Hotwire Hotel: 4* San Francisco (USE) Wyndham Parc 55

[mikki]

Hello!

I am planning a vacation around a necessary trip to Reno in late July (if interested in the details of that booking, please see post here: Hotwire Reno ) Since we have to be out west at that time, we now need to plan our vacation from there.

The plan? To rent a car Sunday, August 1st, from Reno and drive to Napa... stay in Napa through Friday... and finish the weekend in San Francisco, flying home from there on Sunday.

Can anyone recommend an area in which to stay in San Francisco? I have read that the Fisherman's Wharf area is a bit of a tourist trap. We won't have much time in the city. I'd like a very nice (romantic?) hotel that's well-located. Embarcadero? Union Square East? West? Nob Hill?

A nice view would be a huge plus! Upscale & swanky, that's always a plus, too. This trip is for just the two of us - no kids! :)

Any tips, for either San Francisco or Napa, are greatly appreciated. ( In Napa we are strongly considering the Avia Hotel. This is our first visit to the area - both Napa and San Francisco. )

Thanks to everyone for all the great info on these boards ~ Very happy to have found this site! :)

[thereuare]

We have a lot of board users who are local to this area or travel here frequently, i'll let them best advise as to which zone(s) may be best in an attempt to target a romantic property. Once the area(s) are selected let us know your maximum bid and desired star rating and we'll try to help with a bidding strategy.

Please use the PRICELINE and HOTWIRE links on the board to begin your travel purchases.

[Colfax]

rent a car Sunday, August 1st, from Reno and drive to Napa... stay in Napa through Friday... and finish the weekend in San Francisco, flying home from there on Sunday.

Just to confirm the dates, you're looking for a room in SF on 8/6 and 8/7, right?

A nice view would be a huge plus! Upscale & swanky, that's always a plus, too. This trip is for just the two of us - no kids!

My suggestion is to stay somewhere Downtown. FW is a good place to stay too, but it's probably SF's most "family-friendly" hotel district and so there are a lot of kids there, compared to Downtown. Also there are more highrise hotels downtown, if you're angling for a high floor view.

What is "upscale and swanky" to you? Do you like grand old hotels like the Palace and Mark Hopkins? More modern places like the W or Intercontinental? Do you like Kimpton boutiques? Or it doesn't matter just someplace nice?

And what's your approximate budget?

[mikki]

Yes. You are correct. Two nights in San Francisco, 8/6 and 8/7. (We will be in Napa 8/1 - 8/6, but have not yet booked a hotel there.)

A nice view would certainly be great, but is not a necessity. This is a special trip for us, so hopefully we can find rather nice accomodations. Although our time in San Francisco will be somewhat short, we would like to walk around and experience the city. We have previously stayed in both a W and an Intercontinental. The Intercontinental was in Puerto Rico, and unfortunately not a particularly good example of the brand (I think), so I can't comment on that from personal experience. The W in Chicago, however, we did like. Grand old hotels like the Palace or Mark Hopkins? Love them, too! :) Having just perused their websites, I can say we would be quite happy with either. (I must admit the video sampling from the concierge at the Mark Hopkins website has me rather excited about our visit to the city!)

Love the Kimpton boutique style, too! I guess we are rather eclectic. :) Which, I suppose, means we are simply looking for a wonderful hotel - a nice experience. All of the styles mentioned certainly fit that bill!

Our budget? I'd like to keep the rate in the low hundred dollar range, if possible. (Of course... catching a great deal... like some awesome property for less than that would be welcome indeed! LOL) I've seen some nice properties on hotwire for that price from time to time... so hopefully this is possible. While I've used hotwire many times, I've not yet tried Priceline. I am certainly open to giving that a try if it works better for this trip!

Thanks for any help/advice!

[mikki]

Hey ~ quick note ~ I just saw the Argonaut on HOTWIRE and realized it is a Kimpton boutique hotel. I don't really care for the Argonaut, much preferring the more contemporary, spa-feel examples of some of the other Kimpton boutique hotels I saw on their website.

[Colfax]

Thanks, mikki.

You sound very flexible as to hotel type, which gives you more options.

Our budget? I'd like to keep the rate in the low hundred dollar range, if possible.

Since you have something particular in mind (romantic, swanky, maybe a view) I was going to suggest booking conventionally, rather than thru HOTWIRE or PRICELINE, so you'll have more control over what you get.

Unfortunately you're travelling on a somewhat expensive weekend and I'm not finding romantic and swanky for low $100's, at least not yet. Many of the 4* are $300+. (Westin St Francis $350, Grand Hyatt $374, Le Meridien $309, Monaco $348).

Some possibilities under $200 include:

Omni, $160 on Orbitz

Stanford Court Renaissance Inn, $189 on Orbitz

Parc 55, $199 on Expedia

Serrano, $178 on Expedia

Are you interested in any of these at these rates? Or would you rather try Priceline to get something closer to $100, even though you won't be able to choose the hotel?

