San Francisco Travel Guide
Tags: HotelChatter Reviews / Fairmont Hotels / Sweet Suites / Fisherman's Wharf Hotels / → All Tags
A Semi-Secret, Super-Luxe Hotel Option in San Francisco
Topline:
Unique residential rooms with every amnity you can imagine
Great common areas, feels more like a vacation rental then a hotel room
Not located in Union Square
Tivo Tease
Valet service needs to be more timely
In-room food choices aren't always delivered the way you order them
Tags: Video / Hotel Video Tours / Fairmont / Fractional Hotels / Fisherman's Wharf Hotels / → All Tags
Inside the Somewhat Stealth Fairmont Ghirardelli Place
Now that our hangover has finally worn off, we can tell you that we were lucky enough to stay at the Fairmont Ghirardelli Place on New Year's Eve, part of the Fairmont Heritage Collection. We still consider this very much a stealth hotel, as it was developed, billed and marketed as a "residence club" when it opened in the first quarter of 2008.
While FGP is still very much in the fractional residence game, a lot has changed since 2008, especially in the "luxury fractionals market." Hmm....Come to think of it was there ever really a luxury fractionals market or was it just a lot of marketing speak? We tried to run the numbers on fractional ownership of the unit 214, the unit we stayed it, but our numbers kept crunching in the negative.
Tags: Video / Hotel Video Tours / Kimpton Hotels / Fisherman's Wharf Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / → All Tags
Inside The Argonaut Hotel in San Francisco
Longtime readers of HotelChatter know The Argonaut Hotel is one of our go-to hotels in San Francisco. Why? Good rates, comfortable beds, kitschy nautical theme and free WiFi (for Kimpton's InTouch members.) Oh, and most importantly, we don't have to deal with the glut of Union Square that makes life with a rental car extremely difficult.
Caveat emptor; you must be able to put up with Fisherman's Wharf (we actually have grown to love the area if you take a left instead of a right out of the Argonaut front door and avoid the Powell & Hyde cable car debacle), and on this trip we figured out parking was a whopping $43.00 a night.
Tags: Hotel Deals / San Francisco Hotels / New Year Hotels / Winter Hotels / → All Tags
Dial Direct, or You Might Miss Out on Hotel Griffon's $20.10 Deal
View of the San Francisco Bay from Hotel Griffon
Like the New Year's hangover you couldn't shake last weekend, hotels are still rolling out 2010-themed deals to pack rooms during a usually slow travel month. As reported on our sister site Jaunted, January is when you can find some of the steepest discounts, as most people return to chaotic work and family schedules, with no time for R&R.
San Francisco's Hotel Griffon is one hotel offering such a deal, with a "Buy One Night, Get the Second for $20.10" promotion that runs through January. That's kind of unheard of for a hotel that lies on the city's Embarcadero strip, just a stone's throw away from the Ferry Building.
Tags: New Year's Eve 2009 / San Francisco Hotels / Fairmont Hotels / Hotel Parties / → All Tags
Have a Classy Classical New Year's Eve at The Fairmont San Francisco
Looking to say goodbye to the craptastic year that was 2009 and still in need of a hotel room somewhere? We've already told you where to book in Miami, New York and the important timezones but we'll be hitting up more cities today and tomorrow for New Year's Eve. Did we miss a city? Want a better deal? Let us know and we'll help you out.
If you're celebrating New Year's Eve in San Francisco, then staying in the city is a must. Trust us; we've braved BART on the biggest party night of the year, only to be met with the most obnoxious, horrific scene on train cars. We'll spare you the graphic details, but let's just say that being in a confined space and witnessing the result of one-too-many vodka martinis consumed isn't pretty.
Tags: Hotel Packages / College Football Hotels / Football Hotels / Football Packages / San Francisco Hotels / Kimpton Hotels / → All Tags
Book a Kimpton Emerald Bowl Package and Feel Free to Curse, Boo This Weekend
For many, Christmas weekend will be a time of screaming matches, heckling, and cursing under one's breath. These forms of anti-cheer have nothing to do with Aunt Mable's fruitcake or Uncle Tim's drunken dinner table insults, but football, everyone's favorite helmet colliding sport of the season.
Fans are hightailing it to San Francisco en masse to catch the Emerald Bowl on December 26, where USC and Boston College will go at it just 24 short hours after tinsel and wrapping have been cleared away. Finding a place to stay over the holidays, especially in a choice destination like San Francisco, is no easy feat, but several Kimpton properties in the city are offering convenient Emerald Bowl packages. Overnight tailgating in frigid weather is no fun, don'tcha know.
Tags: Hotel Promotions / Personality Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / → All Tags
Figure Out Whether to Dump Your Cheating Tiger at Personality Hotels
Mull over your alimony options at Hotel Diva.
