Our Trip To Microsoft Retail Store in San Juan, Puerto Rico:
In case you haven’t noticed, \we like to check out Microsoft Retail Stores as we travel, pretty much everywhere we go. For one thing, we always have something to ask them (some little problem to solve or talk about) and, for another, they have the “cool, new toys” to play with.
And so, a few days ago, we visited yet another Microsoft Store, this one was located in the Plaza Las Americas Mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico. This store was the only one we have been to located outside of the US mainland, so we were really curious as to how well it would compare to the other stores we’ve visited.
As always, it seems that Microsoft does not disappoint. We found the same beautiful store, excellent quality of service, and very helpful technicians as any other Microsoft Retail Store we’ve visited. In addition the San Juan store had a couple of extra things we didn’t expect.
First of all, the store was much bigger than I expected. It was a very large and clean space – in fact, it was much bigger than both of the Florida stores we visited. Which of course makes me happy, because that is all the more room for cool gadgets. We went specifically to check out what they had in stock for the new Surface 3’s and we were not disappointed – they had several units on display.
Second thing that really surprised me was the friendliness of the local team lead, Luis Zabala (Luis.Zabala@microsoft.com).
He came out and talked to Tim for an extended period of time, offered his help and let us spend as much time as we wanted on any of their devices – he even let us take pictures! OK, at least he didn’t stop us 🙂
In other countries (like Panama) when we tried to take pictures in electronics in stores, we were told to stop.
Anyway, we thought that was very generous of the manager and we took full advantage – we were in there for hours and only had to leave when we got really hungry and went looking for some food.
In general, Microsoft products are very popular on the Island of Puerto Rico and now I see why, they really take care of their customers here. They partner with local tech companies, have a retail store, and Microsoft products permeate the Puerto Rican market – unlike Apple. By the way, in case you’re curious, there is no Apple store on the island but I did see a couple of resellers.
The Microsoft Retail Store is located at Plaza Las Americas, a 2,000,000 square foot mall in the Hato Rey part of San Juan. It is the biggest mall in the Caribbean and it was fun checking it out but Microsoft store was really the reason we went.
So, if you’re traveling or living in Puerto Rico, be sure to check out the Microsoft Store for anything you need: service (remember the free tune-ups?), devices, or just a nice chat with the friendly Microsoft crew.
Joanna-
