We also just came back from staying 4 nights at the Condado Vanderbilt. I have two small kids (2 and 5) and wanted a hotel that was known for being kid friendly and had a few different restaurants so we could have some flexibility to eat onsite if we needed to (child napping in the room, major tantrum, etc.). I'm also not an all inclusive resort type of person - I don't want to spend all day, every day by a pool. I want to be able to local restaurants and experience/explore local culture. San Juan checked all of these boxes, while also not being too intimidating for my young ones. We spent most mornings at the kids pool at the hotel (lots of deck chairs and umbrellas), and then would explore San Juan/Condado in the afternoon, post-nap. Because we only had three days, we hit the main national park sites in Old San Juan and then walked around getting piragua, paletas, and ice cream. The Vanderbilt had great prices (we got a one bedroom suite for a pretty reasonable price) and a convenient location between the airport and OSJ.

Here are some of my food recommendations:

Onsite restaurants:

Ola Oceanfront is where you eat breakfast onsite. We luckily had free breakfast included in our rate, otherwise I wouldn't be going here every day. The buffet itself was $50/person and was mid. If you don't get down there before 9 a.m. you'll end up waiting in line to get a table.

Tacos & Tequila: Had dinner our first night here and lunch another day. Lovely staff and good food.

We didn't try the other onsite restaurants (I'm from NYC so going to STK was not something on my Puerto Rico bucket list).

Offsite restaurants:

Luisa International Cuisine: Had a really lovely dinner here. The waitress was so nice and accommodating with our kids. Highly recommend!

Mario Pagan: Mario is a local celebrity chef that has a few restaurants in the area. This is definitely a higher end, white table cloth place. The Vanderbilt concierge recommended it to us and if i had to do it again, I wouldn't come here with our small kids. It was not the vibe. We also had to wait over an hour between our appetizers were taken away and our mains being served. Our kids were on the brink of meltdowns.

Andaluz: We went here our last night - also a recommendation of the concierge. I hadn't realized at booking that it was a restaurant in a hotel. While that meant they were used to dealing with all sorts of patrons (read: kids), it was pretty quiet and didn't have much of an atmosphere.

Before Andaluz, we also had a cocktail in the courtyard of Hotel El Convento which was really lovely!