The hotel is about a 50 minute drive from the cruise port. It is a relatively new hotel with beautiful grounds. The hotel is isolated and without a car you will be restricted to the hotel grounds unless you take a taxi to the nearest town, Rio Grande. It has a nice pool area but the beach is awful. I would opt for a hotel in Isla Verde or Condado.

I can't offer any opinion about the hotel itself, but the fixed rate taxi fare from the San Juan tourism area to Rio Grande (where the resort is located) is $63. Be sure to get a rate quote from the driver before starting your journey.

We've listed most of the fixed-rate taxi fares in our travel guide at puertoricodaytrips.com/2008/…

For that rate you can rent a car, pay for parking and have it to explore the area all day!

I enjoyed staying at Gran Melia. There is a lot to do (huge pools, large tennis courts, volleyball courts, renting water equipment, and just lounging around to name a few) but renting a car is a must. We enjoyed driving to the Luquillo beach kiosks (5 lights away from Gran Melia on the main road) for "real" Puerto Rican food every day, sometimes more than once! We rented our car from Thrifty for a mere $25 a day.

I must agree, the beach area is not that great for swimming, but that was not an issue to us with Liquillo Beach being so close. They do have an area that they comb the shells out of, to make the sand a little softer.

We also stayed in Old San Juan, and although both experiences were different, the stay at Gran Melia was by far my favorite!

Another popular hotel in that area is the Rio Mar

(Usher rented this whole hotel out when he had his HBO concert in PR. The hotel shut down for a couple of days just to cater to him and his staff/dancers etc..)

http://www.westinriomar.com/

You might want to split your trip...maybe san juan 2 or 3 days and then head to another area/hotel for another 2 or 3 days. This way..when you're in san juan..you can concentrate on san juan area...and then in Rio Grande/Luquillo area you can concentrate on going to el Yunque rainforest, Luquillo beach, Bio Bay (Fajardo), taking a day trip to Culebra (the best beaches!) etc...You can take a plane or ferry there.