HOTWIRE has a 4* in USE for $89 that looks like Parc 55 to me. I don't consider Parc55 an especially romantic hotel but the location is very good and you can probably get a high floor with a view, though it might need an upgrade fee.

Since your trip is still 3+ months away you might wait a bit too. I expect more deals for August dates will be coming out around June. Maybe some others on the board will know of other good deals on some romantic type hotels.

[Gallus50]

Hey Mikki - Colfax knows a lot about SF, so heeding his advice is usually a good idea. Here are a few notes from me:

You're early, but sometimes early can be good on PRICELINE. Can't hurt to try. But at this point, I would avoid USW when bidding 4*. That's because I just returned from a $70 (per night) stay at Hotel Nikko. Good price, but rather small room. Fine for just me, not so good for two people and romance. For a bigger room, you have to fork out more $$$. Nikko has been showing up alot lately.

You can also troll TravelZoo, TravelTicker and BookIt.com for specials. They often have good prices and you'd know what you're getting.

One more thought. On HOTWIRE, I also saw a hotel.com listing for the Omni at $160 per night. slruud, who often posts on this board, loves that hotel and books it every time he gets a good price. It gets amazing ratings on TA, and the $160 is also available on their website. Further, maybe check out Kimpton's website to see if they are having specials.

Hope this helps. Let us know what you do.

[slruud]

Although, as Gallus50 says, the Omni is our hotel of choice, we are usually fortunate enough to book it via HOTWIRE or Expedia at a reasonable discount but not as much as PRICELINE. We prefer the Embarcadero area mainly because it is less hectic than the Union Square area, and even though we do quite a bit of public transportation, it's an easy walk to North Beach, Ferry Building, and Union Square....also close to Tadich Grill and Sam's Grill.

All that being said, Lastminutetravel.com has the Hyatt Embarcadero for $99/nite for your dates, wilth the Hyatt website quoting $212. The Hyatt is adequate enough, being that most people just need a place to sleep. We had a quick trip to The City last weekend, and I had no qualms paying the $160/nite for the Omni. If you do go that route, sign up for the Omni's Select Guest Program for a few extra bennies.

If you do look into the Lastminutetravel.com option, be aware the Hyatt shows up in the Downtown/Union Square/Nob Hill area. And I do believe a Lastminutetravel.com reservation is cancellable for a $25 fee.

Good luck.

Editing to add, I see what appears to be the Omni on HOTWIRE for $149/nite.

[mikki]

Hello everyone! Thanks so much for the wonderful advice. I apologize that I've been away from my regular schedule and haven't posted in quite some time. It's been a rather eventful summer, and things haven't quite gone as planned.

Finally last weekend we decided we NEED to get back on track. Although we strongly STRONGLY considered canceling the extended Napa/San Francisco portion of our trip completely, we have decided to keep most of our original plans. While at a coffee shop Sunday we finalized the San Francisco hotel & flights home. Unfortunately the internet connection was terrible! I could not get the hotwire page to load when linked through the BB. Frankly we had trouble getting most pages to load! Unfortunately we were indeed unable to book the San Francisco room using the BB link. But all 7 of the rooms for the wedding the weekend before the San Francisco portion were booked through the BB site's link, at least! :)

Sorry guys...

Anyway... I can update the wins page with my info (which I will do shortly). We both felt we needed to book something and get plans solidified, so we made the leap. A decent price appeared on hotwire for San Francisco, 4* hotel, two night stay, August 4 & 5, for 109.00/night. As I said, we knew we needed to book it then or we weren't going... it's the Parc 55.

Icons that were showing: fitness, restaurant, business center, high-speed internet. It said recommended 90% of Hotwire reviews, but we didn't see a trip advisor rating. The search was made for 2 adults/ 0 children.

I'm glad it's in a good location! Too bad it's light on the romantic side, but I'm sure our time in San Francisco will be great! Please share tips on what to make sure we do while there!!

(This probably needs to be in a new thread - I'll post separately if needed. We need to rent a car from the wedding in Reno on August 1 for the drive to Napa, and ultimately for our time in San Fran. Our plan is to drop it off at the San Fran airport Friday. IS this a mistake? Should we drop the car off sooner and cab it while in San Fran? Is there an airport shuttle?)

Woo hoo - San Francisco here we come! It's our first visit! :)

[yellowdog]

mikki

Thank you for sharing your result with the board!

Enjoy your stay.

Please use the site's HOTWIRE and PRICELINE links to start future purchases.

Yellowdog.

PS. Please start a new thread for your car rental.

[thereuare]

Unless you plan on leaving the Downtown area of San Francisco you can probably do without the rental car... BART and mass transit are readily accessible and parking for the rental car will be an additional expense.

[Gallus50]

I second ditching the car. Parc 55 is nice and very central. I'm sure you'll like it. Have a good trip.

[Gallus50]

BTW - You could take a shuttle, but BART from Parc 55 to airport is a breeze. It runs on a schedule, you don't need to worry about traffic and you'll probably save some $$$.