Just stayed at the Ponce Hilton as a Gold, prepay rate of $150per night, was put in the Executive tower. Very clean, fresh room. Linens & bedspread were very clean. Nice bathroom, not overly large. First floor rooms have two lounge chairs on their patio and there are showers placed along at intervals outside on the lawn to cool down.
When we were here last (7 years ago), the beach was no more than 50 yards long. I don't know what they have done but one can now walk for a mile+.
While the water is very clear, the sand is a dark almost dirt like color and you don't see the blue that you do elsewhere on the island. Plus how f'in hard would it be for the hotel to pay some kids a few bucks to pick up the trash along the beachfront.
The Hilton beach is "clean" but if you walk past the Hilton property line, I don't think I've ever seen so many washed up plastic containers of all different sizes. Pools are very nice but suffer from some serious shade during times of the day, plus we can get a pool anytime so we prefer the beach even though it is not a pristine beach. Also very few people lounge on the beach making it very secluded. One thing I did not know about the beach the Hilton is on is that sea turtles nest there and there are manatees in the waters offshore. Drink/food service on the beach was not too bad with a server coming in regular intervals.
The exec lounge breakfast buffet sucked. Some fruit, pastries toast.
Evening drinks from 5:30pm til 8pm is on an honor bar system ($5 for a drink) and the only "hot" food were some non-meat fritters and mozzerella sticks, both fried at 4pm so by the time you got to them they were cold lumps of crap.
C'mon Hilton, where are the Puerto Rican items like some pan fried plantains or empanadas?!!?? Free internet access in the lounge.
Buffet breakfast is pricey at $20 per person. Hashbrowns again suffer from the lack of freshness that the fried items from the exec lounge do. Good pastry selection. Better to order a la carte off the menu IMO.
Lunch selections were actualy decent. A "puerto rican" touchdown sandwich was quite tasty as well as the burger. Plan on SLOW service. Even though we were not hungry we would go to the lunch area and order as it took an hour for sandwiches to arrive.
Dinner in the hotel is expensive and not of the greatest quality.
As
Schutzee states, make sure you go into Ponce to eat at Mark's at the Melia hotel, well worth a taxi ride. Not that hard to find. There looked to be an Argentinian place that looked inviting but we never made it there.
Self park is $10 and very easy as if you drive to the right of the resort upon entering you'll find easy to be had parking right in front of the Executive tower, don't spend the $15 on valet as your walk to the valet will be far longer than the walk to your car if you park by the exec tower.
Hilton Ponce, Puerto Rico