If you're feeling Elin Nordegren's fidelity pains, you can hide out at Personality Hotels to figure out whether to ditch your cheating Tiger. The female-owned-and-operated company wants to show some women solidarity with its Love Him or Leave Him package.
You can nurse your broken heart at one of the brand's six San Francisco hotels—Hotel Diva, Hotel Frank, Hotel Vertigo, Hotel Union Square, Hotel Metropolis and Kensington Park Hotel—for an evening and bring your girlfriends for support.
Tags: San Francisco Hotels / Hotel Packages / Cirque du Soleil / Holiday Hotels / → All Tags
This San Fran Hilton Has a Jumpin', Tumblin' OVO Package for Cirque Fans
Get up close and personal with the cast of OVO in San Francisco
Cirque du Soleil: fascinating or freaky? Discuss! Personally, we find the acrobatics of Cirque troupes impressive, though we're often perplexed by some of the shows' themes, which tend to flirt with the edges of eccentricity.
In any case, there is a strong following for the dramatic shows, and San Francisco Cirque fans can now get their fill of slackwire artists and the like with OVO currently in town. If you're visiting the city and want to catch a performance, the Hilton San Francisco Financial District has both Standard and Deluxe OVO-themed packages you can book this holiday.
Tags: Hotel Contests / Hotel Celebrations / San Francisco Hotels / Starwood Hotels / → All Tags
Who's Got the Golden Ticket ... Er, Key ... For the Palace Hotel in San Fran?
Located somewhere in the Bay Area? Keep your eyes peeled for flying room keys. A Golden Room Key, to be precise. If this specimen (possibly still tied to a festive bunch of balloons) whacks you in the head or plops onto your car's windscreen, it's your lucky day. You'll get to play Charlie—only instead of a visit to a chocolate factory with a bunch of obnoxious kids you'll get three nights at the fancy Palace Hotel in San Francisco.
The Golden Ticket ... er, Key, is part of the hotel's 100th Birthday Celebrations, and was released into the overcast sky above San Francisco yesterday, inside a helium-filled yellow balloon. Whoever finds the balloon containing the key will win a three-day stay in the hotel's Presidential Suite. History Buffs may remember this as the room where President Warren G. Harding died in 1923. but as long as you're not easily spooked this shouldn't keep you from enjoying the opulence of 2-bedroom, 2-bath suite with its own grand piano.
Tags: Hotel Openings / Gregory Peck / San Francisco Hotels / → All Tags
The Crescent San Francisco is Still in a Soft-Opening Mode
Yesterday we ran our review of the Crescent San Francisco which we liked for its "free WiFi access, a Kurt Vonnegut book bedside, and easy classical streaming when we arrived."
What we didn't like was the "lukewarm shower water in the morning, an anti-view of a dingy alleyway, and a refrigerator with someone else's mystery leftovers sitting inside of it." We were fully aware that the hotel was in soft-opening mode as only the top three floors of the hotel were open to guests and we deemed it a "work in progress." Still, we weren't all that put out because we were able to snag a room at The Crescent for just $105.
Yet hotelier Greg Peck wrote into us to reiterate that the hotel was still in a soft-opening mode and that what we saw was definitely not the finished product. He writes:
Tags: HotelChatter Reviews / Hotel Video Tours / Guess the Hotel / Anti-View / San Francisco Hotels / → All Tags
Leftovers and Lukewarm Water at The Crescent San Francisco
We know you've spent the last 24-hours waiting with bated breath to find out the answer to yesterday's edition of "Guess the Hotel"—at least that's what we'd like to think. Wait no longer, because the moment of revelation has arrived. Our Thanksgiving leftovers mystery hotel is...
...The Crescent San Francisco.
We've been closely watching this newly opened, Gregory Peck-helmed redesign of San Francisco's historic Allison Hotel, located just a hop, skip, and a jump away from Union Square. Normally, rooms in this bustling shopping neighborhood start in the high hundreds, but thanks to the Quikbook deal we reported, we scored one for $105 per night.
Tags: Morgans Hotel Group / San Francisco Hotels / Hotel Shopping Packages / Holiday Hotels / → All Tags
The Clift Offers a Holiday Shopping Package That Doesn't Suck
Shop 'till you drop, then toast to a job well done at The Clift's Redwood Room.
You had us at free parking.
Well, free parking, along with a bevy of discounts at major retailers in San Francisco's Union Square. With the holiday season steadily creeping upon us, we've been receiving tips about more "room-plus-shopping discount" packages than we can count. The problem being that most of them are less than noteworthy, and some are downright lame.
The Clift Hotel, however, is wise to what discerning consumers are looking for. Their Happy Shopping Package is available now through January 9, 2010, and offers guests who book it major price cuts at some Union Square's upscale stores—the places where you could really use an extra 20% off, or a comparable deal.
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