shadow

Stayed at this property about 2 years ago, for only 1 night, but don’t remember much of that stay other than the restaurant (Steamer’s), which I remember being pretty good.

Arrived Monday at 6:20pm, one person was working the desk with 3 in line ahead of me, about 5 minutes to get to counter. No ‘quick check-in here’ was told when I asked. Got my key and up to a standard room on the 3rd floor. Nice view from the bedroom of both the bay (excellent sightline for the SFO landing approach) and the lagoon in front of hotel.

No amenity box in room, and this property like virtually all other ES has no workdesk, just a round table & chairs in the middle of the LR. The only outlets were behind the TV and both were used by TV, GameBoy & cable box. No place to plug in a computer…but I finally unplugged the Game Boy to use my laptop cord. If an alarm sounds downstairs, I’ll tell them why I unplugged it (never got a call).

Phone was as far away as it could be from the table, in the corner on an endtable. I always carry 3 phone cords with connectors & had to use 2 of them to reach the phone (so I didn’t have to pull the phone across the room).

Went down to the Mgrs. Reception…standard fare there also. Bar with about 7-8 different beers on tap & standard liquor selection. Popcorn cart & pretzels were the only snacks. Pretty crowded though I didn’t stand in line too long at the bar. Stopped at the Front Desk on the way back to ask about the Amenity Box. A different lady than the one that checked me in said she would send it up immediately. It arrived less than 5 minutes after I did. Contained 2 bottled water, bag of corn chips, bag of cookies & granola bar.

There was a menu in the room for a restaurant called Rings Steak & Seafood, but a different one in the Guest Services Book (Steamer’s). Called front desk & they told me that Steamer’s is no more and Rings is the only inhouse restaurant. As I started reviewing the menu I realized the prices were a LOT higher than the previous Steamer’s, almost obscenely high.

Decided to do Room Service instead of sitting alone with the paper. Here’s where they really get you: had a Cashew Chicken Sandwich, glass of iced tea & small pot of coffee. Took almost an hour to get it, and the bill included 19.5% tax + 2.00 Suite service charge. Total cost for my sandwich/drinks was $27.75. Outrageous!

When I finally headed into the bedroom at around 11:00pm, I turned the TV on to watch the news. Not working…so I called the front desk. They said someone would fix it tomorrow. OK, I can live with that.

Used the iron the next morning to press out some wrinkles in my shirt & water gushed out of it soaking the shirt. I drained the water out & ironed the shirt dry. Stopped at the front desk at 8:30am to report the broken TV again & also ask for a new iron. Got back at 5:45pm and neither had been dealt with. Called the front desk & they said sorry, don’t see any record of you telling us about those things. Told them I reported the TV last night & again this morning when I reported the leaky iron. She promised me it would be dealt with immediately.

Decided to walk over to the Doubletree for dinner (about ½ mile away). Since the same management company owns the ES, DT & new HGI, all within a mile radius, I was expecting a high priced dinner there…WRONG! The Chutney Grill in the DT is a great restaurant, excellent service & very good food.


Chutney has a Sundown Menu from 5:00pm-6:30pm, which includes choice of soup or salad, choice of 3 entrees and dessert for $12.95. Since it was 6:20pm when I sat down, I was offered the Sundown Menu along with the standard menu. I opted for the Sundown and was not disappointed. Nice sized mixed green salad with 5 choices of dressing or Tortilla Soup. The entrees were Prime Rib, Herb Rosemary Chicken Breast or Capellini Pomodoro with Roma tomatoes tossed with Parmigiana cheese in a light extra virgin olive oil. Salad was fresh & good with crumbled Bleu Cheese dressing, pasta was cooked just a tad too long, but the finish was not oily, it was quite tasty and the Roma tomatoes were excellent. Dessert was choice of Black Forest Cake or Vanilla ice cream. Opted for the IC with a coffee. Served 2 large scoops of French Vanilla with freshly made coffee…couldn’t finish it. Total bill with tip = $21.00.
Beats the hell out of a chicken salad sandwich & drink for almost $28. The waiter was great, the food very good and the place was nicely decorated & quiet. Counted at least 5 other single diners in the room along with 4-5 other tables of diners.

Stopped at the Front Desk on the way out & told them I was staying at the ES but just had dinner there…can I have some cookies, please? The lady smiled, said ‘sure you can’, and handed me 2 warm ones from the mini oven behind the desk. Back to the ES in the bright sunshine & watched 3 planes land at SFO during the walk.

Checked with the front desk & they said the iron had been replaced with a brand new one, and the TV repair was being done right now. As I got off the elevator I saw the maintenance guy coming out of my room. Asked if the TV was fixed…he said he had to get a new cable box from the shop & would be right back. He returned within 10 min. and had the repair completed in about 5. Apologized for the problem as he was leaving.

Another small thing I didn’t report was a leak under the sink faucet knobs. I put a washcloth behind the faucet knobs so it wouldn’t flood the sinktop and that worked.

