JW Marriott San Francisco Union Square — Hotel in San Francisco

This hotel looks like it was designed by Catherine O'Hara's character in Beetlejuice but if she were broke. The architecture is so 1987 postmodern it wheels around from completely hideous and back to interesting. The interior has pink granite, gold accents, a theme of perfect arches missing keystones, a statue that looks like a Photoshop 2.0 splash screen, an atrium with glass elevators, a 13th floor, a brick exterior broken by small arched windows. If you're a fan of 1980s postmodern architecture do yourself a favor and just go gape at this thing from the 3rd floor lobby. It's like Michael Graves doodled on a napkin while he was drunk. This hotel room was so dated I actually took a picture of a wall sconce to show my nerdy friends because it was so ridiculous. I am not reviewing the hotel on the dated architecture.

In the room there is a grey wall, and then a wood or faux-wood piece of built-in furniture and then the hallway to the door. In the middle of the night when you get up to you can see the grey wall just fine, but you can't see the dark wood furniture piece and it's easy to assume it's part of the hallway to the door and open. So, not wanting to wake up my partner I kept the light off as I got up to go pee at 2am. I slammed at full walking speed into the piece of wooden furniture. Dazed, I slowly reached my hand up like I had found some kind of Stargate only to belatedly realize that it was that stupid piece of furniture. I bruised my forehead so the next weekend people kept asking me how I got the bruise and I had to say "I walked into a wall". I could have turned on the lamp, I am not reviewing the hotel on how easy it is to walk around the room in the dark.

The restaurant on the third floor is weird and has chandeliers straight from an episode of Dynasty. I don't know why anyone would actually eat there and spend $46 on sous vide 4oz beef except if they, like me, had free money from work they had to spend there. The staff was very nice but I think they must keep the restaurant here solely to keep their star rating because... you're in San Francisco and you can easily just, you know, eat other places with better/cheaper food. I am not reviewing the hotel on the restaurant.

The hotel is an atrium so the rooms all face the big open space on one side and the outside on the other. From the interior you can hear everything echo and you can also hear the outside noises, so a double whammy. Nothing is especially soundproof. I was woken up by 1. A yipping small dog 2. a party of people speaking Portuguese 3. A crazy man yelling about the second coming from the sidewalk. I am not reviewing the hotel on the noises.

What I am reviewing the hotel on: The location is great. There was no weather stripping under my hotel room door and the door to the next room, you know those interior room-to-room doors? So I could hear everything including a guy on his phone in the bathroom wondering how he could keep his affair a secret. I was riveted. The TV did not work, and there was an old blood stain on one of the pillow cases. Go here to gawk at the architecture but find a better...

I've only stayed in one JW before this visit and maybe the quality of that hotel set my expectations too high.

To start with the good things: the hotel does look pretty nice from the inside. The room was quite nice save for a few issues and the lounge had good views of the city.

Unfortunately there were some issues with the hotel that made my experience not live up to my expectations.

First, and this seems to be the case with most Marriotts, is that my room preferences were not adhered to. I always request having foam pillows and these room preferences always seem to be ignored. Why offer this option if it's not something that is going to be done unless the guest has to ask again?

Although the room is quite nice, there are definitely issues with sound in this hotel. Not only was there a lot of sound coming from outside (cars, people, protestors), there was a lot of noise coming from inside the hotel. The walls in this hotel just seem to be pretty thin. I asked the front desk about whether they had something to dampen sound such as a white noise machine or a fan and I was given a confused look like this was an incredibly odd request. I have been at other Marriotts that either offer white noise machines or have this feature built into their TVs so I don't think it's too odd of a request from a "luxury" hotel. I was at least offered ear plugs but these aren't a great solution for me as I find them too uncomfortable to sleep with.

Comically, the hotel claims that it was designed with "those noisy ice machines" in mind and therefore you had to call to request to get ice. This would make sense if the hotel didn't have other sound issues but an ice machine would be the least of my worries. We made a request for ice that took over 15 minutes. With a delay like that I would prefer to just go get my own. I experienced a similar delay in getting an answer to a question via the chat feature in the Marriott mobile app. Don't push this feature if it's not going to be monitored similar to a phone.

While the lounge had nice views, they would have been even better if they would bother to clean the dirty windows. Also, the breakfast in both the lounge and the level III restaurant were abysmally bad and there was no difference in offerings throughout our 4 day stay. Best part about the lounge was the friendly staff and a good self-serve espresso machine. Breakfast is usually much better at budget...

I have to be completely honest here…I would have loved to rate this place higher but there were a lot of things that needed some work. I prefer Marriott branded hotels most of the time for work travel. I was really excited to stay here and the room I ended up in aligned with my expectations. However, when I checked in I was ready to cancel my reservation and go somewhere else. I called earlier in the day to notify the hotel that I was arriving after midnight because I had a late flight in. I had a 5 night stay reserved for work that I paid in full when I booked. When I got in, the guy at the desk ran my card TWICE and said it was declined…then later realized that it was because I’d prepaid my stay. This was unnerving as hell. I was thinking something was wrong with my card. I get upstairs to my room and it’s a tiny king room wedged between two other rooms. This room was definitely not the square footage described in my reservation. There was limited storage space for my bags and clothes. I felt immediately uncomfortable and started to get anxious about being in this space for 5 nights. I went downstairs to ask what my upgrade options were. There was nothing else available the first night so I had to wait for someone to contact me the following morning. Through the night into the early morning I could pretty much hear everything in the neighboring rooms. I could hear their shower, doors opening and closing, cleaning crew, etc.

Management was super responsive the following morning and showed me another room that had opened up in the same tier I booked in. This is the room in the photos and I kid you not it was seemingly double the size of the original room I booked. It was much more comfortable, had a dining table, fridge, a closet, and additional storage. Much more ideal for a 5 night stay.

The hotel itself is large and even at capacity doesn’t seem overwhelmingly full. There is a decent gym but a lot of the equipment wasn’t working. 3 of 6 treadmills were off. 2 of 3 peloton bikes didn’t work. Definitely needs better maintenance in the fitness room.

The location is proximal to a lot of shopping and places to eat.

Parking is $75 a day with no discounted rate for extended stays. There is a garage across the street that is $40 daily and allows you 1 in and...