Just had a one night stay on Oct 11 using the free night from the earlier promotion (stay 2 times in any IHG properties and earn a free night). They were selling close to $400 because of the Oracle in SF.
This is also my first time in a IC after years of rooming HI, HIX, and CP.
I told the guy at checkin this is my first time ever in a IC, he said he upgraded me to a junior suite so that I can get the best out of it, he also suggest to me about paying $40 for the club lounge access, which I agreed for it. But he mentioned since this is a free night, he had to take out $200 from my card for any incidental occur in my room, but it would return to my account in 4-5 days after.
Got rm 2320, which is end of the hallway, a junior suite is actually a corner room, don't really feel that special at all aside is a little bigger with another wall with floor to ceiling windows. View is nice but they definately need to clean the windows ! They are completely full of thick black dust ! I mean if Conrad Hong Kong on the 61st floor has clear windows, why can't IC at 23rd floor can't ?
The bathroom is long, with one side is actually against another panel of windows, which of course is also cover with thick black dust once again. There is no separate tub and shower desperate it is so long. The toilet is at the end of the bathroom. There are no scale despite it mentioned in the website. Toiletries are Floris, it seems it is a London company, but I looked at the back of the bottle it is actually made in Czech Republic except the bar soap made in France. One bathrobe is actually been put in the closet but no slippers.
Huge flat screen TV, with minibars underneath. There are two bottles of water put on top of the counter, one is Evian, and the other is Fiji, each of them cost $8, unlike I can get that big bottle of Evian in Hilton Financial District for free as Hilton Gold. The closet is a total design disaster. They had made it way too low for the hanging bar, which cause my pants hanging on the floor, if there is any tiny animals like ants it would certainly easy to climb up to my pants.
Like Lucky had mentioned in his report, the lounge is on the 6th floor, which is really weird, also it need to access with the room card. There is someone sitting right inside the door ask you to sign in your name, time, and guest #. There is a note if you bring in a guest they are going to charge $40 per guest. Since I didn't get to the lounge til almost 6pm, I had missed the afternoon tea, it was already serving Hors d'oeuvres. Serving was minimal, parma ? porscuitto ? ham with melon, fried chinese style shrimp with sweet and sour source, and also another fried item I forgot. They are fresh, hot, and tasty unlike the old Hilton SF exec.lounge serving some cold and awful snacks. There is a lounge attendant Luis which was very friendly and helpful, he asked me if I want any coffee or tea. There is only about 5 people in there despite having a huge convnetion right by the hotel, actually they used up many meeting rooms in the hotel, but I guess no one are paying the extra $40.
I asked the lounge lady about the internet, she told me I could use it in my room as well, which later they would take out the charge when I checked out. However when I checked out, they said they took out the charge for internet because I complained about some channels in TV have no signals at all. Normally I would only get free internet in the lounge, not sure who is saying the right thing.
I went back to the lounge in the evening to see what do they serve. It is something like normal afternoon tea, a few mini cakes and tarts, at the bottom are cookies. They are really tasty, but I don't see anyone refill the tray after I took those, and I really don't know if they have more servings if there are more people. Once again Luis was really eager to serve, I picked my own tea, then he actually put it in a tiny tea pot, and bring it to my table, so I have my own pot of chamomile citron tea.
No turn down service being offered at all. There was a cooler right outside my door, it was there when I checkin to my room til the next morning. There are very unorganized newspaper around the elevators area on my floor, also no one bother to make it a little tidy, not a good housekeeping service.
In the morning I went to the lounge for breakfast, there is no option if you would like to have breakfast downstairs in the restaurant. Inside the lounge, there is one hot tray, scramble eggs, wish they can put some sausages inside. Boil eggs was put on the side. The usual continental breakfast was placed on the table, fruits (blue berries, rasberries, melons, pineapples), pastries, as well as raw salmon, and ham, assorted pastries were also there. However, this time the lounge attendant was rather lazy, he hide inside the kitchen most of the time, did not ask me once if I want any coffee or tea until I got locked out from the lounge. (there was an area outside the lounge with tables and chairs, I saw someone went out of the lounge for a smoke, so I thought I will do the same, but who knows that is a one way door only.
All in all, I thought IC SF is probably comparable to a Westin, but far from a Conrad. It is also lack of the nice double head showers from Westin. This IC does have a portable shower head, but both has weak water pressure. If I want a 5 star hotel, I think I am going to stick with Conrad instead of Intercontinental. My comment may not be justified as this is my first IC property, I may have a better experience in IC Hong Kong though.
IC San Francisco
