San Francisco - Arrival Night

We were in San Francisco from Friday night thru the following Saturday morning and had a great time. I'll detail one day per post.  They will be in order, but they will take a while to write/post.  I'm doing this post late Sunday night and need to wrap it up soon, so here goes!

Friday - Arrival Night

To hopefully help anyone else that has never flown into San Francisco, a quick heads up...Your landing approach is over water!  We were not aware of this fact and as the plane was coming in for a landing, right up to the last second all we saw was water.  It was actually a little unnerving.  I did see a blinking runway light at the last second, but that was over water too.

At any rate, we did land safely and somehow made it in one piece to our hotel.  I say that because the shuttle driver was terrible.  Bouncing in between the lines, not paying a whole lot of attention to the road.  But we survived both the flight and the ride to the hotel and checked in at the Chancellor Hotel.

It was around 10:30pm West coast time, so it was about 1:30am our time.  Check-in was uneventful, we arrived at our room on the 8th floor, looked out the window at the view of Union square to the right and the Sir Francis Drake hotel to the left. 

Union Square at Night

Sir Francis Drake Hotel

The hotel and room were just as we expected.  Clean, quaint and perfectly adequate.  We took a few quick pictures and it was time for bed!

Hallways and elevators were narrow, since most buildings are quite old

Chancellor Hotel Room 803

We picked the Chancellor because of the price, reviews and location.  They are very active on Facebook and regularly do free night giveaways, free manager receptions with cappuccino, etc.  Everything lived up to our expectations.

It was a perfect location right in the center of the city, the room was smaller, but most in the city are and really we were hardly ever there and everyone was very nice.  We also stayed there because reviewers said despite the constant noise from the city, it is not a problem once you close your windows in this hotel.  This was a common issue in lots of other hotels that we read reviews for. 

We found that with the windows open you could clearly hear the hustle and bustle of the city and most evenings you could hear entertainers in Union Square.  But close the window and after around 10pm, we had no issues with noise.  I sleep with earplugs, but my wife does not and neither of us were woken up during the night. 

We ate at the hotel restaurant Luques every day for breakfast except for one.  The 3 servers were super nice and friendly, but Mao was exceptional.  He was very funny and very attentive.  The food was great and reasonably priced, but then again I had a short stack of pancakes and home fries every day!  One tip if you eat there, install the Chancellor Hotel app for your phone and in the deals section there is a 20% off coupon you can use every day.  

Two thumbs up!

Posted in: chancellor hotel , san francisco , Travel , union square