This was my first trip to the Disney World resort area where you will find the Walt Disney World Dolphin and Swan Hotels within the Disney parks area. Most chain hotels are located at the perimeter of the parks. The Starwood hotels are located on the same Disney Crescent Lake walking path as three Disney Vacation Club Resorts: Boardwalk, Beach Club, and Yacht Club. These five hotel resorts are situated between the two Disney parks of Epcot and Hollywood Studios and are a fantastic location for someone wanting to walk into Epcot. The two Starwood hotels give guests the option to be in the Disney Resort area without being in a Disney Hotel.

Getting There

If you have never been to the Orlando Disney complex, the place is vast.

I was on a bus taking guests to Downtown Disney from the Gaylord Palms Hotel where I had been staying about five miles away. The Disney Typhoon Lagoon Water Park is across the street from the Downtown Disney complex. I am not sure how much was happening at the water park since Orlando broke a cold temperature record last weekend hitting a low of 37 degrees in the morning.

Then, we drove for miles more and passed by a couple of other Disney Hotel resorts before stopping at the Disney World parking lot. I couldn’t see any of the park rides from the bus parking lot.  Then, we drove for miles more and I saw the Dolphin Hotel above the swamp brush and the bus let all of us remaining passengers off at Epcot. I had seen the iconic A-frame roof of the Dolphin Hotel from a close distance and the bus had driven farther away from it again as it circled around to Epcot.

The hotel told me it was an easy walk from the Dolphin to Epcot. But I could not see the hotel from the parking lot of Epcot. Well, it turned out I was on the wrong side of the park to get to the Dolphin hotel and to enter Epcot is around $85 after tax for a one day pass. After an hour of driving, I had seen mostly swamp brush, swamp lakes, cars on the road, and golf courses, and I wondered if $25 for a taxi would have been a better exchange for my time.

The buses are free within the resort to hop around between the various Disney parks. I took another bus to the Disney Hollywood Studios Park where I was told I could catch a five minute boat ride to the Starwood Dolphin and Swan Resorts.

Wheeling my luggage to the boat dock at Hollywood Studios, I arrived just as the boat tossed off the mooring ropes and putted away across the lake. I kicked back to catch some sun rays as the temperature was up to the 60s in what had been an unusually cold week so far. My luggage and I were first in line for the 20 minute wait before the next boat departure to the hotel.

I now know there is a path I could have walked between Hollywood Studios and the Swan and Dolphin Hotels. All I could see from the dock was more swampland. I didn’t even consider venturing out on my own.

The boat arrives as scheduled and I am ferried over the waters to the hotel. A child behind me repeatedly states for the whole ride, “Dad! It looks like we’re moving!” Seriously, like twenty times.

Welcome to Disney!

The boat passes by Disney Boardwalk villas and the Swan Hotel first. The boat dock is midway between the Swan and Dolphin Hotels. The ferry continues on from there to Epcot.

The façades of the Dolphin and Swan have a Disney type whimsical quality. The grand fountain of the Dolphin and the nearly 30-story high A-frame center building design are eye enchanting.

Just inside the ground floor revolving doors are restaurants. One is evening fine dining at Todd English’s BlueZoo restaurant featuring seafood. All-day dining is available at the Fountain with a burgers and ice cream type-menu.

Fresh Mediterranean Market down the hall past the Fountain has a breakfast buffet and a lunch menu, but closes for the day in the afternoon. The breakfast buffet at Fresh was about $22 after tax and tip. A decent value considering you can spend half that price for a mediocre and unsatisfying meal along the Boardwalk or at the hotel lobby bar which serves up fruit and bagels in the morning. Fresh restaurant offered some unique natural vitamin food drinks among all the usual stuff of pastries, eggs, bacon, sausage, and omelettes. I wish I’d written down the drink names. Sawgrass juice sticks in my mind. Colorful, tasty, blended with fruit juices to a palatable taste.

Up the escalator from the ground floor is the lobby. The lobby is open with a central fountain and lots of seating.

Both the Dolphin and Swan Hotels have convention halls attached to the hotels. A convention came into the Dolphin on my last night, but aside from the pools closing early for a private party there were no noticeable crowds. The Swan on the other hand was packed at one point when I walked through the hotel making it difficult to move through all the convention guests in the hallways.

At check-in the receptionist did an excellent job explaining the $10 hotel resort fee benefits (internet and two bottles of water daily), telling me I had an upgrade (always wonderful to hear), and sharing information about the resort and how I could use facilities and dining at the Swan if I desired and credit it to my Dolphin room. She did a really thorough job of greeting me as a guest. I rate this as a high quality aspect of the Dolphin resort for my experience. The front desk staff seemed on the ball every time I spoke with someone.

There are three sets of elevators for the hotel. East, West, and Central. I was in the central tower which is the A-frame portion of the hotel. There are 20 guest floors in Central. The other wings are 9 to 11 floors I think.  My room was on floor 17 and I had that little heart patter as I realized my room was at the end of the hall. That is often a good sign.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I opened the door to see a couch and two chairs. That is a really good sign. Basically the room was a sizeable junior suite. The floor map showed the 17th floor has two junior suites on the ends with the preferred view looking across to the Swan Hotel and over Crescent Lake to the Disney Vacation Resort area of the Boardwalk. The website lists these Dolphin Hotel room types as Premium Studios.

The end rooms on the other side of the hall are full suites. These rooms look over a vast area of swamp brush and DisneyWorld to the west in the distance.

 

A decent serene view, but not the side of the hotel to see the nearby Epcot fireworks show at 9pm and people watch around the lake walkways.

The eastern side of the east wing has rooms with balconies with great views of Crescent Lake and the Disney Resort hotels and Epcot for the fireworks show at night. The central section of the Dolphin does not have balconies, except I think the 20^th top guest room floor has balconies with Presidential Suites.

My Premium Studio room had three sinks and a massive walk-in closet. A nice remodel feature would be a closet half the size and a bathroom double the current size.

The room was furnished quite comfortably, only the lack of decent air conditioning was uncomfortable. I attributed it to the window sunlight heating up the room, but it turned out to be a weak AC. I didn’t report it until check-out because I was too busy to be distracted by an engineer in the room.

The fantastic thing about the Dolphin and Swan is the resort feel of being in Disney, but with far fewer kids. I don’t think I ever passed by the wonderful looking buffet at Cape May in the Disney Beach Club without hearing a child having a crying fit. And I passed by that buffet several times over three days.

 

The Disney Boardwalk

My adrenaline gets going when I am in a new place and I desired a walk around the resort area. Across the bridge connecting the hotels to the Disney Boardwalk I soon came to Big River brewpub. This brewpub was slightly lower priced than the hotel ($10 brewpub burger vs. $12 hotel burger) and offered a variety of microbrew beer. The brewpub and the ESPN Zone were the most happening places daily in the afternoon on the Boardwalk.

The walkway along the Boardwalk has outside entertainers, nighttime dance clubs open at 7pm or 9pm until 2am (21 and older only), an Italian restaurant with outside pizza slices, a bakery, loads of candy options, games, and the ESPN Zone. Inside the Boardwalk Resort are additional bar lounge and dining options.

The walk around Crescent Lake from the Dolphin or Swan and back again can be done in 20 minutes without stopping or take an hour or more just walking and stopping to see people and admire the views. There are not really too many shops.

Walking to the entrance of Epcot from the Dolphin or Swan hotel takes about ten minutes.

