My wife and I had a 9 night getaway at the Courtyard Isla Verde. When previously visiting Puerto Rico we have stayed at La Concha and knew that we needed to adjust our expectations.

Location
The beach at the Courtyard is gorgeous. The waves are not as big as in the Condado and there were always plenty of chairs. The proximity to the airport does mean the planes are loud, especially when relaxing outside. We also didn’t end up loving how far it was from good restaurants. The restaurants in Isla Verde are a 10-minute walk and we found them to be OK. We ended up spending a lot for Ubers to get to Condado & Santurce for better food options.

Rooms:
Two of our nights were in a standard room and 7 were in an ocean front suite. I’m so glad we spent the 7 nights in the ocean front suite. The actual room was nicer, the balcony was so much more usable, and overall it felt above your standard Courtyard Marriott.

Hotel Ambiance/Atmosphere:
In some ways it was a step above your standard Courtyard, but not much more. There was limited outdoor seating outside the restaurant if we just wanted to lounge without going to the pool/beach. The pool area was small and they did really struggle to keep it clean of debris (leaves, trash that blew, etc). Our first weekend there they had a DJ who was playing music at dangerous sound levels.

The food options were also really lacking. The breakfast food tasted OK, but the portions were embarrassingly small. The lunch options were actively bad. The pizza and pasta dishes were inedible and the service was polite but lacking. For example one day we ordered a cheese pizza and received pepperoni. Instead of remaking - they took it back, pulled all the cheese off, and cooked it again with new cheese. Then they had the audacity to charge me the price of the pepperoni. They did not offer tap water, only $3 bottled water, and service overall was slow (lunch typically took 45-60 minutes from ordering). Again the servers were great but management should really look at revising the menu and providing better training for the cooks and servers.

While this hotel wasn’t bad, in the future I’d splurge the extra money to stay at Marriott’s options in the Condado.

If you travel to PR and stay at Isla Verde Courtyard Marriott, please visit Antonio in the Papaya Pool Bar. Great service

Also in the Picante Bar, visit Carlos. Great service and good drinks.

The breakfast has declined in quality and guest cleaning of rooms is excellent.

Its a good hotel, however the Pandemic have left them short.