94102 Travel Guide
Tags: Hilton Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / Hotel Name Changes / → All Tags
The Hilton San Francisco Changes Its Name...Sorta
The official transition to fall has brought other changes as well, though the one we're about to mention is hardly as noticeable as leaves turning autumnal colors. It was recently announced that, effective immediately, the Hilton San Francisco has changed its name to—drumroll, please—The Hilton San Francisco Union Square. Shocking, we know.
The name change was brought about for one glaring geographic reason: The hotel is located just two blocks away from Union Square, San Francisco's pulsing city center, known for shopping, dining, and close proximity to major cable car stops and other popular tourist neighborhoods like Chinatown and North Beach. Hilton cites a want to "raise awareness among visitors" by adding "Union Square" to its tail end, hopefully filling a few more rooms in the process.
Tags: Hotel Packages / Personality Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Diva Sets a Cougar Trap
Oh lordy. That’s the required reaction when a press release’s subject line reads “Calling All ‘Cougars with Personality.’”
No stranger to horrifically cheesy gimmicks, San Francisco-based Personality Hotels is unleashing a package “designed to free your inner urban cougar.” And by cougar, we obviously mean “all fabulous, independent and sexy women over 40 who love men in their twenties!”
Package offerings include a one-night stay at Hotel Diva, two Hanky Panky animal print thongs as “cub bait” (excuse us, but, ew), two lemon drop cocktails, two $25 gift certificates at Epi Med Spa, pro bra fittings for two at Nordstrom’s, and a list of San Fran’s “hottest Cougar Bars.”
One thing we can’t help but wonder: If your cougar prowl is, er, successful, how’s that going to work if you’re sharing your hotel room with your girlfriend? We sure hope that 20something guy doesn’t live in his parent’s basement. Otherwise the package seems a little like you’re setting yourself up for failure—or a really awkward evening.
But we digress. The package is available through March 31 and goes for $199. Or, if you think you’re truly a top-tier cougar, you might want to enter the “Cougar Contest” to win a two-night stay in a Diva Suite with the package perks included. To enter, write a 150-word-or-less scribe about why you belong in their “cougar den,” along with “your best cougar photo” to cougar@personalityhotels.com. Contest runs through Oct. 9.
Tags: Labor Day Hotels / JDV Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / Hotel Promotions / Room Rate Gimmicks / → All Tags
The Newest Hotel Rate Gimmick: Hotel Adagio's Special $9.99 Rate
There isn't a very good track record for hotels that do promotions with shockingly low rates. Remember the Leading Hotels of the World's $19.28 fiasco or the recent Copley Square Hotel $18 birthday rate failure? So excuse us for being a little skeptical about the $9.99 promotion from the Hotel Adagio in San Francisco.
The JDV Hotel is advertising a rate of $9.09 for guests who check-in the Sunday or Monday of Labor Day Weekend (September 6th or 7th) and want to extend their stay over September 9th, or 09/09/09. Just to be clear, the rate of $9.99 is for the night of September 9th. Guests must use code 090909 to book.
Sure enough, we went to the website and plugged in this code for dates September 6 through September 10 and could not get the promo code to work.
Tags: Industry News / W Hotels / Starwood Hotels / Four Seasons / Ritz Carlton / Luxury / → All Tags
Starwood Sells W San Francisco
News outta W Hotels today (well, news besides the opening of W Washington DC): according to the San Francisco Chronicle, Starwood has agreed to sell the W San Francisco to Hong Kong investment company Keck Seng Investments Ltd for $90 million. Per a statement made by Starwood, the sale was made to reduce the 'wood's debt — but never fear, the place will still operate as a W.
But the sale sort of sheds light on the sad-ish state of affairs in the hotel industry:
The high-water mark for San Francisco hotel sales was set around April 2007, when Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces based in Mumbai, India, bought Campton Place from Kor Hotel Group of Los Angeles for about $58 million. That amounted to more than $500,000 per room, nearly 60 percent more than the W's "per-key" price of less than $213,000.
Whew. That W had been for sale since the end of last year, though, so we guess it's good that someone bought the place.
Tags: Deal Drop / Hotwire Hotels / → All Tags
The Good News: You Got a Good Deal on Hotwire; The Bad News...
Yo, this is a story all about how your life could get flipped, turned upside down, and we'd like to take a minute, just sit right there — we'll tell you the bad news about getting an awesome deal on Hotwire. Oops, that didn't rhyme.
Still: Twitter-er DrewMeyers scored a kickass deal on Hotwire. Which is awesome. Remember, Hotwire is an opaque booking site — which means you can get serious deals on your hotel stays but you don't know the name of the hotel until your credit card has been charged for the non-changeable, non-cancellable, non-refundable reservation (you can specify your star class and the general area that you prefer, though).
In this case, the Hotwire game worked out for Drew, who ended up scoring a room at Sir Francis Drake for August 4-7 at a rate of $78 per night. But there is bad news: parking is $46. EW.
The lesson? Hotwire is a gamble. Oh, wait, we knew that. But be super-aware of parking fees — no matter what kind of a deal you get, those extra charges can add up quickly and hit you pretty hard.
Score an awesome deal lately? Tell us where, when, and how much in the comments below.
Tags: Hotel Renovations / San Francisco Hotels / Rockwell Group / Westin Hotels / Michael Mina / → All Tags
Westin St. Francis Has Its New Look Ready
In San Francisco, the famous Westin St. Francis has finished its extreme makeover, and almost on time, too. When we last checked into things, they were promising a Spring 09 finish, and they've nearly got that right. And we're pretty impressed – spending $40 million in just two years is not easy to do.
