docbert

Rather surprisingly, this would be the Hilton San Francisco Union Square (With Parc 55 taking a close second place)

But more importantly, you do realize that Hilton.com allows you to view hotels on a map, right? As does maps.google.com (just search for "hotels near union square san francisco")

Kacee

I'd say Parc 55 and Hilton are equidistant from Union Square. Maybe not as crow flies, but in terms of number of blocks (and thus walking time).

Parc 55 is closer to BART.

brokenwindow

I'm going to be in SF for a very short stay, arrive at 1 am on a Friday and leave around 10 am on a Sunday. I am Hilton Diamond and Marriott Gold. From what I can surmise, the Hilton hotels in SF are mediocre, are any of them actually worth staying at? Which one has the best benefits as of today for a Diamond member?

I have stayed at the JW Marriott Union Square before, but the rates are quite high for that property on my dates, so just wanted to check my options,.

jamesteroh

Parc 55 is my fav. I have never stayed at the JW, but have stayed at the Marriott on Union Square and would chose any of the three Hilton's over the Marriott. The hotel was dated and the wifi was so slow it was faster to connect on the Apple Stores signal a block away and use their wifi.

Kacee

Yes, they are all mediocre, as are all the Marriotts. I don't really like any of them (it's just a shame what Marriott did to the Pan Pacific). If you must stay in a Marriott or Hilton, I'd pick based on location and rate.

sethb

I pick based on rate. The Chinatown Hilton has a lounge, which you might find better than the coupons at the (under construction) Union Square Hilton.

catalana

We will be in the SF area for about 2-3 nights near Easter weekend as part of a longer vacation. During my last work trip, I stayed at the Hilton Financial District and had an awesome top floor balcony exec bay view room. That view was memorable, but I'm not sure I can justify spending $100+ on parking downtown.

We plan to visit: Muir Woods, Marin Headlands, CAS, Lands End, Piers, SF Zoo, Presidio....

Can anyone offer insight on any Bay Area Hilton properties that are pretty nice and offer a reasonable or free parking rate that might offset what we might have to spend on parking around the city? Are tolls a cost concern? Or is it best to just stay downtown and use Lyft/public transit to get around to the non-car-required attractions vs parking downtown for a few hours after driving in from the outskirts of the city.

We prefer upscale or boutique style of property, but are flexible. Don't mind a nice ES or HI. There will just be two of us.

Suite Disposition

The Golden Gate Bridge toll payment is now automated and I would suggest you become familiar with your choices of payment and decide beforehand. Tolls are paid one way and that's when you return to San Francisco. http://goldengate.org/tolls/tolltipsforvisitors.php

catalana

Thanks for the toll news. If we stay across the bridge, I'm happy to arrange our schedule so we're only crossing it minimally. I've dealt with these tolls with other rentals and will probably set up an account as soon as I get the car's plates to avoid the daily Hertz charge.

What I'm less familiar with is staying outside the city in a recommended property and the commute in vs already expecting to drive a few places even if we stay downtown.

arlflyer

It is not entirely clear what your itinerary is but I think I am inferring that you are flying into and possibly out of SFO? If that is the case have you considered looking at prices for the in-city car rental locations and doing a pick-up in-city and a drop-off at the airport? Hertz appears to have at least 3 locations in downtown SF. I have had good luck with that in other cities - fly in, take public transport downtown, see the city on foot/with transit, then rent a car in-city and go see the sights out in driving distance. Many times I also score a (sometimes significantly) better rate picking up in-city and dropping off at the airport, since they want cars at the airport. There's also the option of OAK - I've saved 50% before taking BART to OAK, picking up a car there, using it for Napa/etc., and dropping off at SFO.

If I am misconstruing your logistics then please ignore this post.

catalana

We are flying into SJC, then heading to Napa for a few days, then we have about 3 days in SF that I need to fill in, then off to Monteray area for a few days, before flying out of SJC again.

RogerD408

You might want to explore the East Bay for a place to stay and take BART into SF when you want to visit the city. More properties there will have free parking and you have a much larger area to check out. Depending upon how fast you need to get to the Napa area, you can eye-ball the choices on your way up.

arlflyer

OK, thanks for the clarification on itinerary. Have you played around with pricing one-way rentals involving in-city or nearby airport drop-offs and pick-ups so you are not sitting on a car during your time in San Francisco? If not, I would at least give that a look and see how the total cost of car rentals, time, etc. compares to other options (stay outside the city and BART/drive in, pay to park in city, etc.)

Also you refer to a cost for keeping the car downtown - is that the hotel rate or have you explored parking aggregators such as parking panda? If not, certainly look into the latter - I'm not saying that parking downtown is the best option but it is good to consider all and then weigh them in the calculus of what matters to you in terms of the tradeoff between dollar cost and time cost. I personally would probably pay $100 to save 4 hours of public transit riding, for example.

catalana

I'll check out other parking options downtown and weigh them. And yes, I agree, I would rather pay the parking fees than lost time on public transit, especially considering the rest of the trip is pretty much on points/miles. I suspect we'll want to have one car the whole trip for convenience and spontaneity sake. If there's a great recommendation of a hotel though with low parking cost and easy access to/from the city and the other places we want to visit, I'm all ears. Maybe we'll stay outside the city for a couple of nights and then come back to the Chinatown Hilton for one night, just for that killer top floor bay view.

sethb

There's a public parking garage across the street from that Hilton that's a lot cheaper than the hotel parking.