Disney Yacht Club and Beach Club

The Disney Yacht Club and Disney Beach Club share large pool facilities. There seemed to be no identifiers for hotel guests so pretty much anyone with a bathing suit could wonder in and use the pools. I am not saying the Clampett’s drive in to use the pool for the day mainly due to the relative isolation of the place, but there appeared to be no impediment to a Starwood Hotel guest walking over and using the Disney Resort pools and vice versa. Whether it actually is allowed or not I do not know.

The entire walking path area between the five resorts makes it seem like the two Starwood Hotels are part of the Disney complex with access to much of what the Disney guests have and from what I could tell when checking hotel rates, a much lower price for the Dolphin or Swan.

The Disney Resort lakefront pools were expansive and great for kids, but the pools at the Dolphin were also substantial in size and much less crowded.

Dolphin Hotel Pools

Being on the white sand outside the Dolphin felt like a resort getaway. Kicking back in a hammock and having the Cabana bar and restaurant staff attend to your drink and food needs is certainly a lounge- away-the-day option at the hotel. I put in a good three hours during my stay at the Cabana poolside seating to drink some Stella and eat outside. The temperature was in the high 60s and low 70s most of the day.

The resident ducks at the Cabana Bar made me chuckle. This trio of ducks came around each day and they seem to live a life of luxury walking around between tables eating what is on the ground or what hotel guests feed them and then doing laps in the lap pool. Perhaps bar scraps are not a truly healthy diet, but what a place to exist. Donald Duck would be proud.

 

Dolphin and Swan Resort Facilities

The hotel has the lobby level Mandara Spa and a ground floor fitness center with an attendant.

There are large video game rooms at both the Dolphin and the Swan. At least during my stay there seemed to be more children resident at the Swan.

All in all, these hotels feel and look like resorts. This is the kind of place you can hang out for days and feel like you have drifted away into a Disney dream. And truly you have. Disney is all around you when you stay at the Walt Disney World Dolphin or Swan Starwood Hotels.

The Walt Disney World Dolphin and Swan are both SPG category 4 hotel awards at 10,000 points per night. The hotel gives guests a credit of 500 points per night if maid service is refused, excluding the last night of your stay. I paid for my stay with SPG points. Getting 1,000 points back made the Premium Studio upgrade room a high value SPG award for my stay.

A guest leaves a hotel only with memories and impressions.

My memories of the Dolphin stay are fond memories and my impressions were good. I highly recommend these Starwood Hotels for the guest seeking the total Disney experience while staying in a Starwood upper-upscale environment just a little bit removed from the Disney entourage.

Oyster Hotel Reviews is a website offering users an abundance of visual information through hundreds of photos for a single hotel. This colorful photo hotel review site has been developing a portfolio of hotel reviews, one city at a time, for the past year. I like the concept of showing numerous photos of a hotel. Recently, San Francisco hotels were added to the site.

I commented to a hotelier once that when I write about hotels I want bias in my review. There is the AAA Tour Guide for a sterile, just the facts hotel description. A reader benefits from finding a reviewer with similar travel style and interests. Most Oyster Hotel Reviews have personality.

The interesting aspect of the Oyster Hotel Reviews is the different take I have on many of the hotels and neighborhoods described by the reviewers in San Francisco. I think travel reviewers are like music DJs.

My experience may not have been the typical experience for a hotel guest, but it was my experience. I try to reflect my stays accurately, good and bad, when I choose to review a hotel. I try to separate what may be one time circumstantial inadequacies from what appear to be systemic issues with the hotel experience. As always, hotel loyalty elite membership usually makes a significant impact on the hotel stay experience.

A common statement I see repeatedly in the Oyster hotel reviews for San Francisco are locals don’t hang out in the SOMA arts district, Union Square shopping and theatre district, or the Financial District. That doesn’t help me as a hotel guest with the hotel location. You don’t tell me where locals hang out. Besides, do I really want to be where the locals hang out? I’m a tourist.

Together with Fisherman’s Wharf, another area where locals don’t hang out much, these four areas contain 90% of the hotel rooms in San Francisco. There are 10,000 to 20,000+ tourists in these neighborhoods on any given day and plenty of businesses to cater to them. Restaurants, bars, and cafes are all around the downtown area. The central Financial District around the Mandarin Oriental and Le Meridien is a location a little more closed up at night and weekends, but there are great pubs and restaurants scattered throughout even the financial district.

The entire central business district of San Francisco is the hotel area for 95% of the city’s rooms. Of the city’s 750,000 locals, 95% live in other parts of San Francisco. San Francisco seems like a small city until you try moving from one end to the other in a bus or taxi.

 

Oyster Hotel Review – Starwood Hotels Luxury Collection – The Palace 

In the service section the reviewer states there was no doorman at arrival to help with bags and follows with the statement, “That wouldn’t happen at the St. Regis.”  Well, that did happen to me at the St. Regis last June when I was ignored by the doormen. Car valets were standing within 15 feet of me and didn’t bother to assist me at a time when no other guests were arriving.

One issue I have noticed with the Oyster reviews is the tendency to label hotel rooms as suites when there is not a separate sitting area room.

My helpful suggestion to make the photo sets more user-friendly is please use the same labels as the hotel’s own website uses for room types so a reader can match the Oyster photos to the correct room rate when searching hotel rates.

I find it interesting that the bed at the Palace Hotel was described as “sumptuous”.  Perhaps I like an abnormally firm bed since in my opinion I found the soft, bouncy bed the most serious flaw of the property after staying in three different rooms at the Palace Hotel this year.  The reviewer may have never had a back injury to know the value of a firm mattress.

Loyalty Traveler Palace Hotel review April 20, 2009 

History of the San Francisco Palace Hotel and California Earthquakes – Loyalty Traveler April 23, 2009

 

St. Regis San Francisco

Oyster Hotel reviews rates the St. Regis San Francisco as the best luxury hotel in the city. I won’t argue with that since I haven’t stayed in all the other luxury hotels. The St. Regis beds are the best I have slept on in 2009. The Oyster reviewer states a large staff prevented front desk pile-ups and the hotel has some of the best service in town.

A hotel may have only one opportunity to make a great impression. My three stays at the St. Regis San Francisco this year had me convinced the hotel had cut back too much on service. I didn’t feel the front desk was adequately staffed on several occasions. I saw inconsistencies in service between stays. The butler service is a standout feature of the hotel and that aspect of the service worked fine during all my stays.

Loyalty traveler St. Regis San Francisco hotel review part 1 – June 15, 2009

Loyalty traveler St. Regis San Francisco hotel review part 2 – June 16, 2009

 

Westin St. Francis

The Oyster.com reviewer suggests to readers to pick the Palace Hotel over the St. Francis. The rooms in the historic building are described as “small – 200 square feet or so.”

Sure, there are small rooms in the historic tower. I saw a woman once working her way around the bed in a tiny interior room and I wondered if she regretted booking the St. Francis. I have not stayed in one of those 200 square feet rooms.

I absolutely love the historic building rooms facing Union Square with windows that open and the sound of cable cars clanging below on Powell Street and musicians playing in the Square. My wife and I find the historic building of St. Francis to be some of the most romantic hotel rooms in the city. 

I am a Starwood Preferred Guest Platinum member. I book those 200 square feet room rates all the time when staying at the St. Francis. SPG elite-level membership means I have never actually had to stay in one of those small rooms. The Tower rooms are good for views, but lack the ambience of the historic section.

Loyalty Traveler Westin St. Francis Hotel review – June 7, 2009

 

Hyatt San Francisco

“Spitting distance from the Embarcadero and Union Square.”

