Hilton San Francisco Financial District
Location
The Hilton San Francisco Financial District is located right next to the Transamerica Pyramid. The surrounding area is Chinatown, with many exotic shops and eateries. It is around 1.6 km from the “Moscone Center”, a convention and exhibition centre and 8 km from the Golden Gate Bridge. From the hotel, you can easily walk either in the direction of Union Square with flagship stores of most high-priced brands or in the direction of Fisherman’s Wharf or Coit Tower. The cable car route can also be crossed on the way to Union Square. Due to its location in China Town and the Italian quarter, there is a huge selection of small shops, cafés, restaurants and bars.
Facilities:
According to the hotel’s own description on Google Maps, it has “a restaurant, a stylish bar and a wine bar where iPads are available. A breakfast buffet is available for an extra charge. There is also a fitness room open around the clock, a business centre and conference rooms covering a total area of around 1,860 m²”. Unfortunately, the not-so-stylish bar is only open in the evenings, we were not offered a breakfast buffet for a fee and the wine bar with iPads has apparently also been rationalised away.
There is in fact an underground car park, which is of course chargeable.
Minus Points
The hotel itself is disappointing in some respects when you consider the standard of other Hilton hotels outside the USA. Although there is still an executive floor, the associated executive lounge has apparently fallen victim to the red pencil.
In principle, Diamond members are entitled to a complementary breakfast, but not here: with this status, you receive $18 per person per night, which you can spend on food and drinks in the hotel. But the amount is nowhere near enough for a breakfast with coffee and orange juice. And it is also not possible to accumulate this alms. So either spend it every day or let it expire!
We weren’t even able to use the credit on the last day because all the bars and restaurants were closed. The reception smiled this away with a shrug of the shoulders. This is not how I imagine a four-star-plus hotel to be!
We also had to ask for the usual bottle of water per person in the room separately. Although there are two bottles of water available when we arrive, we have to read the printed price for 1000ml three times because we can hardly believe it: EIGHT dollars are being charged here for a litre of ordinary Evian! Unglaublich!
We don’t even want to mock the defective umbrella that was handed to us with a grumpy face in exchange for our room number.
Plus Points
The rooms are large enough, but the bathroom has been reduced to the minimum of space. You have to climb into the bathtub to shower under the fixed shower head. Nevertheless, a big compliment to the cleaning staff: everything is clean and fresh and the fixed soap dispensers are full. However, bathrobes are not provided.
The only thing that makes up for the sparse furnishings is the view through the window front that runs across the entire width of the room.
Conclusion:
A hotel in a prime location that unfortunately does not fulfil the expectations created by the brand.