Phoenix Hotel — Hotel in San Francisco

First for a Rock N Roll hotel, the staff sure likes to lay down a plethora of rules. Can't do this. Can't do that. Got it. We were told repeatedly not to go swimming after 10pm, like we were bad children, yet several guests were swimming after 10pm on our first night and the issue was never handled by the onsite team.

In a town that is all about consent, the Phoenix ruined our stay by allowing a corporate event to disturb it's guests and not notifying us early enough to make other plans.

I love the Phoenix, having stayed here many times over the years. Ultimately our experience was ruined by the Thursday night corporate event held in the Phoenix courtyard.

Underneath our room was a generator that filled our room with fumes while simultaneously making so much noise we couldn't hear. We went to the front desk to seek assistance with the fumes, but nothing was done. The fumes forced us to close our windows which made the room hot and unsafe.

At no point did anyone do anything about the fumes in our room or address our concerns.

Let's not forget the construction as they were building a stage and placing lighting and cameras on the hotel roof. Sound checks, blaring music, this venue has it all.

But that's the highpoint. Our evening was "enhanced" by pounding "Music" and the terrible speeches we were forced to endure.

We come to find out this is an annual event and at no point did the Phoenix team notify us before we checked in that the pool and other features of the hotel would be unavailable to us and that we wouldn't be able to get any rest.

Notifying us a few hours before the event itself and saying if we didn't like it we could just go elsewhere was not cool. We got the attached letter at 2 pm the day of the event.

"Please reach out to us if you have any questions or concerns. If this is not the stay you were hoping for we can provide some alternative accommodation suggestions. We look forward to having you stay with us!"

Do I really want to spend more money having to make a last minute booking at a new hotel, pack my bags and spend the money to move? Not getting your customers consent sucks, forcing them to spend more money for peace and quiet is tacky. The Phoenix stuck us between a rock and hard place.

When I went down to see if anything could be done about the fumes filling our room, I watched a guest who had just checked in ask if they could take a swim during the event set up or after the event. The perturbed, short tempered front desk person told them to swim the next morning at 9 am. The guest had come specifically because of the pool and your front desk person basically told them tough, don't like it, go elsewhere.

Callous.

After the event ended at 10pm the event teardown went well past 1 am with workers on the roof of our room and tear down noises in the courtyard.

If the Phoenix wants to be a corporate shill, that's fine, but don't subject the hotel guests to this level of mayhem and charge them full price for none of the amenities and no rest.

At an average of $360 a night this was not either the restful or rock n roll experience I expect from the Phoenix. I love the Phoenix but this trip fell far below my expectations for this property and management team. Do...

Welcome to the Tenderloin. It has a load of people down on their luck who need their own space, have drug issues and don’t have a home. If you want leafy suburbs, take your dull life elsewhere. This area has some of the coolest bars in San Francisco, and I think it's the coolest hotel on the west coast. Certainly better than #33 on Trip Advisor. (At the time of this review).

There are 2 theories on how the Tenderloin got it's name: The soft underbelly of immorality, corruption and sin in SF, OR what the cops spent their meat money on as there were paid a bonus to patrol it. I think it's both.

What a place! Safe, enclosed and a true oasis bang in the middle of San Francisco, so everywhere is equidistant to travel to.

We 'slept' in room 42, shown in the picture. A balcony room with fridge, espresso machine and microwave. Free WiFi was strong and fast. We had a balcony out the front as well were we could watch the mad Tenderloin streets at night. Loved it.

The 24 hour front desk made you feel safe as houses, and the same day laundry service was a god-send.

We stayed during the week, so didn't really catch Chambers Bar & Restaurant, but it opened the last night and looked really cool with the vinyl records stacked across the walls and most tables outside were full so book in advance!

The heated pool was epic. We dipped / swam twice a day in the morning and after the 30 degree heat days before we hit the bars in the evening. The dressing gowns made the pool visit even nicer. One night we had Coit Tower Poetry Club performing (I think) while we chilled in the pool early evening. So SF, as we love North Beach.

Outta Sight Pizza is just round the corner. You HAVE to try their pesto slice.Thin, crispy and full of flavour. I can still taste it. Awesome staff. Every time I ordered slices, we got 1 free. Maybe because we were from outta town?

The Phoenix has free filter coffee in reception, but if you want something more, Philz Coffee is just 5 mins away. They also have some cool merch in reception if you want to take a bit of it home.

Robert on the front desk (I hope I've got his name right) who used to work at Amoeba was such an awesome guy. My wife slept in longer than me, so we had some great conversations over coffee each morning in reception. He was really knowledgeable about the area, and everything music, basically. Made us feel like house guests rather than hotel residents.

The original 'motel' features were everywhere. As a famous Nottingham author once wrote: 'Life is for...

When reading other reviews of this place, take note of the ones that seem to be describing experiences attending an event such as an art show or fundraiser versus experiences actually staying at the hotel. While the hotel is probably a really fun place to go attend an event or spend a night out having drinks, you may not necessarily want to spend your whole trip staying in a place with that going on every night. The pool area and bar is really cool but just know that just about every room overlooks it and the walls/windows are very thin so you will hear almost everything the goes on in the courtyard. Also, the hotel bar utilizes space in the courtyard so you will hear the bar noise when it's open (until 10pm during the week and midnight on the weekends). At first, it wasn't too bad but it did get old and by the weekend when things really got busier and they started blaring bass thumping party beats it was really annoying. Typically, once the bar closes things will quiet down some but there will at some point probably be some rowdy bunch who is drunk and wants to swim and be loud in the pool area after hours. If you're one of those people, this place will be a blast. If you're not, just know that you will hear these people due to the aforementioned thin walls/windows of the hotel rooms that overlook the pool area. As for the neighborhood, it is one of the seedier areas we visited in SF, but as long as you pay attention and don' t do anything stupid it should be fine - mostly just a lot of homeless. We never felt too unsafe during the day but we took cabs/uber rides at night instead of buses and walking. So in all, just know that this place treats itself as more of a destination for nightlife and events like art walks or fundraisers than a hotel and those things will take priority over your peaceful stay. There's nothing wrong with that - we just wish we had known that before booking a full week stay where we planned on being really active during the day riding bikes and renting a car to drive the coast etc. Had we known, we may have booked somewhere a little quieter and stayed here for a night or two to get the experience. The place is great for the right purpose - raging with friends etc. but just not ideal if getting rest...