The Embarcadero? True. The hotel is actually called the Hyatt Regency at the Embarcadero on building nameplates.

Spitting distance from Union Square? False

I recall being rather late for a meeting after a 15 minute walk to meet my sister last year.  I left the Hyatt Regency Club to meet her at the Starlight Room at the top of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel at Union Square. Even Tiger Woods would require a few long club drives to get his ball the 0.75 mile distance from the Hyatt Embarcadero to Union Square.

There is little mention of the top floor Regency lounge in the Oyster review. As a Hyatt Diamond elite-level member of Gold Passport I get complimentary access to the Regency lounge. This is a great lounge for relaxing, viewing the waterfront, eating snacks and breakfast, using computers, or relaxing in a full body massage chair. The lounge makes this hotel my favorite in San Francisco when the rates are low.

The reviewer also lists this hotel as a dull part of town at night. I love the food places at the Ferry building and there is a bit of life here after dark. Take a night ferry on San Francisco Bay. The hotel is physically connected to the Embarcadero Complex offering a few blocks of shopping, a variety of restaurants, a movie theater, and overground pedestrian bridges linking the complex from the Hyatt hotel  to Le Meridien Hotel (formerly Park Hyatt) on the opposite end of the complex. There isn’t going to be a 4am rave happening in the Embarcadero Complex, but if you want to eat and drink, go to a comedy club (The Punchline), or see a movie, you can find it all in this neighborhood.

Loyalty Traveler Hyatt Regency photos and website useability issue – August 25, 2009

Loyalty Traveler Hyatt Regency San Francisco review – August 5, 2008

 

Bottom line on hotel reviews: There are all types of travelers and all types of reviewers. One person’s experience and expectations may not mirror another’s.

I am glad to see Starwood Hotels St. Regis (Best Luxury Hotel), Westin St. Francis (Best Hotel Restaurant) and Le Meridien (Best Business Hotel) rate highly with Oyster Hotel Reviews for their best in class picks.

Oyster Hotel Reviews San Francisco Best Hotels link.

 

Have you posted an online hotel review to TripAdvisor, FlyerTalk, or USA Today?

Daniel Edward Craig, 007 hotelier in Vancouver and mystery writer, examines the personality types inhabiting online hotel review domains like TripAdvisor.com. He provides an entertaining profile with his blog post of nine personality types to look for when reading online hotel reviews.

Craig’s advice when reading amateur reviewers is to watch out for the cracks. They come in many guises like:

1. The Self-appointed Expert

2. The Patron Saint of Hotels

3. The Up-trader

4. The Down-trader

5. The Uncle Bob

6. The Extortionist

7. The Shill

8. The Forensic Examiner

9. The Corporate Saboteur

And remember our documentary-critical reviews of the hotel establishments we lay our heads are the same places other people call the office.

Thousands of Hyatt Gold Passport members are half-way to a free night after checking out of a Hyatt Hotel today, October 1, 2009. Hyatt Gold Passport’s “The Next Big Thing” promotion is huge this year with Faster Free Nights, Stays Count Double, and bonus United miles available in combinable promotions.

In August, I was speaking with Barbara DeLollis of USA Today and discussing with her the current hotel loyalty program climate of 2009 as the best year in the past decade for hotel loyalty program promotions.

I’ve had the equivalent of $3,000+ in free hotel nights over the past six weeks with Starwood Preferred Guest staying at the St. Regis San Francisco, St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point, W San Francisco, and Westin Napa Verasa. The hotel stays in May during Starwood’s Stay 2 times and earn a free weekend night only cost me $1,800 for the 16 hotel stays to earn 8 free nights.

And now Starwood is offering double elite credit for the remainder of 2009 for current SPG elite members. My SPG Platinum elite status provided added value, including full two-room suites at several hotels.

In August, I stayed in some low cost Holiday Inn hotels while traveling.  Priority Club’s Stay 2 nights and earn a free night allowed me to redeem a free hotel stay at the $300 per night InterContinental San Francisco. Too bad their promotion was limited to four free nights.

As a Hyatt Diamond elite member (25 stays or 50 nights) I recently received a free night credit for a Hyatt Place or Summerfield Suites to use by the end of 2009. As a SPG Platinum member (25 stays or 50 nights) I received a free night credit for any Starwood Hotel up to a Category 5 to use by the end of 2009. Ken Burns’ National Parks documentary has really stoked my interest in driving through Yosemite to stay at the Westin Monache in Mammoth Lakes this month before snow season begins.

I have stayed twice this past year for free at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands Inn. That is truly my staycation destination. The Highlands Inn is just a short 8 miles south of my home in Monterey. Kelley and I think it is one of the most beautiful locations in the world. Of course we are biased locals.

My point is not to espouse on my great travel trips.

I am simply a loyalty traveler and you can be one too.

Seriously, this Hyatt Faster Free Nights offer with Stays Count Double elite credit is truly an offer not to be missed.

And now that Gold Passport has opened Faster Free Nights to members who choose miles rather than points for earning preference, this promotion is a no-brainer if you are a United 1K member (and perhaps even if you are just a 1P, 2P, or general UA member like myself).

Whether your travel plans take you to London, Paris, Tokyo, Aruba, New York, or to a Hyatt resort just over the hill, the opportunity to earn free nights while attaining elite status and building up your frequent flier miles is an unprecedented hotel loyalty opportunity.

Priority Club had an earning limit of 4 free nights during their spring/summer promotion and SPG only allowed free nights to be redeemed for Friday, Saturday or Sunday this summer. Hyatt will allow you to book your winter 2010 7-night free vacation in a resort if you earn the nights and find the availability.

Here are some Loyalty Traveler tips for Hyatt Hotels Faster Free Nights planning:

1.       Chart the rates for your regional Hyatt Hotels and plan discretionary trips to hotels when rates are low. For example, during Starwood’s Free Weekend nights promotion I was able to stay in every Starwood Hotel in San Francisco and only once did I pay over $125 for a hotel room. This coming weekend most of these hotels are in the $300 per night range.

 

I find creating a spreadsheet helpful in plotting my stays during low rate nights at the Hyatt Hotels in my region. If you don’t have computer spreadsheet skills, then just draw out a grid on paper and track hotel rates. You will see patterns and with a little effort and research you can save hundreds of dollars on hotel rates.

 

Compare rates on Hyatt.com to online travel agency (OTA) rates. I like to check Kayak.com to get a meta-search view of rates. Hyatt’s Best Rate Guarantee allows a member to make a claim over the phone without having to book a room first. If you see a rate discrepancy with a lower rate on another OTA site and Hyatt approves your claim, then Hyatt will match the lower rate and take an additional 20% off. Discrepancies are more common than you might think.

 

Look for Gold Passport G Bonuses when making reservations. A simple check for a G Bonus link to the hotel you are planning to stay can increase your points earning by 1,000 to 2,000 points.

 

 

2.       Vary your stays to make the acquisition of free nights more pleasurable. Hyatt Place Fremont is my local cheap night hotel at just $70 all-in on most weekends, but no upgrades, fewer Diamond amenity points, and no lounge.

 

$20 more can put me in the Hyatt Santa Clara where there is a lounge, a breakfast restaurant, and the opportunity for nice upgrades.

 

In 2008 I only stayed in half of the Hyatt brand hotels in the San Francisco Bay region during an elite fast-track Stays Count Double promotion. This fall I will try and make at least one stay in the hotels I missed last year and check in with more Hyatt Hotels in southern California. I hear San Diego calling me.

