Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco is an institution – truly. It is also a great place to stay for location, cabs, and a place that will go out of its way for its guests , as great hotels do.
The Fairmont Hotel is located at the top of Russian/Nob Hill – which means from this hotel you can easily get to anyplace in San Francisco,- with minimal traffic. Those who stay by the convention center have to face the traffic of the lower streets to get to the Warf, or anywhere in the city. But on top of the hill you are away from traffic, and it becomes an easy cab ride to anywhere.
Speaking of cabs- we never had to wait more than a minute for a taxi. Our colleagues who stayed at other hotels had lines 25-30 people deep waiting for a cab. So not only could we get to anywhere in San Francisco, we could depend on a cab to get us there fast and easy, without having to wait in a long line.
The lobby is spectacular- with high ceilings, great columns, marble floor– a great place to let our toddler run around without running into people. Contrast that with many hotels that have small lobbies often over-crowded with guests trying to get in or out.
Once you are in the Fairmont you can feel the greatness of the facility. One of the few structures that withstood the great earthquake of San Francisco – you know it is built on rock, where most of San Francisco was built on landfill or sand (that doesn’t withstand earthquakes very well).
The Fairmont survived the great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake
In the Garden Room off the lobby is where 42 nations met to draft the charter of what would become the United Nations. As you go through the different floors in the main hotel you can see suites named after those nations. Don’t forget the Presidential Suite- where every US President since Theodore Roosevelt has stayed.
When we ran out of diapers for our son, they took us in the car to the local pharmacy to pick some up- easy, quick- and something that is in part what great hotels do for their guests.
Room Service and food are great should you want to dine in- as we did one night – while drinking a fine wine off their wine list.
The Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco can be described simply- a hotel with class, great customer service, great beds, and the best location to visit a the great city of San Francisco.
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What can I say, had just 1.5 hours of time between swicnhitg planes on a trans-continental flight and they have soooo many checkpoints and corridors and miles and miles of junctions between terminals that I had to run for it to make sure I caught my flight I know it’s not healthy and it’s stressful, but swicnhitg planes usually is and that’s life
Hi. I have not personally steyad at the pennsylvania Hotel but have read quite a bit of bad reviews and seen some pretty awful pictures. go to tripadvisor.com and get reviews and see pictures for yourself.As for location it is perfectly located by Penn station so you can take the subway anywhere from there or also walk and get to a lot of places within a few minutes like time square or the empire state building. I am going to NY later this month and staying at the new yorker ramada which is basically on the other side of penn station from where the Pennsylvania Hotel is.I dont know how much luck you will have paying in cash because most hotels need a credit card to hold your reservation unless you are planning on not making a reservation which is risky in itself. Hope this helped a little. Michele