Hotel Des Arts — Hotel in San Francisco

I have traveled all over the world and stayed in some really unusual, unkept hotels and hostels. I have never felt uncomfortable staying in my hotel room before I stayed at the Hotel Des Arts. This hotel, however, is without question, the worst hotel room I have ever stayed at in my life. From the front desk person who just stood there and watched me struggle trying to open the locked front door, to the death trap elevator that takes five minutes to go five floors, to the electronic key app that didn’t work on my door, all these things I could move past. The room, however. No. Absolutely not. When I first walked into the room I honestly thought that it was a leftover unfinished room from when the building had been a crack house. ||||Now I understand that art is subjective and I LOVE art, and even have graffiti pieces in my person collection. This room however, is not that. It felt like someone had been on meth and locked themselves in for a month. There were naked women on every wall, profanity, vulgarities… things that you would NOT want a child to see, just on every wall including the ceiling. It was a room full of bad energy and chaos. I was greatly uncomfortable. The only way I can describe it is that I paid $200 a night to sleep in a back alley in the worst part of the city. And yes, I asked for another room, all booked up. No can do. ||||Now, that may be your style. You may love the kind of art that makes you queezy and on edge, but that is not the only issue with this hotel. Just the most obvious. Here’s a few other things wrong with this hotel:||||1. The bed. Being the cheapest model they could find, was so stiff it felt like you were laying on an eggcrate over plywood, with the exception of the large steel beam going right down the middle of the bed that you really felt dig into your back anytime you tried to move. I was in the navy on a boat and this bed was 10x worse than that. ||2. No AC/heat. This is not a nice new hotel building. This is an old old SF building and while nice hotels put in those amenities for their guests, this hotel feels it’s fine that you sweat in your room while sitting still. ||3. Ventilation. There was one window in the room. It opened onto an enclosed lightwell with a bunch of the other rooms and the cackling girls from the other rooms filled that entire space and permeated my hotel room even with the window closed. The window which had broken blinds and no screen so, you know, bugs flying in. Also, no window in the bathroom which I’m pretty sure is a violation. ||4. There were holes in the walls. ||5. There was an electric cord coming out of the wall going to nothing just dangling out of the wall. ||6. The only plug I had to use was a multi-prong extension cord just laying on the floor under the desk. ||7. The art didn’t cover everything so there were just patches of drywall and unpainted walls. ||8. I’m pretty sure someone died in the closet since it looks like a serial killer hiding space.||9. The furniture (nightstand and desk) felt like they had been found discarded on the street and put into the room. Scuffed and ugly and very old. The plastic chair was uncomfortable and honestly I felt like I was going to break it at any moment. ||10. Obviously, there were no amenities like a mini fridge, a countertop or a phone to call the front desk, which makes sense as there was never anyone at the front desk for the entirety of my stay after my initial entry. Also, I never found out where the ice machine was as there was no one to ask and no signs. ||11. The bathroom looked half-finished like the meth head finally got evicted before he could finish. ||12. If you sat on the toilet the tp roll and wall were so close you had to lean into the bathtub just to wipe your ass. ||13. Speaking of the bath… the shower. Big step out of it, bigger than it looks, easy to trip and fall out of. And the showerhead was literally at the same level as my nipples. ||14. While all the rooms are themed I could not help but notice that the room they gave me is not shown on their website anywhere. In fact the room that I booked on their website looked beautiful, as did a lot of the other rooms they showed on their website. Lovely looking rooms. That is not what I got, and they have no obligation to give you what you think you booked. You book the size of the room, not the theme. So if you are looking at their website hoping to pick a specific themed room, you have zero control over what you get. ||||Overall, while the art placed all around the hotel was absolutely beautiful, it does not make up for the experience of being in that horrid hotel room. This is not a place I will ever stay again even if I get promised the actual room that I booked as there are no employees on site to make the experience better. This was a “cheap for SF” room and now I know why. If you get a hotel so you can have a peacefully place to stay while away from home, do yourself a favor and avoid this hotel, it is not what it...

This hotel was quite the experience, and I am split on my positive & negative feelings- so I decided on 3 stars.

For the positives, the location of this hotel was great. As we drove in Friday night, the streets were sketchy and hectic a mile out. But once we got within a few blocks, it turned into more couples, groups of friends, bar crawlers, and we felt much better. The location is awesome- you can literally see the entrance to Chinatown when you open door of the hotel. Very close to a lot of public transit that will get you all over the city. +1 star for location alone.