 

3.       Be persistent and be flexible when it comes time to redeem your free nights. Starwood Lurker reported St. Regis Monarch Beach was the most requested free night property during the SPG promotion. I found availability over half the weekends in summer during my regular periodic checks. Sometimes availability lasted less than an hour. Westin Napa was a difficult property to get. I got it.

Hyatt Carmel Highlands is one of the more difficult hotels to get with FFN. I stayed twice this past year using FFN credits there.

Related Boarding Area blogger posts for Hyatt’s fall 2009 promotion:

One Mile at a Time – http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemileatatime/2009/09/30/13500-united-miles-and-one-free-night-at-any-hyatt-for-every-second-stay-united-1ks-only/

View from the Wing – http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfromthewing/2009/10/01/the-best-hotel-promo-ive-ever-seen-13500-united-miles-and-a-free-night-for-every-two-cheap-one-night-hyatt-stays/

Loyalty Traveler – Analysis of Hyatt FFN and Stays Count Double (Sep 17, 2009)

Related Loyalty Traveler posts:

Loyalty Traveler – Carmel Highlands Inn review (Jan 5, 2009)

Loyalty Traveler – Hyatt Regency San Francisco Review and Stays Count Double Economic Rationale (March 22, 2008)

The St. Regis Monarch Beach resort opened in 2001 and is one of five high-end hotel resorts along the Orange County coast. The hotel and restaurants have an ocean view, but resort-owned Monarch Bay Beach Club on the beach is a half-mile away from the hotel. A golf cart shuttle leaves from the front of the hotel every 15 minutes or so to shuttle guests to the Monarch Bay Club at the northern end of the beach.  Alternative access is via paved paths through the golf course giving guests and the public access to the center of the beach. The beach is about a 15 minute walk from the hotel.

St. Regis Monarch Beach has 400 rooms on four to six floors located in a north and south wing. The central hotel public spaces include several restaurants, pools, a Grand Lawn in the center, the Pacific Lawn on the south end, Monarch Point lawn on the north end, and the Botanical Gardens to the west between the golf course and pools.

Beautiful sculpture fountains adorn the grounds. The resort is a pleasant environment for walking in gardens and golf course grounds, gazing at the beauty of the architecture, manicured landscape, and nature’s Pacific Ocean in the distance.

Our first night was typical of our hotel stays this year. Kelley just finished her last round of chemotherapy Friday and she slept most of the 7-hour drive Saturday from Monterey to Dana Point. We arrived around 6:30pm and Kelley lasted about 90 minutes before passing out in bed.

 

Left alone to drink German lager on our outdoors room patio, I drank myself to a good buzz then wandered the paved walkways of the grounds around the hotel taking photos.

 

Most night photos don’t come out too well with my small digital camera. The Ocean Pool at night is a cool place. Music plays in the potted plant shrubs surrounding the pool.

 

The interior of the hotel has several areas for seating without being in the restaurants.

 

Outdoor areas have some seating away from the bars and dining.

Most of the central hotel terraces are for restaurant diners and bar guests. There are a few balconies without seating for public views over the resort grounds.

Observation Deck

The Rotunda

The Rotunda is located near the Pacific Lawn on the south side of the South Wing guest rooms. The building looked gorgeous in the orange glow of sunset.

 

The ornamental floor had a grand piano.

The conference wing of the hotel has design features worth seeingif the area is not packed with people.

Remember, this is the St. Regis hotel that spawned the luxury hotel corporate backlash in 2008 after AIG racked up one extravagant folio. The lavish retreat for its high achieving employees soon after the company received government bailout funds sent a message reverberating through the luxury hotel industry. An LA Times article in August 2009 stated the St. Regis Monarch Beach received about 25% of its resort revenue from financial sector industry meetings.

Restaurants

Stonehill Tavern, a chef Michael Mina and designer Tony Chi creation, is the high-end dinner restaurant at Monarch Beach. While I appreciate beautiful spaces, I don’t appreciate fine dining, so here are links to restaurant reviews from others who may offer better insight.

http://www.zagat.com/Verticals/PropertyDetails.aspx?VID=8&R=105529

http://www.opentable.com/rest_profile.aspx?rid=1785

 

Motif Restaurant offers all day dining. Sunday brunch is their signature dining experience with a full buffet including a pancake bar, crab, oysters, desserts, and more. The $70 per person price tag ($90 with champagne) was too rich for my wallet on this trip.

 

Pool Bar & Grill is located outside, adjacent to the Grand Lawn on the pool level.

Crust is  Starbucks-style breakfast menu and environment located on the north wing side of the central lobby. There were bagels, coffee, juices, and muffins.

 

Monarch Bay Club is located on the beach. The club has a bar and restaurant for oceanfront dining. During the day there was a second bar set up outside on the lawn. Tables in the grassy area were in use by some guests who worked away on computers at the lawn area tables while relaxing near the beach.

The Wine Cellar is for private functions and was just outside our room. Saturday night there was a function and candelabras were positioned on the sidewalk in front of our patio adding a little more ambience to our room 146 ground floor location.

The Lobby Lounge and Terrace is the place for drinks inside or outside for the resort and ocean views.

 

 

Spa Gaucin offers café dining. I spent several hours in this part of the resort, but I never saw anyone order food. Complimentary dried fruits, grapes, oranges, and ice water flavored with fresh fruit slices were on a table in the café adjacent to the fitness room and just inside from the lap pool.

Club 19 is the golf clubhouse restaurant just west of the north wing of the hotel. Monarch Beach Golf Links is part of the resort at St. Regis.

 

Hotel Wing Exteriors

 

Related Loyalty Traveler posts:

St. Regis Monarch Beach – Part 1 – The Room

St. Regis Monarch Beach – Part 3 – Pools and Beach

The Starwood brand “element hotel inspired by Westin” is located in the western Las Vegas suburb of Summerlin at the base of the mountains, approximately 12 miles from the Las Vegas strip.

 

There are currently four element hotels open in the USA.

1. Element Arundel Mills, Hanover, Maryland

2. Element  Lexington, Massachusetts
3. Element Houston Vintage Park
4. Element Las Vegas Summerlin

The element Las Vegas is located directly off I-215 North, adjacent to the  side of the freeway at exit 23. One side of the hotel faces the interstate. The front of the hotel faces the mountains. The interior side faces the pool and a new business park of office buildings. There is very little around the hotel except for a Chevron gas station. This area is still being developed.

The element hotel is designed for the extended stay hotel market segment.

First impression: Compact, convenient, all mod cons within reach.

 

The desk area provided a lamp, AV box, and desk chair. The primary complaint I had with the room was the broken desk chair. The chair would not rise from its low level position. The hotel promptly had a replacement chair in the room within five minutes of my phone call.

Free wireless at the hotel – oh yeahhh! 

The element Las Vegas Summerlin is a four story hotel with five basic room types.

1. and 2.  Two types of studio suites have partial or full kitchens.

3. One bedroom suites have separate bedroom.

4. Two bedroom suites.

5. Executive Suites have extra sitting room space.

There were two couches for seating and one opened into a queen bed.  I stayed in a Studio Suite with kitchen facilities including a stove top (no oven), full size refrigerator/freezer, microwave, dishwasher, and sink.

 

 

In the cabinets were a toaster, pots, pans, and dishware. A coffee maker rounded out the traditional conveniences of a hotel room.

 

 

The King bed was quite comfortable and I believe it to be a Westin Heavenly bed.

