The Carlton is an older, very pretty hotel with typical smaller rooms and friendly services. The pricing should be excellent if you search for vacation packages, especially those that combine air fare with a stay. I paid $800 total for 7 nights in this hotel and round trip airfare from South Florida to San Francisco, and cancellation insurance with Expedia to stay here around Christmastime of 2010 - an incredible value.
The hotel's rooms, although small (as most hotels that are at least 80 years old or older are), are clean and not "grungy" in terms of old carpeting and furnishings. One thing I did not like is the smell of incense in many places which the hotel must burn to keep in its exotic character. The lobby is charming, and the staff charming. This is a very cute hotel.
The hotel "desk" is small -- the room essentially is big enough to hold a bed and a dresser and that is it. I am a big guy, the bathroom is OK for a large American but barely. There is a trade off between space in your room and grunginess of things like bedspreads in the area.
I would have given this hotel four, or perhaps five starts if it were not for one bad fact -- the internet is free, but so slow during the day it is virtually unusable. They do not password protect access, and everyone in the area can dial in and use it for free. This is the only unpassword protected wireless connection I could see in the immediate area. There are no working alternative services in your room (I am a web guy) and you are essentially stuck unless you want to take your computer to some place with web access and use it there. When I mentioned this to the manager of the hotel, she seemed annoyed -- my guess is she has heard it many times before. I had to go to my friends house in San Francisco to do my work and use the web.
Some people will like, and some will dislike the location. It is on the border of the tenderloin, which is not a safe area at night --- do not walk more than two blocks south of the hotel (south of Geary) when it is dark out. This is the tenderloin and can be a bit of an unsafe area. However, the hotel is only one block from Polk Street --- walk North on Polk for the next six blocks and you are in the middle of one of San Francisco's best and most inexpensive "restaurant rows" - Indian, Middle Eastern, Chinese, Greek, American, etc. restaurants are around in great numbers. In fact, this is the center for Middle Eastern restaurants in San Francisco. Polk Street was unsafe a few years ago, and very run down but has had a great revival in recent years.
It is not, however, a "quick walk" to Union Square. It is more like a 10 or 15 minute walk to central downtown. . In addition, it is very easy to get a cab from this location. there are many nearby bus lines, and the hotel is only a two block walk from Van Ness Avenue.
On an interesting note, Senator and former San Francisco mayor Diane Feinstein is the owner of this hotel. She does not come by (I asked) however.
Stay here if small rooms and lack of internet access do not bother you. You will not find a better buy at the price in the area which as a former San Franciscan, i like.
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