Hotel San Luis Beach House by oxoHotel

The staff were sweet, kind, friendly and hardworking, and I loved the gorgeous beach and relaxed, down-to-earth feel. The food was good, the rooms were fine and spacious enough, and the beds were VERY COMFORTABLE. There are ramps giving wheelchair access to ground-floor rooms, and most people speak English. It’s affordable, and I’d come back. You’ll need to be okay with a cool shower or not expect luxury. Hot water is the one thing I’d pay extra for, and I think they should make it available and charge more. Coffee is ready before 7, which worked well for me as an early riser who depends on it. I drank mine on the beach as the sun came up. My only other issue was that the sliding door was too difficult to lock. There are several feral dogs around, but they’re quite docile, so there’s no need to be afraid.

The location on the island’s best beach is amazing, the property has a nice structure, and the chef is very good. Even so, the staff and lack of management made this a really bad experience. The receptionist was about the unfriendliest person I’ve encountered, unable to smile or greet us. At breakfast, waiters stayed on their phones while buffet items ran out and coffee cups sat empty. The manager was nowhere to be seen during our stay, didn’t answer calls or read WhatsApp messages, and when we finally reached him, we found he didn’t speak English. Most rooms seem to have hot-water problems. We had cold showers for two days in a row before insisting on a room change. Nobody dealt with the issue or showed any sign of compensating us. We didn’t even get a bottle of water or an apology. At these prices, warm water should be included, not treated as an optional feature, as we were told. Be warned, nobody seems to care, and there may be no hot water.

I enjoyed the stay and the view was amazing, but the place is overpriced. The rooms are rusty, the doors are hard to open and close, and the towels smell. Food and drinks cost too much, so go downtown if you want a more reasonable meal. I also don’t understand paying a fee to go to a dirty place. The beaches aren’t clean, much of the island looks kind of abandoned, and people seem overwhelmed. Customer service skills were lacking.

The beach is the only thing this place has going for it. The breakfast buffet was very limited, and it’s about 20 from the city center. It needs a lot of maintenance. We checked in on 1/2/24 and got a room with outlets that didn’t work and a toilet that wouldn’t flush; the toilet also hadn’t been taken care of. The next day they gave us another room, but its door had been broken into, and the sliding glass door was so rusty it would only close from outside. Run, don’t walk away.