The lobby of the element provided a comfortable environment. Breakfast had 20 to 30 people over a couple of hours hanging around in the lobby. The place provided a cool space for eating, reading, surfing the net, exercising, wii and TV entertainment (until Tiger started losing the PGA Championship). A lobby pantry provided access to several kinds of snacks for purchase throughout the day.

 

 

 31” HD TV in room and 42″ HDTV in lobby provided numerous channel options and real HD reception.  The hotel TVs were great for watching the 2009 PGA Championship. 

 

 

Free breakfast included juices, cereals, breads and pastries, smoothies, yogurt, and fruit. Hot eggs, sausage, and pancakes were provided in warming trays. For diners on the go there were wrapped egg and tomato bagels.

Hours are 6:30-9:30am Monday – Friday and 7 -10am Saturday and Sunday.

An evening complimentary reception with food and drink is provided 5:30-7pm Monday –Thursday. I stayed on a weekend and missed this service.

The lobby was a popular place with seating for about 60 at square dining tables, several couches and chairs, and counter tables. A Wii set-up using one main TV in the lobby was constantly in use by kids. Two computers were available in the lobby. A good size, bright and naturally lit with a bank of windows fitness room was frequently in use.

 

 

 

The outdoor pool has two shade cabanas. A long ledge in the pool allows people to sit in the water while leaving room for swimmers. The front desk receptionist said swimming was allowed until 11pm. The sign at the pool and information in the room stated pool hours were sunrise to sunset.

 

 

A large outdoor poolside grill is available for guest use.

 

The hotel is designed with a green concept. Daily maid service will straighten the room and make the bed. Extended stay guests receive a full room cleaning with bed linen changes every three days. The parking lot has dedicated hybrid car parking spaces. I realized there is a master switch for electricity when I couldn’t get the room lights to turn on. The master switch turned off does not prevent the TV working.

Kelley’s  complaint is the absence of a ledge for shaving her legs in the large shower stall. There is no bathtub in the bathroom. A plastic stool could remedy that issue.

 

 

 

Overall, I really like the element hotel. The Element Las Vegas seems popular with families.

 

 

The location in Summerlin makes the Las Vegas Strip a 15 to 20 minute drive. The Red Rock Casino and Resort 2 miles north, just off I-215, provides a large entertainment complex for family activities near to the Element Hotel. Red Rock has a large bowling alley, multi-theater movie, kids center, and a row of indoor fast food options like Panda Express and hamburger places adjacent to the casino. Red Rock is also a popular concert venue. Jackson Browne played the weekend of our stay.

 

Starwood Hotels element Las Vegas is a Starwood Category 3 Hotel.

Free nights using points are 7,000 per night.

Cash & Points nights are $45 + 2,800 points.

Platinum members receive only 250 points as a Platinum amenity (same for aloft hotels) rather than the usual 500 points per stay.

Room rates were approximately $109 per night in August 2009 with AAA rates as low as $75 per night for the basic junior suite and Executive Suites around $150 per night.Laundry room contains four washers and dryers. I think it was $1.50 load washer, $1.25 Dryer.

The air is cold and I wrap the white bed comforter tighter around my neck.  I continue to stay in bed at the Sheraton Colonia, Uruguay on a cloudy June morning. Two large palms on the golf course are illuminated by subtle lighting. These palms are the primary feature of the vista through the windows from my bed. Outdoors is bird land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open curtains and windows allowed me to enjoy the serene quiet of night as I occasionally awoke and counted twelve flashing navigational lights in the distance marking islands on the Rio de la Plata. Nine days of travel have taken me to Washington, D.C., New York City, Atlanta, and Buenos Aires. I am not a city person. I like outdoor walks in the woods and on the beach.  I instantly fell in love with the Sheraton Colonia Golf Resort & Spa in Colonia, Uruguay. A sense of calm relaxation enveloped me from the moment I arrived.

 

 

 

 

Winter here means temperatures in the 40s and 50s. The outdoor pools are drained for maintenance and repairs. The sandy beach is littered with yellow leaves from the marshland trees, and the occasional plastic bottle.

 

The only sounds I hear are the variety of bird songs and the lapping water of the Rio de la Plata on the sand. Serenity and quiet, well-being and relaxation, these are the offerings of the Sheraton Colonia in the off-season.

 

 

 

 

Colonia, Uruguay is an easy one hour ferry ride from Buenos Aires, Argentina on the Buquebus. There is a world of difference between the two locations. In Buenos Aires I walked the broken stone sidewalks while choked by auto and bus exhaust coming from the crowded streets. My senses were abused by mechanical noise and noxious fumes.

 

 

 

 

I feel totally wrapped in silence after more than a week of planes, trains, busses, and subways. Having no loud sounds bombarding my ears is a soothing respite from travel. This is rural Uruguay. This is vacation land and just the remedy I needed to recuperate from all the urban hustle of this past week.

 

 

 

 

The palm fronds blow in the breeze awash in subtle orange light. A gentle beat of a ship’s motor echoes off the water. The open patio door hasn’t cooled the room as much as I hoped. This is one of the darkest hotel locations I have ever seen. There are so few lights outside beyond the orange glow of palms at the resort. The stars must be incredible to view here, however, the sky has been cloudy and the air thick with fog for most of the past two weeks. The airport in Buenos Aires has been closed for days at a time.

 

 

 

 

I turn on the TV to check the airport situation and see more bad news of the Iraq war. I turn off the TV after 15 minutes to turn the serenity back on here in Colonia by the Rio de la Plata. The patio tile is cold on my feet as I open the sliding door wide to let more cool 11 degree Celsius air into the room. I slip on sandals and stand outside listening to the river.

 

 

 

 

Not since being in Bali in 2003 at the Nusa Dua Resort the year after the Kuta bombing have I been in such a beautiful resort to find the hotel staff outnumbering the hotel guests. I have 1,200 square feet in a two-room, two full bath suite – both with spa tubs, an office decorated in gorgeous stone walls, a closet large enough to sleep in, two wall mounted TVs, a kitchenette, seating for 12 persons, and two patio balconies.

 

 

 

 

This is a lovely resort even in the winter off-season. The estuarial environment may lose more of its beauty and solitude as a large housing development is scheduled to be built and encompass the existing Sheraton Golf and Spa resort.

 

 

 

 

The indoor/outdoor pool is heavenly. Three or four people were working out in the adjacent fitness room and a trainer was working with a couple. I swam for an hour with nobody else using the pool.

The indoor pool has a narrow channel extension to the outdoors. The warm water surrounded my body while the cool breeze blew across my head. Birds singing songs in the shrubs and bushes outside the hotel created a living musical soundtrack to soak by.

 

 

 

 

Twice I was the solo diner at the hotel restaurant. The table by the window was decorated with fresh flowers. My noontime meal had three kinds of bell peppers, eggplant, carrots and three pieces of a sole-like fish. There was also some crispy leaf vegetable unfamiliar to me. The plate was streaked with a chocolate sauce.

 

 

 

 

A staff of women watched my every move. It was necessary to maintain my gaze at the plates of food or out the window since anytime I glanced toward the group of women it triggered a service request for anything I might need. My table was loaded with beer, water, three kinds of bread, a cheese plate, and the fish entrée. What more could I need?

Note to self: Remember in future to sit facing away from the kitchen and staff to avoid being watched stuffing my face.

UB 40 played over the restaurant speakers. Rock & Roll is the global constant. In contrast, the spa ambience kept soundscapes music softly playing.

 

 

 

 

Here is a 4-minute video slideshowI made from Sheraton Colonia photos during my stay. This video has several more pictures of the hotel and my hotel suite.

