Priceline Hotel: 3* San Jose (Downtown) Hyatt Sainte Clair

[dave123]

Hi,

I'm going to be in San Jose at the end of March and was looking at all the different options (hotels and areas). Can anyone recommend any of the areas? I'm going to a conference (downtown) but will probably rent a car unless transportation is easy to and from downtown from and to the other areas. How easy is it? I've never been to San Jose so if anyone has some recommendations/advice about how nice/not-nice some areas are, and what the tradeoffs are, I would appreciate it.

I will bid later in the week and post my bidding history here

[Scorp]

What are your dates and length of stay? Is your conference at the Convention Center? What kinds of things are you interested in outside of the conference you are attending?

Personally, I always really liked staying in one of the downtown hotels when I was in SJ, but depends on your interests. I hated being stuck out at the airport hotels if I was in town for more than a day or two and found communities like Milpitas and Campbell were OK, but not very interesting. Santa Clara varied a lot.

I especially liked the Fairmont Hotel, but the Hyatt Ste. Claire is kind of a neat heritage property (can have small rooms, though) and the downtown Hilton and Marriott are also nice. There are a few other downtown hotels that are probably quite nice as well. I used to feel very comfortable walking around the downtown area (but not on the far side of the Arena).

If you stay downtown, you can walk from your hotel to your conference (most likely) and to restaurants. (I kind of liked Gordon Biersch as a casual place to go.)

Transit is pretty good and if you wanted to spend a day in San Francisco, you can get there by rail and forget the parking nightmare in SF, but if you wanted to view Carmel and Monterey or visit Santa Cruz, you would probably want a car. There are also some nice vineyards around the Santa Clara Valley. And of course, if you like golf... !

There's a huge flea market in SJ, and a decent art museum. I really enjoyed a visit to the Tech Museum as well.

[Scorp]

Hmmm, it looks like Priceline has merged the SJ Airport and San Jose Downtown zones, which makes bidding for a downtown hotel much more difficult. I don't think the airport has a 4 * property, though, so that might be a strategy to keep in mind. Or check Hotwire. Assuming you wanted to stay in the downtown area.... :)

[dave123]

Thanks Scorp! It's helpful. :)

The conference is the third week of March, it's only one day and I will be there for two days (so I have some free time). For this first visit I think I will just want to get a feel of the city, maybe do some local sightseeing. I'm okay with staying downtown. Just wanted to know if it was a nice area, some downtown areas in other cities are downright scary or dead at night (L.A.). Or if there was another area around SJ where people loved to stay and that they would highly recommend.

The conf is at the convention center. THey offer accomodations at the fairmont but it's expensive.

[thereuare]

Welcome to BetterBidding!

To start you'll need to supply the actual dates of your stay.

[tnguye3]

Scorp is correct for I do live in San Jose.. If I had to stay in the DT area, I would stay at the Fairmont or the Hilton, they are 2 blocks away from each other. Be warned, SJ is not the hippest area.. Its pretty much dead on the weekdays and there are some locations that you can hang out and live it up.. The area is pretty safe, not like LA (I also lived in tthat area). You can pretty much walk around in the DT area in SJ..

[dave123]

Okay thanks for the feedback everyone. I started to bid last week but didn't get anything at a price I was willing to pay. My bid today was successful at the 3* level.

Here is the bidding history

4* san jose

58 - rejected

added free zone 63 - rejected

added free zone 68 - rejected

added free zone 73 - rejected

gave up on 4*

3* san jose

35 - rejected. got offer from priceline to add $9 and retry the same offer. Declined

37 - accepted. Got the Hyatt Sainte Clair. Looks kind of old but it seems right by the convention center, so works for me. And the price is good :)

So final bid is 37+11.18 (tax and fee) for 48.18.

Thanks all, great site thereuare.

[thereuare]

Thank you for sharing your win and bidding history.

Can you also add the date(s) of your stay.

Thanks!

[dave123]

Sorry, it's 3/22-3/23...

[thereuare]

Thanks!