We’ve compiled our favorite eight San Francisco luxury hotels, when money is no object. These are great, luxurious hotels with excellent service that have been featured on our site for many years. Each hotel is summarized with why it might be your best choice, plus linked to our detailed review and discount hotel reservations. Please leave comments at these hotels on the experiences you’ve had – every review helps our community to have even more amazing trips to San Francisco. These are stack-ranked, in order — the best hotels in San Francisco from the editors of sfTravel.
1. Four Seasons Hotel – San Francisco
2. The Palace Hotel
3. W Hotel San Francisco
4. The Clift Hotel
5. Westin Saint Francis
6. Fairmont San Francisco
7. Intercontinental Mark Hopkins
8. Hyatt Regency at Embarcadero Center
Tags: best hotels·hotels·luxury hotels·san francisco hotels
In downtown San Francisco near Union Square, bathrooms – much less clean ones are very hard to find. But Macy’s in downtown San Francisco has been voted one of the best restrooms in the USA. When it’s time to go – it’s time for Macy’s San Francisco!!!
Tags: macy's·macy's san francisco·public restrooms·san francisco·Shopping·shopping san francisco
New for 2011! Take 10% off with coupon code SWVAN from Super Shuttle fares around the country.
New for 2010! Take 15% off SuperShuttle in every major city they serve (confirm details) until March 15, 2010. Online use discount code GSALE at suppershuttle.com/garagesale.
Check out our San Francisco airport shuttles here for full pricing and service reviews.
Tags: airport shuttle·san francisco·san francisco airport·sfo airport
Parking in San Francisco has basically sucked for a long time. It’s either expensive, inconvenient, or impossible. A new site that contacted us however – has consolidated parking information in one convenient spot. They call themselves “Gottapark” and boy do I gotta park when I am going out in San Francisco.
It’s basically a Craigslist for parking spaces. You can make a quick buck renting your driveway or garage, and big parking lots downtown list too. You pay on the site, and then print out a voucher for your parking.
What we like about Gottapark is that it reveals a lot of “underground” parking that wouldn’t normally exist. The guy who lives next to Union Square, who rents out his garage; a big empty lot; and many other very weird options. If you want to be a little planful in a place where it’s smart too (very crappy parking) – it can make parking in San Francisco a little easier.
When we searched for parking spaces around “very popular” locations like Fisherman’s Wharf, Union Square and Embarcadero Center — the ease of comparing prices *BEFORE* you go is amazing. GottaPark makes it super easy to figure out the best price / location before you are driving around in traffic. Check it out – especially if you are headed to a popular spot like Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.
Tags: parking·Rental Cars·san francisco·san francisco parking·san francisco rental cars
April 28th, 2009 · Contests
Our new photo contest allows your work to be widely shared and win up to a $100 top prize. Check out the full rules and details for the San Francisco photo contest here.
Tags: photo contest·photography contest·san francisco·san francisco photo contest
Hotwire research by city shows that most hotel rates are down 25%-30% from the same month last year. This is a huge drop and it is giving much better prices for San Francisco hotels that we are seeing at all of our reviewed properties. You can check reviews and information on San Francisco hotels at sfTravel.
Tags: san francisco coupons·san francisco deals·San Francisco Discounts·san francisco hotels
Covering the San Francisco hotel industry, we see a lot of prices North of $200, and even “bargains” in the $150 range. When we saw our readers increasingly booking a basic, value hotel – we wanted to share it.
The Opal Hotel is right on Van Ness in San Francisco and thankfully a bit away from the Union Square tourist traps. Its a basic, older hotel – but with good quality rooms and service. Right now – they are regularly selling rooms for under $75 and we expect that to continue with the US recession.
Check out Opal Hotel and their ridiculously low rates.
Tags: san francisco coupons·san francisco deals·San Francisco Discounts·san francisco hotels
April 4th, 2009 · Alcatraz
Alcatraz has always been one of San Francisco’s most loved attractions. The combination of a beautiful boat cruise out to a desolate island – with a troubled history attracts millions of visitors per year. The limited capacity of the boat tours has unfortunately created an after-market for the tickets that is leveraged by tour companies looking to make a quick buck. Shown below is one of many examples we’ve found on the internet. Our advice: watch out, and make sure you are buying your tickets from the direct source for Alcatraz tickets so you don’t get ripped off.
AlcatrazCruises.com – Day Tour – Adult Ticket – $26 (Official Vendor for Alcatraz Tickets)
AlcatrazTickets.com – Day Tour – Adult Ticket – $41 + a $3.95 “processing fee” per order.
Looking through both sites, we found no differences in what you would receive for your money – you’ll just be paying more at the “reseller” ticket vendor. Make sure you buy your Alcatraz tickets early, in advance, and directly from the official ticket / boat company.
There are also numerous “bundled” tours which combine a basic bus ride with the Alcatraz tour to make it more difficult to compare the price. Same concepts apply – and many of the bus tours are rushed affairs which make it difficult to enjoy your day.
Tags: Alcatraz·alcatraz ours·alcatraz tickets·san francisco
San Francisco abounds with high priced tour bus companies that prey on lazy tourists. If you want to be carted around to some busy tourist sites – the charter buses can be convenient – if pricey.
But San Francisco wants to help you get the best discounts and has launched a very unique public bus service for just $7 “all you can ride” per day.
*Update* – The Culture Bus is no longer operating.
The Culture Bus is from the City of San Francisco and directly targeted at helping visitors see the most interesting sites including most of the largest museums and all of the attractions at the huge Golden Gate Park. To be fair, the bus doesn’t go to Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito, and other of the more challenging sites for tour companies — but its convenience to the Union Square hotel district can’t be matched.
One of the best ways to get discounts on your trip is by avoiding rental cars in San Francisco, and the hideous parking fees that will accompany your drives. The Culture Bus is a cool new way to save money and see the best museums in San Francisco.
Tags: san francisco bus·san francisco coupons·San Francisco Discounts
If you want amazing deals on hotels, without getting just “cheap hotels” – Priceline is an interesting tool. Priceline has great deals, but you don’t know what hotel you’re going to get with the “blind” bidding process. A number of sites help you narrow down these predictions and even understand the general level of bidding prices on Priceline for a given market. The sites have been around for years, but exist “undercover” since they move into a grey area of subverting the channel segmentation that allows Priceline to offer excess hotel inventory at lower prices. We’ve used the sites and saved regularly 65% or more from the posted hotel rates at major brand hotels including Marriott and Doubletree. Check it out for your next trip – if you can take a bit of randomness with your hotel selection – Priceline “prediction” sites help to narrow that down considerably and set the lowest possible bid.
Priceline Predictor Site
Tags: hotel prices·predict priceline·priceline