The other positive is price: 3 nights for $320 in San Fran over a holiday weekend felt like a steal. Well, I guess you get what you pay for, but it was still so cheap that I have to give another star. Saving money on our hotel allowed us to put more of our budget towards fun & experiences, and we thought "all we need is somewhere with a bed, so let's spend our money elsewhere".

Sadly, that ends the positives. There were a few "neutral" parts of the experience. I had no issues with the contactless arrival, and our room key worked fine on the app. I would prefer to have a physical card and some way to talk to a person, but it did not impact our stay. The decorations were fine in our room, but we did not get one of the "cooler" designs. We knew there was no way to choose your room, but it was still slightly disappointing when a big draw for the place was the unique style. This location is a hostel, not a hotel, so we set our expectations accordingly- but we did pay the slightly higher price to have a personal bathroom which was probably smart. Because the hotel is connected to the bar, there always seemed to be someone downstairs in the lobby, and people would go through the hotel doors pretty often, which may make some people feel unsafe about having drunk people able to go up to the rooms- but we did not really care.

The first and worst negative to us was the facilities as a whole. It was a bright, sunny, and hot Labor Day weekend, and we knew we messed up when we opened our room the 1st night and it was very warm & stuffy. Turns out there is no air conditioning- which may not be an issue the majority of the year, but this happened to be a pretty hot weekend for San Fran. There was no ventilation of any sort in the room or bathroom, and the window was only able to crack slightly open. We left it open the entire weekend basically, but we were facing the inside square of building, not the street, so there was no breeze or relief. Sleeping and being in the room was very difficult for this reason. Additionally, there is no fridge for food or drinks, the sink has no light above it so taking out contact lenses or doing makeup may be pretty difficult. The rickety old-school elevator was not working some days, and I felt bad watching some people haul their giant suitcases down those skinny winding stairs. The rooms were small as expected, but the shower temperature was impossible to get right. Even turning the heat on by a hair with the cold knob at max would give burning water. It seemed like the cold knob in our room just was not connected properly and did not do much.

Other than the facilities, the location had some small downsides as well. Being in a busy area, and near bars, you could hear noise from neighboring buildings very easily with the window open- with it closed, not so bad. There is no parking, so if you are driving like us you will need to park at a nearby garage (which are not cheap) and walk with your suitcases.

Overall, I don't think we would stay here again. But it also wasn't a nightmare like some people experienced. Really depends on your lifestyle and expectations. Good luck if you...

I booked this hotel for Pride weekend because it was close to the parade route (Market) and it's really convenient to Chinatown as well (I love me some dim sum lol). Also super walkable to the Embarcadero/Ferry building as well so overall a good location. There's a nice municipal parking garage only a block away too which was very convenient if you don't want to street park.||Price was reasonable for what it offers and the room I got had some fun art from a local artist on two of the walls. Some neat art in the hallways as well so aesthetically a cool place. Just a heads up that the stairs are narrow and steep and spiral and there isn't an elevator so if you have a lot of or especially heavy luggage it can be a little awkward. 24-hour keypad entry/exit was nice and secure - I was rolling in from partying pretty late (like between 2 and 4am on two of the nights), and the neighborhood was fine. I'm a 42-year-old white lady and was traveling by myself fwiw. I've stayed all over in SF and compared to a lot of places there's not much weirdness happening in the financial district in the wee hours :).||The clawfoot tub in my bathroom was just a little off-balance so when I took a shower it kind of shifted and the legs banged on the floor - not enough to affect my balance standing in it but the folks below me might not have been stoked if they were home :). The hotel sends you an automatic text asking how the stay is and I let them know about the issue and they said they would pass it to maintenance though so they are pretty responsive to communication.||In my room the toilet and bathtub were in the wc and the sink was separate in the main room in an alcove. There was no light above the sink/mirror which are recessed in the wall. Not sure if that's the setup in all the rooms but if you need to do makeup I'd suggest bringing some additional light or a lighted mirror just in case since otherwise it's pretty dim. Water pressure in the shower was also mild so give yourself extra time to rinse lol. It's also an old building so it doesn't have the world's greatest insulation and if people on your floor are being especially loud you might hear them but in my experience it wasn't any worse than a lot of old hotels in the city. Front Desk has pretty limited hours but they do provide you with a number to text or call in case you run into any issues.||Just FYI if you're a drinker the Irish Bank bar on the same block had really great friendly service - the bartender was the manager the day I went in and he was super cool.||So other than the couple little things mentioned earlier it was overall a great stay and I will for sure book here again! (They also emailed a 5% discount return stay coupon to me a couple days after I checked out although of course that might not be a thing they do...