We on our annual trip to the Hawaiian Islands and we always stop over in San Francisco on way back to DC.
We enjoy 4 and 5 star hotels, we have stayed at the Fairmont, Huntington, Hyatt, and several Kimptons.
This time we had our 33 year old son, who wanted his own bedroom and bathroom.
Since this was a family trip over Thanksgiving, we wanted a 2 bedroom suite, with a living room, and possible kitchen.
I found this brand new Fairmont Residence Hotel with fractional ownership, which also sells its units now nightly to the public.
We could find NO reviews of any type,as it had really just opened this past August, but we decided to gamble and try it.
Good points:
Brand new, immaculate, 3 flat screen tv's, living room, and each bedroom. Lovely sheets and beds, great bathrooms, separate showers and bathtubs, modern furniture, table for 6 in the kitchen dining room, dream kitchen, washer and dryer, etc.
Nice first floor breakfast room with free continental breakfast served from 7am to 10am, and nightly wine and cheese from 5pm to 6pm. Also 2 free computer rooms in lobby.
Staff very pleasant and a Maserati sedan to drop you within a 2 mile radius to restaurants and shopping if you can get it.
Two great terraces overlooking the Bay with fire pits and lots of chairs outside for guests to sit outside with their own wine (no bar in hotel, but wine shops below in plaza
This hotel does NOT have a restaurant but does have limited room service from some restaurants below in the plaza.
The possible down sides:
Not for people with walking problems. As you have 5 buildings connected by stairs, long halls, walkways, etc.
For those who like to come back to the hotel and have a drink at the bar, or have a small cafe or restaurant, it has NONE.
There seem to be a lot of different floor plans. Our unit had a terrace bay view all right, but the view was blocked by a gazebo with tables and chairs..
Our unit ran from front to back, as many there do, and the two bedrooms were on the street, bus, cab, truck, people noise.
The units have a lot of huge windows 12 feet high and NOT double paned. You can hear everything outside from some lower units, ask for a high floor if possible.
The place is built right into a new shopping and dining plaza, below you. Rooms with bay view hear all this below.
Our building and terrace was over a Gary Danko Restaurant which is opening in Spring 2009. That could be noisy also.
The staff is pleasant, but clearly finding its way still in this new property. Finding the front door first time is a challenge.
Summary:
The guests we met were intelligent, articulate, quiet, with pretty well behaved children and dogs. The hotel inside is quiet.
When the summer tourist crowd is below in the plaza and all the shops and restaurants are open, the noise level will increase and how it will effect many suites, I do not know.
Over all, we liked it for our needs, It is not for everyone, the location is not central, and the area across the street is still dicey with a garish liquor store across from the hotel entrance.
However, it is up and coming area, and they did a nice job of redoing the old Ghiradelli chocolate factory buildings.
The minor complaints most guests agreed on, noise through their windows from the street or plaza, wanted more good small dining choices in that area, wifi would work in all rooms (ours did not)and that the hotel had its breakfast cafe open till 11pm.
The restaurants in the Plaza below are nice, but not many of them, the all seem to stop serving or close by 10pm except for one bar which is a bit rowdy.
Since they have that lovely room for breakfast, that stays empty the rest of the day and night, they should sell soup, salad, and nice sandwiches for guests till midnight.
And if you arrive there after 10:30pm, there is NO place nearby open to eat or order from room service, nothing. As we found out our first night when our flight arrived late.
They only have "room service" from the few dining spots in the plaza" and those were closing. I was not offered a menu.
So, I would highly suggest to them that they use their "breakfast room" for all day and evening snacks.
We would have eaten bagels, juice, tea, apples, bananas, sandwich, anything, when we finally arrived at 10:48pm.
They did not suggest a thing. From a property touting 5 star service this is not acceptable.
They have food in their mini kitchen, for breakfast and the wine and cheese hour, they could have offered at least apples, oranges, juice, cheese, something. They did not.
We give this new place a low 4 star and when all the plaza construction is done and new hotel bugs get worked out, we want to return again
PS
A sandwich plate, cheese platter, cookies, juice, tea in our room, which we would have paid for, would have been welcome. Instead of "everything in this area is not serving meals at this hour"
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