we ended up at Forts of Old San Juan. We literally were able to walk to both Forts and take a tour through the mines. By the time we had finished and had lunch it was well past 3pm. Everything is in walking distance and the people there speak english quite well. Thank you all the staff at The Howard Johnson Inn Plaza. We will never forget our one night stay. My next visit to your hotel will be longer next time.

My wife and I are in our mid 20's, and we stayed at the HoJo in Old San Juan one night before our cruise.

We had standard room with a queen size bed on the main floor with no windows. The room was clean and comfortable. The bathroom was spacious and everything worked well (accept the safe, the battery was broken and when I told the staff they said they would fix it, but they got busy and forgot. NOTE: Despite this the staff was great)

The only complaint about the hotel is that the rooms the main floor all open up to the main eating area for the breakfast bar. This creates a lot of noise if you like to sleep in. Also, as the review prior to mind stated, the skylights also leaked into this main common area when we there as well.

Overall I would stay at this hotel again if I need a place to stay in Old San Juan. Old San Juan isn't very big and you can walk anywhere you need to from this hotel. Also, it is about a 15 minute walk to the cruise terminal.

Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.