DAHOUSE
“Da House” is the urban-latino pronunciation of “The House”, with the emphasis on “The”, the one, the space where it is happening. In this case, “it” is your vacation or visit to Old San Juan. You will find yourself proudly replying “In Da House” to inquiries as to where you stayed.
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Our History: In the 1970’s this beautiful four story building in colonial Old San Juan housed the Centro Nacional de las Artes. The Centro was an artist collective that ran an art gallery, workshops for printing and silkscreening, and dance and music classes. In the spirit of this history we invite you to experience bohemian living in Old San Juan.
***edit, I believe this place is permentely closed now per the web***
The price to get from the airport to our hotel in OSJ. $25
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We arrived at the hotel a little before 7pm.
I had a hard time finding a place to book our hotel prior to our cruise. I searched for months and just couldn't make up my mind. The Old Sheraton was outrageous with their pricing now, as was a lot of the other places. I imagine the hurricane has some bearing on this due to some places still not being open.
I reluctantly decided to go with a place called Da House. There seemed to have mixed reviews on it and not many on here had actually experienced a stay there. I figured it's only for 1 night...how bad can it be? There's running water and a/c and electric. It would suit my needs at the time and was a decent price compared to other places. $157.07 for a "queen room with juliet balcony" whatever that meant. I had a feeling it was the same as our Sheraton room last time.
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Our taxi pulled up and lifted our luggage out of the trunk then pointed down the alley. There's the entrance down there. Hmm, ok, we headed down to the "entrance" only to find several steps to the door. :confused:
We rang the doorbell and was buzzed in. Next would come the fun part. THERE'S NO ELEVATOR in this place...at all. We had to carry our heavy 45.7-49.4 pound luggage x3 all the way up to the second floor, which consisted of 4 flights of stairs because the ceilings in this place are T-A-L-L!
Huffing and puffing, we finally made it to the front desk. Hubby was a little perturbed to say the least. He asked about "help" in this place with luggage and we were informed "they have already left for the night". Well lucky him!
The guy at the desk said "Well at least you have a room on this floor (2nd floor) and you won't have to go up any more stairs. :rolleyes:
We checked in and headed to our room...
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So here we are at the hotel...Instead of having an entrance and lobby in the front, on the main road, they have a gift shop.
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The roads are brick and bumpy (which looks cool...until you have to attempt to roll your luggage down it). On the right is Da House and that door you see is where you enter the building. If was very hard to push your luggage on these roads. This road is on a hill and the entrance to the hotel is on the side up some stairs.
OUTSIDE BUILDING
Looking up at the stairs and our adventure started. Also some pictures of the lobby on the second floor.
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There are little rooms off to the side of the lobby. I guess this is like a gathering room for people. When you look online, you'll see people in these little area's off to the side "enjoying" their time at Da House. I did notice a room that had some games on a table to play. However, in 85 degree weather and no a/c, I can't imagine sitting there for any period of time to play them.
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These areas are also open up above and go all the way to the roof with skylights. While it's very pretty, it also creates more heat coming in from the sun.
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Notice the doors open...no a/c in the lobby area.
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One of the rooms off to the side had a very large table. I guess maybe if you want to grab a bite to eat and sit down here for dinner?
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We had one of these rooms right in front of our room as well.
Notice the busted window/skylight area? They must have had some damage from the hurricane.
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The weird thing was, it was a piece of plastic and drywall thrown over it, which anyone knows that when drywall gets wet...
I imagine that's what is drooping down from the plastic...just an accident waiting to happen when it falls 4 floors down to that sitting area across from our room. Hopefully there won't be anyone there sitting when it happens.
This is our room: 206 Marta Perez. Now I'm just going to say this now...these pictures look A LOT nicer than in person. I'm just putting this out there right now!
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The mattress sat on wood, without a box spring, and was very hard and uncomfortable.
The room is in an L shape and Sakari's "room" was off to the side.
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Both "rooms" had a window/door that could be opened. Except one of the doors in Sakari's area couldn't open because it drug on the tile in the room. Or just the window portion could be opened.
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There wasn't a balcony, just a railing and this is looking down.