Starwood Hotels Sheraton Colonia Golf & Spa Resort was a category 3 hotel when I was a guest in June 2007.  My room cost $45 and 2,800 starpoints for a Cash & Points stay. The lowest available published rate at the time was $160 per night.

Sheraton Colonia is now a Starwood category 4 hotel and available for $60 + 4,000 starpoints as a Cash & Points award or 10,000 points per night as an all points award. Published room rates are between $160 and $300 per night.

August 2009 BuquebusBuenos Aires-Colonia ferry rates: $138ARS (Argentina pesos) or about US$36 one way for tourist class and $188ARS, about $50 one –way in First Class.

 

 

 

 

The W Silicon Valley in Newark, California gets no respect. While birds may flock, the people don’t when it comes to hotel life in this southeast portion of San Francisco Bay. Guest complaints are not focused on the rooms. The standard rooms are large for a W Hotel. The hotel has an outdoor pool, free parking, a BBQ pit, games and books in the lobby, dark lighting, and constant music. But the East Bay location between a tech business park and a wildlife refuge in the salt marsh of the southern end of San Francisco Bay, 25 miles from the W San Francisco, gives it a reputation for being in the middle of nowhere.

 

I have stayed here every year since 2003. This is the cheapest W Hotel in the brand. Rates lately have dropped as low as $79 for Friday and Saturday nights. Back in 2003 and 2004 rates were frequently only $59 per night on weekends and rose to $109 in 2007-2008 before the latest room rate collapse. The hotel’s location in a corporate business park means weeknight rates are much more expensive with average rates still between $139 and $200 per night.

 

The lobby design and room amenities will seem familiar to hotel guests who have frequented W Hotels. The TV in guest rooms is still 20^th century. No flat screens here. The presence of a microwave and sink sort of make up for the retro TV. And there is a DVD player with a library of selections available from the front desk.

 

 

The pool is outdoors and can be lively at times.

 

The restaurant and bar are much less lively most of the time. The main difference between this W Hotel and most other W Hotels is a lack of spark among the clientele visiting the hotel. (Perhaps I’m just being introspective.) The W San Francisco is a cosmopolitan happening place with people dropping into the bar to hang out for the ambience. W Silicon Valley clientele is techs on business and families or couples booking a nice hotel in a cheap East Bay location. “I’ll stay in tonight and watch TV dear.”

 

The workout room is small, but I have never seen it overly crowded.

The feature of the hotel that gets the bulk of complaints is its location. All food eateries are a couple of miles east in the shopping district of the city of Newark. A car is essential for this hotel, or at least a bicycle.

The aspect of the hotel that I want to focus on and rarely see referenced in hotel reviews for the W Silicon Valley is its location adjacent to the San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge. The preferred view for the W Silicon Valley looks west to the San Francisco Bay and tidal marshlands. The area between the hotel and the hill a mile west used to be salt crystallizer ponds as recently as the 1970s.

 

If you have flown over San Francisco Bay and seen the large squares of different colored water near the land’s edge of the southern San Francisco Bay, you may have wondered, What kind of water pollution problem is happening?” These large ponds of water enclosed by levees and dikes are actually salt crystallizer ponds where water is evaporated and sea salt harvested. There are still a dozen square miles of salt ponds operated by Cargill Salt.

 

 

Salt harvesting was practiced by the local indigenous people at the time of the Gold Rush. Salt ponds were a naturally occurring phenomenon in the San Francisco Bay prior to the Gold Rush years of the 1850s. Winter rains established large ponds in the marshland called “salinas”. The six month dry season from May to October in coastal California meant the salinas naturally dried in the summer heat and left sea salt deposits.

Salt harvesting has been a lucrative business in the San Francisco Bay area for 150 years when industrious businessmen realized there were better fortunes to be earned through harvesting sea salt rather than gold prospecting. By the turn of the 20^th century the entire marshland of the southern San Francisco Bay had been reshaped into large levee-enclosed salt ponds and the ecosystem was dramatically changed for the Bay as levees and dikes prevented tidal surge into the estuaries. The marshes disappeared over decades.

 

 

The past 30 years has witnessed a concerted effort to reestablish the southern San Francisco Bay wetlands from salt crystallizer ponds to marshlands. This is bird land. The southern San Francisco Bay is an important location on the shorebirds Pacific flyway. Over one million shorebirds pass by or nest here every year. The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge has a visitor center a mile west of the W Silicon Valley hotel. There are trails to walk in the marsh and along the bay front. Colorful patches of red, white, and green water are visible in parts of the refuge where active salt crystallizer ponds are still present.

 

 

The San Francisco Bay landscape is changing once again. And the W Hotel Silicon Valley is on the front lines of this urban restoration project.

Links to Loyalty Traveler Videos  of W Silicon Valley, Newark, California on YouTube:

Room Tour #536 Spectacular Suite with Bay view

Lobby

Pool

San Francisco Bay view from hill in Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge south of Dumbarton Bridge 

Educational resource San Francisco Bay Restoration links: 

 

 

 http://www.southbayrestoration.org/FAQ.html

Cargill Salt San Francisco Bay:  http://www.cargill.com/static/sb/

Hey parents – here is an excellent source for a school project on SF Bay restoration and ways to get involved:  http://www.southbayrestoration.org/pdf_files/BayNature%20Oct%202004.pdf

Le Meridien San Francisco in HD (Hotel Detail)

 

Le Meridien is one of my favorite hotels in San Francisco. The hotel has rooms on the upper floors of this 24-floor hotel with incredible views of Coit Tower and North Beach from one side. The other side of the hotel looks to the Embarcadero Center and Oakland Bay Bridge. The San Francisco Financial District bank skyscrapers are another vantage point when on the south facing side of the hotel.   

Room views are best on upper floors and corners. There is one room (xx19) on each floor in the northeast corner of the hotel with a small concrete balcony and chair.

 

 

 

These are the only balconies on the north face of the hotel.

 

 

 

The Financial District facing side of the hotel has some rooms on the upper floors with large patio balconies containing a table and several chairs. The structural architecture captivates my eye with the uniform jagged lines and angles.

 

 

 

Arrival:

The BART train/subway travels between the SFO airport and BART stations with parking garages in the suburb cities south of San Francisco like Millbrae, South San Francisco, Colma, and Daly City. Parking is $1.00 per day on weekdays in some of these BART station garages. This is the best option for someone with a car who doesn’t want to pay $20 to $60 per day to park in San Francisco. Weekends are free parking at BART stations, but you must request a multi-day parking pass in advance for weekday overnight parking or risk getting a ticket in the morning.

The BART station at Embarcadero Center exits outside the Hyatt Regency which is the opposite side of Embarcadero Center from the Le Meridien Hotel at 333 Battery Street. The walk is about 10 to 15 minutes from BART Embarcadero Station to Le Meridien Hotel.

The Embarcadero Center offers restaurants, movies, and shopping along elevated landscaped pedestrian walks on several levels all the way from the Embarcadero, the street across from the waterfront, past Embarcadero Towers 1-4 and to the Le Meridien Hotel, a half-mile away at the opposite end of Embarcadero Center. Le Meridien Hotel is part of architect John Portman’s Embarcadero Center urban landscape and one architectural structure of San Francisco’s finest redevelopment projects of the 1970s.

 

 

 

Location:

The location in San Francisco’s Financial District is both an advantage and disadvantage.

