I had to work in downtown San Francisco a while back for about 6 weeks. My hotel accommodations were fully reimbursed and the cost of each hotel was roughly the same on special negotiated rates, so I took the opportunity to sample the many SPG properties that are in the area. I plan to review the hotels I stayed at in this series.
- The Palace Hotel San Francisco Review – Suites
- The St. Regis San Francisco Review – The Astor Suite
- The Westin San Francisco Market Street Review – Traditional Room
- W San Francisco Review
- The St. Regis San Francisco Review – Deluxe Room
- The Westin San Francisco Market Street Review – Corner Deluxe Room
- Le Meridien San Francisco Review – Suites
Hopefully you already read my review on the “Traditional Room” because I had a lot of details about the lobby and the hotel itself. I’ll repeat them only briefly here: I love this hotel because of constantly fresh flowers in the lobby and exceptional front desk agents, even when I didn’t get upgraded to a suite as a Platinum guest. The location is excellent for tourists and those traveling on business as it’s walking distance to many parts of the city.
In this review I’ll cover the Corner Deluxe Room, which I was upgraded to only one time during several stays here. It was the highest category of a room as I got, and as you’ll see, it’s questionable whether or not this room can even really be considered an “upgrade” over the standard rooms.
Upon entry it was easy to tell that this was going to be a strangely-shaped room. Corner rooms usually are, but often times they can work to your advantage by giving you additional space. In this room, I felt like I had less space than I would in a regular room.
The bathroom was to the right of the entry door. Straight ahead and to the left were the windows and a desk with all the usual connections. To the left of the desk against a wall was the TV and dresser. It was easy to see that the TV was going to be at a strange angle regardless of where you were sitting in the room.
The rest of the room consisted of just the bed and some additional seating, with a lamp in the corner. There was really nothing else in the room. By this point I’m really thinking that this room is not an upgrade by any means, especially given the lack of space.
The bathroom was a similar story. It had the same furnishings and look as the Traditional Room, but it just felt like there was a little less space in there. At this point it might have been psychological, but it did seem a little smaller.
So how can this room ever be considered an upgrade? Well…I’d have to say it’s the view. On a clear day like the one I took these pictures on, it’s a pretty great view of much of San Francisco. You don’t really see any of the landmarks but you can see the water in the distance. It’s a nice view if you’re into that sort of thing.
Interesting tidbit, the white building in that last picture is the W San Francisco and the larger one on the left is the St. Regis. These Starwood hotels are all really close together!
Is the view enough to make me want this room again? No, not by a long shot. I’d elect the Traditional Room over this one any day because I value the extra space more than the marginally better view. Besides, San Francisco isn’t one of those places to really enjoy a view from – it’s more of an out-and-about-type of city in my opinion.