It sounds like everything we were promised has been delivered: 37" flat screen TVs and handsome dark wood furniture in the rooms, a massive lobby renovation and the new Clock Bar opposite the restaurant. There is now WiFi throughout and as promised, a snazzy new security system, and they've also spent $2 million modernizing the elevators so you'd hope at that price there's no waiting around or stair-climbing ever required.
Tags: Killer View / San Francisco Hotels / Hotel Deals / → All Tags
Can You Really Get This View at the Parc 55 Hotel for $99?
We clicked through on a recent USA Today article about San Francisco's newest hotel deals because, duh, we love deals. But we were also swayed by the picture that went along with the story.
Taken at the Parc 55 Hotel, the picture shows two things we love the most at HotelChatter: laptops with internet connections and amazing killer views (oh, and wine). USA Today says the hotel is currently running a $99 a night deal for a standard room. But we want THAT room. How do we get it?
Tags: 100 or Less / Hotel Deals / Hotel News / San Francisco Hotels / Kimpton Hotels / → All Tags
Save Some Green While Going Green at The Serrano in San Fran
Billing itself as an eco-friendly hotel, the Union Square-adjacent Serrano Hotel in San Francisco is offering rooms this summer for $99. That’s quite a deal for the sometimes-pricy Kimpton family, of which this is a member — especially considering that rooms usually go for about $189 the rest of the year.
The deal is good for travel every day of the week, and runs through September 7. There are a few blackout days, though: June 7-10 and 16-18, and July 12-16. Guess that means Bastille Day is out, zut alors!
Tags: Hotel Video Tours / Personality Hotels / San Francisco Hotels / → All Tags
Inside the Hotel Frank in San Francisco
This past weekend we hit up San Francisco for the 98th Annual Bay to Breakers Race, probably one of the craziest, coolest races we've ever "run." Actually, we just tagged along with a couple thousand unregistered partyers who followed the race route in costumes and dragging beer in kegs and cases behind them. Needless to say, after all this madness we needed a hotel room for the night.
We can't quite remember how we found the Hotel Frank but we think it was probably spotted first on Expedia. The hotel room pictures made the rooms look all shiny and new, leading us to think a new hotel opened in SF's Union Square 'hood. Then we remembered: the old Hotel Maxwell on Geary was acquired by Personality Hotels a while back and the Thomas Schoos-designed renovations were finally completed last Fall.
We ended up springing for a junior suite room on the 10th floor (via Quikbook.com) for about $190 a night and we have to say this might be one of our favorite hotel rooms that we've stayed in all year. Here's a quick video tour and tomorrow we'll hit you with the full review.
Tags: Anti-View / San Francisco Hotels / Personality Hotels / → All Tags
Hotel Diva Strikes Again
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
We hesitated when we came across this shot. First reaction: ew. Second reaction: Wait, isn't that...?
Yes. It is. It's the Hotel Diva in San Francisco. Sigh.
It is rare that an anti-view strikes thrice 'round these parts — usually there are only a couple of rooms with not-so-nice views on one property — but this is the third anti-view we've seen from the Hotel Diva. We had one alleyway shot and one straight-on window/wall. What's the deal?
The funny this is, we took a quickie glance at TripAdvisor (and looked back on our own Diva experience) and it seems that most people can agree that this is an outstanding hotel for the price; a lot of customers rave about the value, comfort, decor and service... it's just too bad about the views.
[Photo: London Dave]
Tags: Anti-View / San Francisco Hotels / Morgans Hotel Group / → All Tags
The Clift Hotel Takes the Minimalist Approach
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
You know, there are a lot of words we use frequently when we're describing our favorite hotel room views. "Killer" and "breathtaking" are among our greatest hits...but do you know what we try to avoid? "Minimalism." Yeah. Minimalism is not something we want to see out our hotel room window. No thank you.
Nevertheless, we applaud the lovely, glass-half-full way that occam looked at the view out the window of a room at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco and captioned this photo on Flickr with "minimalism out our hotel window." Yes, it is minimal indeed.
The Clift, an Ian Schrager-created, Philippe Starck-designed property, has been on our radar for a while — and when we stayed there way back in '03, our room had a lovely sunny view up Nob Hill. How nice it was... and how nice this is not.
Rooms start around $225 and, well, at least the inside of the room is cool — even if there are stupid things like "oranges in a birdcage" (to quote Craig Ferguson) all around the place.
[Photo: occam]
Tags: Hotel Art / Westin Hotels / Holiday Hotels / → All Tags
A Castle Made of Sugar That You Can't Eat
The very first of chef Houdré's Sugar Castles, 2005.
Be honest: you know that part of the reason you watch those Food Network pulled-sugar competitions or crazy TV cake bakeoffs is to see the competing chefs' creations collapse, spectacularly implode or get dropped in a heap of empty calories and heartbreak on their way to the judging tables.
But the other part of your passion for such fine Food Network programming has to do with the fact that sugar sculptures are stunning works of art and perhaps the only edibles that you feel may best be appreciated with the eyes rather than the mouth -- since it's probably not delicious to eat solid sugar that's been pulled into crazy shapes or to eat a cake with more food coloring than sugar in the icing. You've gotta hand it to artists that can use sugar as a medium for their art.
And this year, one such artist, the Executive Pastry Chef at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco, is looking to outdo everyone in the Bay Area with a twelve-foot rotating Sugar Castle for the holidays.
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