The Financial District area around Embarcadero Center can feel like a dead zone in the evening and on weekends when the large bank buildings of the Financial District are closed and most of the cafes and food courts around them also shut down.  There are few other hotels around and there are not many night and weekend pedestrians. The hotel’s physical attachment to the Embarcadero Center still offers restaurants and entertainment options during these off business hours times.

On the other hand, the Financial District is packed with business workers during weekdays, offers a variety of low-priced eateries during the day, and nearby are actual residential streets. There is a large Safeway grocery store just two blocks away from Le Meridien Hotel. Small city parks with green space are nearby, and the waterfront is much closer than when staying at hotels around Union Square or SoMa district around Moscone Convention Center. This location is midway between the tourist centers of Union Square and Fisherman’s Wharf. Chinatown is just a few blocks away.

 

 

 

The Hotel Room:

Room booked: Junior Suite at $139.30 for a special offer Starpicks rate. $161 after tax.

The room upgrade I received on the Junior Suite booking was Room 2004 – the 20th floor Water Tower Suite.

 

 

 

 

The Water Tower Suite is on the Financial District side of the hotel. The entry hall to the room is about 70 sq ft. with an end table and a closet, but one drawback to the room is the room door faces directly onto the suite bathroom. Closing the bathroom door is necessary when someone is entering or exiting the room to prevent a direct line of view from the hotel hallway to the shower of the suite.

 

 

 

 

I recall a junior suite I had a couple of years ago with the same design of the room door looking directly into the bathroom, but that bathroom  was oriented perpendicular to the room door and only the sink was visible from the hall. The Water Tower suite bathroom is aligned straight with the hallway, so if both the room door and the bathroom door are open, the hallway view is straight through to the sink, toilet, and shower.

A right turn from the entry hall opens into a 13’ by 25’ sitting room.  The sitting room has a 42-inch Panasonic HDTV, two couches of same white upholstery, one 48” of seating space with only one armrest side (not particularly comfortable) and a 70” seating space couch with two armrests (much more comfortable). A matching chair with armrests and a large rectangular ottoman with a different covering, but matching legs completes the main seating. The living room has seating for seven on upholstered furniture and the desk chair.

 

 

 

 

There are no door dividers to the bedroom. The room design creates an open flow, yet separate rooms.

Both the sitting room and the bedroom each have two large floor to ceiling windows at 7 ft.  x 7 ft. and a sliding patio door that opens just 4 inches.

 

 

 

 

Total window space for the Water Tower Suite is almost 200 square feet of viewing pleasure.

Bedroom is 15’ x 25’ = 375 ft. Bathroom 6 x 11 ft = 66 sq. ft.

The Water Tower Suite is modern urban living at its finest. Over 800 square feet of real estate in the San Francisco downtown Financial District stratosphere on the 20^th floor of the Le Meridien hotel.

 

 

 

 

Kelley said she felt too tired to walk around, but she would walk the streets if I wanted. We started laughing because we have spent 30 years walking the streets of downtown San Francisco whenever we came to the city simply due to no alternative. You can either hang out on the streets and in the parks of San Francisco for free or you pay to use facilities for eating, shopping, entertainment, and going to the toilet.

This is the highest state of living in the City. Just to sit in a high-rise apartment room above the city streets and watch the TV while gazing out the windows to the city around us is luxurious living.

Why walk the streets when we have a luxury hotel room with two couches and three chairs and 200 square feet of window viewing?

 

 

 

 

I walked to Safeway three blocks down the road and purchased a chicken dinner and we hung out in the room watching TV shows we had never seen.

All was hunky dory until 7am the next morning. There was an employee labor action boycott loud and clear going on outside the hotel. We had slept with the windows open and even on the 20^th floor we could hear the voices blaring over the megaphone,

 “Check out now! Boycott the Le Meridien Hotel! Don’t check in! Check out now!”

I spoke with the protesters and they told me Le Meridien management is the only Starwood Hotel in San Francisco to not have negotiated a fair labor contract with the workers. This hotel and the Hyatt Fisherman’s Wharf are the two hotels union workers are asking hotel guests to boycott.

 

 

 

 

The employee action went on nonstop for two hours from 7am to 9 am Saturday morning. I had been wandering the hallways of the hotel and came back to the room to find Kelley asking what was going on. The noise had wakened her even with her earplugs in and she woke up vomiting for the first time in two months of chemotherapy. That kind of put a damper on the hotel stay. Fortunately the protest stopped at 9am and Kelley was able to go back to sleep. I requested a 4pm checkout and Kelley slept until 2pm.

 

 

 

 

Le Meridien San Francisco Hotel Suites:

Penthouse Suite 2416. This top floor suite is the equivalent of four rooms, but this suite does not have a balcony. All named-suites face the old Federal Reserve Building side on the south. Corner rooms (room number ending in 19) on the north side have a small balcony and view of Coit Tower and North Beach. Some rooms on south side of hotel have large balconies.

Carlton Tower Suite 2312

Canberra Suite 2212

Sydney Cove Suite 2104

Water Tower Suite 2004 (Loyalty Traveler YouTube video link)

Georgetown Suite 1904

Villa Magna Suite 1804

New York Suite 1704

Promenade Suite 1618

The hotel lobby has glass windows looking out to the street. There is a complimentary coffee service set up at the bar during morning hours.

 

 

The corner room of the lobby at Battery and Clay is called the Library. The room was a library when I stayed here last year. The books have been removed – replaced by two large screen TVs.

 

 

 

There is a 24 hour fitness room at the hotel. A fee can be paid for day access to a swimming pool at a club down the street.

 

 

 

Pubbing:

On Merchant Street alley behind Elephant and Castle is a Czech pub with happy hour from 4-7 every night and large Czech beer (20oz?) are $3.50 – down from normal $5.50. It is called Prague Café.

 

 

 

 

My favorite place is Fuzio just across the street on the third level of the Embarcadero. This restaurant has a hopping happy hour from 3pm-6pm Monday thru Friday with $3.00 appetizers and $3.00 pints of beer. I love drinking Peroni beer at Fuzio’s when visiting Le Meridien.

Parking:

Parking will run about $60 after tax for overnight valet parking at the hotel. Meters around the hotel are $3.00 per hour and mostly limited to 1 or 2 hours until 6pm or 9pm.  

Loyalty Traveler’s cheap-ass parking tip: Along one-way Sansome Street, going towards Coit Tower, the parking meters are less expensive after crossing Broadway Street. And parking is actually unmetered, but still restricted to 2 hours about six blocks from the hotel along Sansome Street heading towards Coit Tower. Sundays are free parking in most metered areas. There is a low cost parking garage at Sansome and Vallejo at $14 weekdays and $10 weekends, but no in-out privileges and the garage is closed at night. You should be able to park overnight, but you can’t get your car during the night and you will be charged for two days if you arrive at 4pm and leave 4pm the next day.

Sansome Street between Vallejo and Green Street is one block of unmetered, 2-hour parking. Battery and Vallejo has meters at $1.50 per hour with 2-hour limit.

I was unaware of the union boycott for Le Meridien San Francisco at the time I made the reservation. During this past year there has been a campaign to have college funds disinvest in HEI, the corporate owner of Le Meridien San Francisco.

Here are two YouTube videos with more information and a Cornell University newspaper article:

HEI Le Meridien Workers Fight for Justice in San Francisco

Students at UPenn Stand with HEI Hotel Workers 

Students Protest Ties To Co. With Alleged Labor Law Violations – Cornell Daily Sun

I hope labor relations improve with HEI and a contract is worked out so I can return one day to the Le Meridien San Francisco. I really like the hotel. For the meantime, this hotel is on my San Francisco “Do Not Stay” list.