None of these problems were major, just minor inconveniences. I’ve gotten so spoiled by the service at other ES this year (PDX, SEA, LAS and Tempe) that these little annoyances seemed out of character for the chain. I would try the DT or HGI next time I’m here (October), but their prices are so much higher than the ES. Lowest price for the HGI was $125/night and DT was $134/night; ES can be had for $99 on a AAA/AARP rate.

RTWSTARALLIANCE

Just stayed at this property last Wednesday.
Booked rate was $119 to qualify for CNTU
promo. for my friend. We had a couple of
problems and rate waived. Made a couple of
phone calls to get a bill. Do not know if
this will work but can always make a cheap
stay here in SMF to qualify. Good
observations were that parking is still free
and you can use before or after stay. They
have a frequent shuttle. Hyatt, Westin and
Sheraton charge for parking during stay and
if you leave car. Also reminded but did not
partake in evening snacks and morning
breakfest. FYI

shadow

Also see...

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum57/HTML/004785.html

Efrem

Note that there are two SFO Embassy Suites hotels, North and South. Be sure to get on the right shuttle bus. (The one in Burlingame that the first post refers to is the Embassy Suites South.)

jspatchwork

I spent one night at ES San Francisco-Airport/Burlingame. The hotel itself was quite nice inside, but for the first time I ran into the situation of packs of pre-teens at the evening manager's reception.

Maybe because I usually travel for business during the week I haven't run into many families at ES hotels.

Have I just been lucky up until this point?

Kids were running around in bathing suits with parents no where to be found. At one point I was behind 5 boys in line who were throwing ice at each other while waiting to get their Shirley Temple drinks at the bar.

I will spare you all my rants on parents who let their kids do such things; I was just wondering if there were Hilton policies on the manager's reception and if this was a common occurrence.

Thanks

korea71

Policies are useless without enforcement. I have yet ro run across this situation but I would have brought it to the attention of the manager.

jspatchwork

Thats what I was wondering, are there official policies regarding childen and the reception?

I had never thought about it before and since the manager on duty was helping behind the bar it was clear he knew what was going on.

cranford

same thing when i was there...really was so ridiculous i just turned and went straight back to my room..i aint that poor that i need to stand in a chlorine-perfumed queue of tubbybubs for my one drink..i just decided that it was their day, not mine..they all seemed to be having a great time and it was the weekend, after all..

ranles

The manage certainly did his job to show how will he can handle unpleasant situations to his important guests!?

dhacker

I spent one night at ES San Francisco-Airport/Burlingame. The hotel itself was quite nice inside, but for the first time I ran into the situation of packs of business people at the evening manager's reception.
Maybe because I usually travel for leisure with my parents during the weekend I haven't run into many of these types at ES hotels.

Have I just been lucky up until this point?

Business people were running around in suits with kids no where to be found. At one point I was behind 5 men in line who were throwing business cards at each other while waiting to get their mixed drinks at the bar.

I will spare you all my rants on business people who don't like kids around; I was just wondering if there were Hilton policies on the manager's reception and if this was a common occurrence.

Thanks

Westcoaster

jspatchwork: If you haven't run into lots of families with kids during your ES stays, then your experiences have been different than mine. Some kids are unfortunately allowed to do whatever they want by lousy parents. I've had screaming kids running up and down the hall outside my ES hotel room late at night on more than one occasion. (Politely asking them to keep their voices down had no effect.) Or, I've seen kids apparently without supervision behaving badly during breakfast. I guess ES attracts families, which is good for the hotel. Too bad some parents don't do their job, though.

hnechets

I, too, have ran into this situation with the business-types....

I spent one night at ES San Francisco-Airport/Burlingame. The hotel itself was quite nice inside, but for the first time I ran into the situation of packs of business people at the evening manager's reception.
Maybe because I usually travel for business without my parents during the weekend and so I haven't run into many of these types at ES hotels. Have I just been lucky up until this point, I asked myself.

Business people were running around in suits with kids no where to be found. At one point I was behind 5 men in line who were exchangine business cards with one another while waiting to get their mixed drinks at the bar. Not one of them ran into me, spilling my orange juice all over my suit and dumping my custome made omelette onto the foor. Not once did I get hit in the face by a piece of flying ice. My eardrums were not pierced by high-pierced shrieks from anyone while I was eating my meal.

And I simply cannot adequately express my extreme displeasure at having these business types board my elevator and actually get right in, push the button for their floors and then just stand there while the doors closed--instead of holding the doors open while they chatted with their spouses, friends, cousins, second cousins, third cousins, aunt Mae and uncle Caleb while I stood there in said elevator listening to the fascinating details of how they were gonna structure their day tomorrow and did you hear about Joseph's operation and what went on in the hospital and how his kids just didn't take care of him right?

I will spare you all my rants on business people who don't like business people around; I was just wondering if there were Hilton policies on the manager's reception with all that alcohol around and if this was a common occurrence.


[This message has been edited by hnechets (edited 07-22-2003).]

SHADO

I don't know about you guys, but I was there on nudist night! :-)

JayBrian

There were many children at the hotel during my recent stay as ES La Jolla. Remember, the evening reception at the ES is not like an executive floor reception but its open to all staying at the hotel.

Jay

dhacker

Sounds like a pretty boring evening to me.