San Francisco - need advice

[indymag]

I'm going on a weeklong trip to San Francisco/Berkeley/Napa Valley in early March with my fiancee.

I've got a few days of our stay nailed down - can anyone give advice about really good but not so expensive hotels?

Comments

[vampyrecat]

I tend to stay in budget motels, so I don't really have advice about really good but not so expensive... although I am going on vacation in a week and I'm looking for east bay nice but not expensive places to splurge a bit in the middle of the week.

Certain areas of the east bay are way less expensive than downtown areas. Also, you might find good deals near the Oakland airport for fancy-ish places because it's not the best location neighborhood-wise, but it won't take long to get anywhere.

Napa is all sort of nouveau riche "rustic" fancy so unless you want to pay TONS for a totally upscale resort, pretty much anywhere you stay is going to be nice. If you stay at a national chain, expect homogenized blandness. I would recommend snooping around on the discount hotel sites for lower-end non-chain places.

When we went to Manhattan and New Orleans, etc, we found really good deals on fancy pants hotels mid week for about $99 per night by snooping around on hotels.com and orbitz and places like that.

[garygen]

No advice on good hotels. We stayed at the Hotel Palomar on our honeymoon. It was ok, but the room was tiny and overlooked the glass roof of an Old Navy. The staff certainly didn't go out of their way for us, either.

That being said, my two recommendations for things to do are:
- Vampire Tour of San Francisco (http://www.sfvampiretour.com/)
- If you're planning to go to Alcatraz, pre-schedule a night tour

[ldy]

Hee, I realize I'm more than a day late and a dollar short, but whenever we stay in SF, we usually head to the Metro:
http://www.metrohotelsf.com/

It's a cool, quirky little hotel in Haight Ashbury. I think it runs about $100/night (maybe a little more).

Anywho, pleased t'meetcha! :)

[indymag]

We stayed in the Queen Anne for two days and then the Parker Guest House for the remaining four days. We liked the Queen Anne ok, but we LOVED the Parker Guest House!