“Don’t you forget no way

Just who you are and where you stand in the struggle.”

     -Bob Marley-

 

 

 

 

 

This past weekend I took advantage of one of the free weekend nights I earned last month for a complimentary $500 stay at the St. Regis San Francisco. I struggled with this review and I have decided to do it in two parts. 

Here is a subjective hotel review from my wife’s perspective as she described her St. Regis San Francisco experience to me. 

“St. Regis San Francisco has an ideal bed. The pillows were the best pillows I’ve ever had in a hotel room. The sheets felt great. I could sleep all day. The room view felt like we were so much higher than the 12^th floor. The room was bright for San Francisco and the view from the bed through the windows was puffy clouds floating across the sky.”

 

I was impressed that she kept commenting about how fine the sheets were to sleep in for the minutes she would wake up and talk. The St. Regis San Francisco room description on the website specifically mentions Pratesi linens, but I hadn’t mentioned that detail to Kelley. 

Kelley slept in the St. Regis bed in Pratesi sheets for 20 hours of our 24 hour stay. She is in the third week of her six week radiation cancer treatment. Kelley thought the hotel was the quietest of any hotel we have stayed in the past month. She enjoyed the hotel room thoroughly.

St. Regis San Francisco Hotel Room 1202 Detail:

The room was incredibly bright with natural light when we walked in. The window viewing space is about 170 square feet along two exterior walls, one wall facing the W Hotel and the other wall with windows looking across Third Street to Yerba Buena Gardens and Moscone Convention Center with a full view of the enormous San Francisco Marriott Hotel.

 

The two unobstructed windows facing the adjacent SF MOMA and the W Hotel about 150 yards away are 6 feet high and 4.5 feet wide. The chaise lounge was nice for one, but I ended up sitting in the desk chair most of the time for a more comfortable seat. The window ledge on one wall is a terrific feature for sitting on the edge of a skyscraper and looking across to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the W San Francisco Hotel.

One hotel review I read commented on the openness of the room as a bit too open for privacy.

This room view from the desk to the toilet may clarify the hotel reviewer’s feeling for lack of privacy.

 

 

 

There are shutter style doors at the bathtub to close off the view from the bedroom and W Hotel view when the shades are open.

 

Another sliding door adjacent to the hall table can block the view from room 1203 next door and the hall. There is also a separate sliding door to close off just the toilet and shower.

 

Room Size

The hotel website describes most St. Regis hotel rooms as 450 to 500 square feet. Executive Premier Corner rooms are described as 550 square feet.

The actual room space including the 3 feet wide inside window ledge measured about 515 to 525 square feet by my calculations and around 30% of that space is entry hall space and closets. The room wall facing Third Street zigzags and the bed is placed in the widest part of the room where it is 17 feet across. The room width changes along the 34 foot wall as it zags inward from the column to the front door in three locations. The front door entry has the narrowest width at 11 feet.

The ceiling at 9 feet high in the main bedroom section adds to sense of space with the higher than average room ceiling.

All three windows in the photo below are actually the same size. The view out the one corner window is mostly obstructed by the large building column that juts into the room. You can still stand by the window and actually see out the full size window.

 

The third window nearest the main room door is larger, but has the feature of looking directly on the neighboring room’s window if the sheers are open.

 

 

 

 

The sheers need to remain shut for privacy from the bed or bath view.

My two primary room design complaints are both related to the TV.

1)      There is a large 42-inch LG TV, but there are no HD channel signals on the cable.

2)      The 42-inch large screen TV blocks a huge portion of the best window view in the room.

Two large windows face west to Yerba Buena Garden and the hills of San Francisco that separate downtown from Golden Gate Park and the Pacific Ocean. When lying in bed the hotel guest looks at a sliver of one window mostly blocked by the building column.  The second window with the primary vista of the room is blocked by the 42-inch TV screen. A third, even larger floor-to-ceiling window looks into the windows of the adjacent room 1203. The room windows provide ample light but highly limited functional viewing space for their size.

The window view with the TV looked like this:

That is why Kelley just saw clouds from bed.

Looking out an unobstructed window behind the TV shows the Marriott Hotel on right and InterContinental Hotel in the left background.

And at night I had to straddle the TV to photograph this:

I have never spent so much time in a room leaning against, wrapping around, and straddling a TV to get pictures and the preferred view.

TV Solution: Wynn Las Vegas has TVs that electronically descend into the cabinet and this would be the perfect furniture solution for this particular room design. (August 31 update. I do not remember where I saw the descending TV cabinet. Apparently, not the Wynn Las Vegas. Wynn Encore has a swivel TV to allow viewing from either the bed or sitting room.)

Room Views

This room had one of the most open views looking across San Francisco of any hotel we have stayed. Watching clouds and seagulls fly by the windows in the morning was entertaining. Kelley commented how we seemed so much higher than 12 floors with the open space view. The southwest corner windows view across Moscone Center to the hills. The open vista across San Francisco looking west is obscured by the 42 inch TV.

 

Electronic Window Shades

The electronic window shades are one of the coolest room features. A touch of the button opens or closes four different window shades. The shade behind the room corner column has a small width room shade requiring manual adjustment.

The basis for another complaint I saw in other hotel reviews is the inability to individually control the window Roman shades. They work uniformly to open or close simultaneously. This limits the room lighting options with the window shades.

All the natural light streaming in during daylight hours would make the option to individually control window shades a highly desirable feature for blocking light on one wall while keeping shades open on the adjacent wall. The uniform motion remote-controlled electronic shades preclude this option.

Bathroom:

Small bathroom TV is a feature when using the bath mirror.

Sink, tub, shower, and toilet all looked good. The rain shower head in the separate shower stall was great.  Oddly enough there was no hook for hanging a towel near the shower stall. The one hook in the bathroom is on the far side of the tub 5 feet from the shower door.

Bath products are REMÈDE products which is also the spa brand on the 6^th floor adjacent to the hotel pool.

Entry Hall

A bench, stool, or chair in the entry hall for changing clothes would be a desirable feature. I repeatedly found myself going into the entry hall to change so I wouldn’t need to close the Roman shades over all the windows to block the view from the two windows facing the W Hotel.

The spacious room windows allow visibility throughout the bedroom and bathroom from the W Hotel. The entry hall and toilet/shower are the two areas not visible from W Hotel when Roman blinds are up and bath shutters are open.

The local San Francisco paper and the Wall Street Journal newspapers were in a cloth bag on the doorknob in the morning.

A nice feature of the room is the separation of the room door from the bed and bath area.  Kelley pointed out to me she was able to remain in bed while hotel staff came to the room door for services and even did a mini-bar check in the entry hall without ever coming into sight of the bedroom or bathroom.

There is no coffee maker in the room. Fortunately I located the complimentary coffee service at the 4^th floor Vitrine Restaurant as I wandered around in the morning.

Lobby Bar

http://www.iceportal.com/brochures/partners/2635/Brochure.aspx?mediaid=297550

The lobby was hopping with activity on a Friday evening.  Women and men dressed finely.

The lobby was empty for most of the day Saturday, rarely more than a few people.

I had a wonderful beer at the Ame bar, St. Peters IPA from the UK, $10 before tax and tip.

Pool and Fitness

The indoor pool is located on the 6^th floor. The pool is open 24 hours which is a hotel privilege not commonly found.

The yoga room is a nice meditative environment.

The fitness room on the 5^th floor is highly functional with two dozen or so machines in two rooms.