The Club Quarters of San Francisco

I stayed at the Club Quarters of San Francisco on Clay Street for nine days in december 2007. Club Quarters was an excellent surprise. Located in the financial district near Market Street, the Embarcadero and Columbus Ave, it offers quick access to many important locations of San Francisco.

The entire hotel is impeccably clean and a few services are offered which are appreciated by any business traveler or tourist:

• Free wireless internet access at a very reasonable speed.
• In the lobby there are three or four computers with internet access and printers which guests can use at will. You can for example search for direction maps and print them out.
• Also in the lobby there is a coffee machine and a hot water source along with a small basket of tea bags. Guests can at any time of day or night go to the lobby and get a free hot drink.
• At every level there is a source of cool water along with a stock of empty plastic bottles. Guests can either pick up a bottle from the stock or refill their own.
• The Elephant and Castle bar, which can be accessed directly from the hotel lobby, has very good prices, good music and very good service.

If on top of that we consider the fact that the personnel is very welcoming and efficient and corporate rates are quite low - $126 per day - the Club Quarters of San Francisco really starts looking the ideal accommodation facility for regular business travelers. If you plan to go there on vacation, you should know that tourists rates are a little bit higher. But if your budget can accomodate the difference I would totally recommend the place.

The Radisson-Lexington Hotel in New York

Just checked in at the Radisson Lexington on Lexington Avenue in New York city and I’m highly disappointed. It’s quite expensive - about $460 per day - and it’s just horrible. The problem with this hotel is that it’s like a rotten cake with a shiny good looking icing on top of it.

Here’s a description of the rotten part:

• A heavy smell of humid dust strikes you as soon as you enter the room.
• The window is so dirty I could barely see through it.
• Power plugs are totally misplaced. I had to crawl under the table in order to plug my laptop and my phone. Later I discovered that some extension plugs are hidden on the sides of the desk lamp.
• When I had to crawl under the table to find that plug I realized where the bad smell was coming from: the carpet: it’s old, dusty and falling apart.
• You have to pay for your internet connection: $10 per day. At $460 per day for the room, I would have expected that to be included. The room we had last week in San Francisco was $120 per day and high speed internet access was included.
• The bathroom sink was dirty and I had to clean it up myself. And I found someone else’s hair in the tub. Later I found that the sink also had a small leak.
• Due to the humidity in the air the wallpaper on some of the walls was going off in the corners. I touched the wallpaper which was detaching from the wall and it was humid.

So that’s the rotten part of the cake. Now for the icing:

• Big flat panel TV in the room. That’s nice if you’re here to watch TV, but given the general situation of the room, I’m gonna spend here as little time as possible.
• Good quality bed, clean linen - this should normally go unnoticed but given the bad situation of the rest of the room, it is actually a surprise.
• Very expensive Herman-Miller Aeron chair in the room. But again, the room is not my office. I would’ve preferred by far a nice clean carpet that doesn’t smell bad, dry walls, a clean window and a clean bathroom along with a less expensive chair.

So I think my advise is clear: don’t go to Radisson Lexington in New York. It’s expensive and not worth the money. I found all this when I checked in there on December 9, 2007. I would be glad to post any positive upgrade on the situation so let me know if you have any news.