When I planned my winter vacation five years back, there was the usual debate with friends deciding where we should go. Finally everybody voted on Puerto Rico, so I began the process of robotically scanning over many websites looking for a luxury villa that would suit our group. Even though we were looking for a villa, after many hours of surfing the net, I just couldn’t seem to find a website that could offer us the kind of villa that we had in mind. Frustration began to set in with the lack of choices I found so, I decided to forget the whole villa idea and reserve a hotel, confirming three rooms in a pretty chic place.
At the time of my reservation I had no doubts that this was the way to go. My four hip friends from Italy and Norway aged 28, 24, 30, and 34 would enjoy the independence of
their own rooms and we figured it could be a more relaxing way for us too, no food shopping or cooking or even having to clean the room in case the villa didn’t have daily
maid service.
We arrived in San Juan and the hotel was as expected, modern, hip, with an impressive open-air foyer; the location too seemed perfect, right between Old San Juan and the
modern shopping area, just one block from the beach.
We were all very happy until we were shown to our rooms – which although modern and
nicely renovated, we were a little disappointed to see the space we were to spend the next 14 nights/15 days; although accurately described in square feet on the website – the rooms had the “look & feel” of being very small and cramped.
The next morning we went off to explore the treasures of Old San Juan and immediately came across an fabulous old market selling local hand-made items, the typical little touristy souvenirs, etc. Well, when we saw the wonderful produce – peppers, spices, every kind of fresh fruit you can imagine, large tables offering the most delicious variety of fresh fish and local specialties. We were all excited by this great variety and abundance of offerings and disappointed that we were going to miss out on sampling the wonderful local produce that San Juan had to offer.
We also missed hanging out together as a group – as these vacations are really the only time we spend long stretches of time together especially now that we all live in different countries with very busy lives. We walked on the beach in the mornings and would bump into our Norwegian friends mid morning – having to make a date with them late afternoon if we wanted to see them. Great for the first few days, but at the end of fourteenth day we all missed the usual silly laughs and interaction in the kitchen or living room – the room to room telephoning was wearing thin and when we were all in one of the rooms together it was so tiny we could only support 10 minutes before taking off to our own box again. Forget hanging out by the swimming pool, it was full of screaming children to have a deep conversation.
The cost of hotel room service was another hit to our pockets, even for a cup of coffee in the morning at the lobby bar, the price was totally over the top. Lunch and dinner out at restaurants every day, can become both tedious; clocking up around $125 each evening for dinner wasn’t much fun either. We were tired of “having to” go out every night – restaurants are wonderful when you’re in the mood, but not much fun when you are forced to eat out for 45 meals straight.
So looking back at our “hotel experience”, in a small room, a mini bar and not the kind of privacy or freedom that we actually had in mind, I began to think that I should have tried a little harder to find that “right villa” – which would have been more of a home, even if only for two weeks.
We could have enjoyed more space, more amenities, a private pool, hired a daily maid, sampled and cooked the local produce or hired a chef to cook for us to give us some time to just relax, which is a lot more fun and would have paid a lot less. The experience reminded us of why I chose to create Life & Style and prompted me to begin exploring the idea of expanding more in the Caribbean… Puerto Rico, you’re on my list!