I have booked our 2012 trip and will be staying at the El Conquistador. I have a few questions regarding our upcoming trip:

What would be the easiest way to transfer to our hotel from the airport? The hotel offers a transfer at 74.00 pp (x4)....is this correct? Would we be better off getting a taxi?

We do not plan to rent a car, is there a bus system available for use? Or would we be better off using a taxi?

We would like to purchase a few groceries once we arrive (water, etc....) again, bus or taxi?

Also, we are looking for any other info regarding this hotel....The process of securing a hotel can be so frustrating.....reading all of the reviews are ridiculous! It appears many of them are not even legitimate! I hope I didn't make a bad choice in picking this destination.

Thanks!

you should re-post over on Caribbean Islands forum . . .

Thanks JanisJ, I have posted on both. My thought was there may be U.S. folks who have been to PR but may not have a reason to be on the Caribean board.

I understand. The problem is -- often the editors will move a thread to the appropriate Forum. They sort of like to keep the USA boards about the USA, Europe about Europe, Asia . . . and so on. Otherwise there'd be all sorts of threads on the US board about other parts of the world.

(If folks actually know about the Caribbean, other than maybe stopping on a cruise 10 years ago - they will post on that forum)

Puerto Rico is a United States protectorate.

How many days will you be staying at el Conquistador? Renting a car might be cheaper than renting a car for a few days and would allow you to do the shopping you want to do as well as to some of the beautiful spots on that end of the island. Fantastic rain forest.

Actually Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the US (citizens decided to keep that status rather than become a state in a plebicite some years ago) - not a protectorate. but in terms of travel it is part of the Caribbean.

We will be staying 7 nights 8 days. I didn't plan on a rental car, I was hoping we could use public transit or taxi. From my research so far, it appears we can get 2 decent trips right from El Con (Culebra (sp) and the bio bay)? And if we felt we needed another "day" trip it would be either the rain forest or Old San Juan.

you are getting answers on your other thread - why not follow up there??