WOULD WE BOOK THIS VACATION AGAIN AT THIS PRICE? YES
Prior to the cruise, we independently booked a two nights stay (Thursday & Friday) in San Juan (through a hotel reseller) for the El Caribe Hilton (in their Lagoon Villas section). The hotel had been advised we would be arriving late as we flew in via connecting flights through JFK using Jet Blue (great flights). We grabbed a cab to the hotel, and when we arrived close to 7 PM, the hotel was already overbooked as they had a couple of conventions there. They needed to place us in a "parlor" room, which is a central room with a sofa bed, shower bathroom, full small kitchen, & balcony in their Junior suites accommodations, and in return for our giving up a queen or king size bed room, the manager gave us breakfasts at the full buffet at the Palmeras restaurant each of the next two mornings (normally that runs ~$26/pp/day) leaving us to cover gratuities. That resort is just beautiful and the water near the beach area there is great, thanks to the breaker rocks they have positioned there to buffer the Atlantic Ocean undertow current that can cause some other beaches on that island to close to swimming at times.
Overall, for a short stay, we recommend the usually peaceful lagoon villas side of the resort, although the winds at night off the lagoon assaulting the 3rd floor balcony door can be easily heard. The food is so-so on the actual premises in the restaurants. Best choices would be Lemon Grass Pan Asian Latino or Morton's Steakhouse. Subway (located just beyond the entrance to the resort on the Villas side of the complex) can be used for a basic, quick sub for lunch or whatever as an option and is a significantly better food value. Our room had a full, small kitchen, so we could have gotten food to store and cook if we had wanted to and were staying longer. The balcony had coverage from the sun, and the beach (w/lifeguard coverage) & water truly were wonderful. It is nice to walk through the ~17 acres of grounds, so we would definitely not hesitate to go back there again.