Services Offered
Off-site Venues

El Convento: An Evening in Romantic Old San Juan

Event Name: An Evening in Romantic Old San Juan
Event Duration: 3.5 to 4 hours
Minimum/Maximum: 200/250
Can operate all dates except: Sundays
Design Concept: Ideal as an add-on for outlying resort groups following an
af-ternoon city tour.

El Convento, a 16th Century Convent and now a boutique hotel – and its chapel, now the main ballroom. Note the choir loft at the mezzanine level

After an enjoyable afternoon visit to the 500 plus year old city of Old San Juan you will make your way to El Convento, a restored 17th century Carmelite Convent that now is one of the world’s top boutique resorts (according to Condé Nast Traveler). Strolling through the massive entryway doors, past hanging tapestries, you are surprised to find a lovely inner courtyard where you will be tempted with butlered hors d’oeuvres and wine and cocktails. A strolling guitar trio plays Latin ballads, many of which you are surprised to realize you’ve heard before, and some that you’ve not.

After cocktails you enter into the hotel’s Salon Campeche, formerly the chapel of this convent, complete with choir loft. Here you will enjoy a savory meal accompanied by wine while a Latin Band plays a combination of Salsa, Merengue, as well as North American favorites. You can’t help but feel you’re caught between two different times, and the smooth flow of the music and the meal instill a wonderful feeling of going back to either a different place or a different time.

But wait, you’ve just started on your dessert and coffee and you hear a commotion, a stamping of feet, and a clicking sound – it sounds like castanets, and your hear an arrascado of a guitar and a loud shouting and suddenly several brightly dressed flamenco dancers come rushing on to a stage, and take the room by storm. Their performance is stunning, for their leader is none other than Rosario Galan, acknowledged as one of the 20th century’s finest flamenco dancers.

Following the flamenco performance the dancers rush off the stage as precipitously as they arrived, and the band starts playing hot, hot, hot, and your are invited to get up and dance – to dance the night away.

Possible enhancements
The evening can be enhanced in a couple of fashions. One thought is to substitute Juan Carlos and his Flamenco Rumba Review for the Flamenco show. He is a virtuoso guitarist who has played as a lounge act in Las Vegas, as well as being the featured show at various hotels in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. His brooding and mysterious good looks are accompanied by a tremendous sense of humor as he plays the guitar, and the combination is further enhanced by his lovely dancing ladies who definitely add an element of hot, hot, hot to the evening’s entertainment. This is a high-energy show that might best not be played at a Church Picnic, however it is well done and perfectly suitable for a crowd looking for some real Latin exposure. The ladies are quite sparsely clad in what one could liken to bikini style coverage.

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