The Palace is a GRAND hotel in the old style, lavishly restored. If you like $100 million worth of stained glass and marble then it is in a class by itself. Two of the restaurants serve rather good food (better than the Park Hyatt). The Park is a modern efficient and well-run hotel, but it was not built as the finest hotel in the world (the Palace is the Gold Rush's gift to SF). Personally I'd pick the Palace and then the Mandarin-Oriental if I wanted a Park Hyatt type hotel.