The Cardinal Hotel — Hotel in Palo Alto

Hard review to write. It has that quaint feel of an old ''boutique'' inn while having a nice TV and AV plug in room and wonderful customer service. It feels like I should like it.

But the hotel feels like it's transitioning from quaint/boutique to....old. The physical key for the doors isn't cute, it's actually really inconvenient. I really don't feel like jingling around the conference all day. The doors are old and the handles barely/don't work. The bathroom door doesn't have a lock on it. The beds are incredibly uncomfortable. Everything feels a bit past their respective expiration dates (I'm talking to you stairs carpet and elevator). You're charging me the same rate as modern hotels, and I expect at least some of the convenience that I'm accustomed to coming with that price tag. If you want to also have a old timey feel to your hotel, it's up to you to find a way to make that aesthetic fit into a modern hotel.

Further, there's a voucher system for the cafe next door. You can get a coffee or tea and a couple of little sides (pastry, fruit cup, etc). This would be great but there are two issues: 1) the cafe has possibly the worst customer service I've come across. 2) is me being very nitpicky but I'll mention it regardless. It'd be nice if it was a voucher for X amount of money instead of for very specific items being complimentary. The cafe has a nice menu and because I didn't want a pasty but instead wanted eggs I wasn't able to utilize the voucher. Further, since I did get coffee, the cafe rang up the voucher (internally worth $8.28) so it looks like I used the voucher and worse yet, the cafe that upset me so much with their service is probably charging back that 8.28 to the hotel, indicating to them that I used the voucher when I really didn't.

Much of this is the cafes fault, but the cardinals hotel has chosen to 'lay in bed with them' so some fault must be laid at their feet. A small breakfast set up at the hotel would have been much...

-I didn’t sleep more than 2 hours a night for a week while staying here. You will be kept awake until 1-2 am by people shouting in the alley (often employees loitering after the restaurants closed) to then be woken up at 4am by extremely loud restaurant deliveries from wholesale trucks as well as dumpster removal. I notified the front desk about the loitering and shouting in the alley, was told they’d say something to them, but they never did as it continued into late night hours daily. The lack of sleep affected my productivity during a work trip, so I’ll never stay here again when needing to come into town. -Nothing works due to age of hotel, including the phone in room. Tv stopped working when winding down at night. The room was hot, and the overhead fan wouldn’t stop clicking loud and the floor fan provided was non-functional, which made it so you had to keep a window open or you’d have a stuffy room - see above for why this is a huge problem. There’s also zero sound proofing - I could hear every footstep by the people upstairs. -when asked to change rooms due to noise and issues, there were no options or any make good solutions provided. Just SOL. -no gym - didn’t know this as the room was booked on my behalf. I try to stay fit while traveling, so this was a major bummer to find out as a fitness center is usually a major convenience / amenity. Then again, I may not have used it due to exhaustion from lack of sleep. -the only positive was the location / walkability during the day, but I’d rather stay 30 minutes away than deal with the lack of sleep and noise issues again. I’ll be letting my work know to book me elsewhere...

It is a charming 1924-style boutique hotel with friendly staff located in a century-old apartment building and lots of old-world charm throughout. From clock, safe, and phone booths to the elevator and staircases, you feel like you transponded back in history. Rooms are modern and comfortable though. We had a room with a private bathroom, can't imagine otherwise, but I've seen people using a shared bathroom as well. At almost $400 per night including tax, it was on the pricey side but if you book in advance, the rates are much lower. The hotel is clean and the location next to Palo Alto City Hall is awesome for local experience and for a short walk to the Stanford shuttle. The hotel receptionist asked us whether we want a quiet room or a nice view, and we selected quiet, but it was tiny with a weird layout with an entrance from below the staircase. So we switched to the one with a view and it was much nicer and not too noisy. We qualified for the Stanford affiliate package so we got free breakfast in the Maxine cafe next door, which was very very good, and highly recommended. Try their breakfast croissant, you won't regret it.

There are two reasons why I gave it 4 vs. 5: 1/ it has no air conditioning so on warm days it is hard to breathe inside the room 2/ we were charged for our stay one day before departure, which is a weird experience. I specifically asked when the charge will be made and was told "upon departure", which was not the case. We asked and were told it was a mistake. Otherwise, a great place to stay in Palo Alto, I might...