The Marker Union Square San Francisco — Hotel in San Francisco

Unfortunately, when I booked the hotel, nowhere did it say that an additional $30/day would be charged. It was only after I booked the hotel that I found a review on TripAdvisor that pointed this out. If I knew that they would charge an additional $30/day, this would completely change the nightly rate and I would've booked a nicer hotel.

Checked in around 1pm, the agent was nice, but said our room was unavailable, as check in time is 3pm. Okay. We stored our bags with the bellman and left to wander for the day. We came back around 5 to pick up our keys and went to our room, 438. 1. Our bags weren't in the room (terrible communication between your teams) and 2. The room was tiny, overlooked an HVAC system and we could only see another building - meaning no sunlight. Why would you even bother booking guests in this room if you're not at full occupancy? This is disappointing. I called the front desk, and Isaac put us in another room on a higher floor, 602. Much much better. At least I get to overlook a garage, garbage and the side street, along with plenty of sunlight. Bathroom was not very functional - there's minimal counter space by the sink and there could've been some shelves beneath the sink for added functionality. Our new room was an average NYC size hotel room, so I suppose that's reasonable. The sink in the bathroom loudly whistles when you turn on the water - a bit annoying.

Windows are thin and so are the doors. You can hear people walking in and out while listening to traffic. Service was seriously lacking; I'm surprised this hotel has such good ratings. When you walk in/out of the hotel or when you're bypassing the front desk, the staff doesn't even bother looking up or saying good morning, welcome back, etc. (Maybe they did this 25% of the time but that's unacceptable as it's a hotel and you're selling these services in addition to a room!)

The only good thing about this hotel is that they offer complimentary coffee/tea in the mornings and water throughout the day in the lobby. However, I can only assume that these 'amenities' are included in the Urban Fee. When I asked what the urban fee was, the agent told me, it covers amenities such as housekeeping bringing up a coffee maker, yoga mat, complimentary beverages in the morning, wine hour, free wifi and much more. Huh? If you're a good hotel, these things would already be in my room and you wouldn't need to charge this fee (this is how plenty of other hotels do it...perhaps I need to lower my standards for the Marker since it definitely missed the mark). But seriously? I don't even drink so no point in the wine hour.

By the way, I know the Marker is not a Kimpton hotel, so why does the phone in the guest room say otherwise? This needs to be updated since it's no longer Hotel Monaco.

Lastly, there should be umbrellas in every guest room as a courtesy. If these are removed from the room, there should be a surcharge added by housekeeping and it should be taken off once it has been returned. The bellman should have a full set of umbrellas so that they can hand them out to guests. When handing them out to guests, they can ask for the guests' room number, go on Epitome, and add a Miscellaneous charge for the umbrella. Wouldn't this be much more efficient than telling me 2 days in a row that you guys: "don't have umbrellas because none of the guests returned them." So charge for it and ensure that they're actually guests staying at the hotel! I've worked in hotels before so I know this industry and what you should be doing.

Disappointing stay, terrible hotel, will never return and will definitely discourage anyone and everyone to NOT...

We are here currently at this hotel. Although the surrounding neighbourhood on the way here looked rough, it is in a safe location, a stones throw from union square with all its upmarket shops. When we checked in, we were met with confusing messages about a possible upgrade. We were too early to check in, but the lady on the front desk said that we would likely be able to upgrade to a suite-with more room for our family of four -when we returned later, even though they were fully booked…. Upon our return we were told by another member of staff that the hotel was full, but after asking more questions we were told that an upgrade to a corner one bedroom suite with soaking tub was available. My husband got to look at the options , and we paid for the upgrade. The corner suite is a nice room, 6th floor, but we wouldn’t call it ‘luxury’ as the shower door doesn’t close properly and despite this room being advertised on booking.com as ‘including a basket of bath scents’ , there is nothing but a bar of face soap provided in this room for use in the ‘soaking tub’. When we asked about the basket of bath products we were told that this was not available for us as we had merely upgraded. Poor customer service because we have paid for the upgrade-we didn’t get it for free! They appear to be a bit precious about toiletries. We have a single moisturiser provided and a note next to it stating that if we take it with us we will be charged €25 for the privilege! The ‘soaking tub’ proved a bit of a pain for us last night as, at 10.45pm , the guests above on the 7th floor decided to use theirs. This shouldn’t be a problem for us, but we were subjected to a huge racket coming from some kind of box in the wall in our 6th floor room, while they ran their tub for 30 minutes above (see video). We used our soaking tub and used the shower gel from the shower because there was no alternative. Turned out with lots of scum round the edges. Wasn’t the most pleasant. It’s a city, it’s noisy, but bring earplugs just in case because the room we have gets street noise. Sure the refillable water bottles are a nice touch but we got two and there are four of us. Same with bath towels. We were provided with 2, when we asked housekeeping for more because there are 4 of us, we got one, and then 3 towels provided every day after that. Don’t leave the water bottles in the room-because when housekeeping took my husband’s , it was not straightforward to get a replacement! The complimentary wine cards are a lovely touch-went to the bar last night to use them and were told between 4&6pm only. All just seems a bit hard work! Myself and my husband are in agreement -it’s a decent place with a great lobby and library area, but staff could definitely have done more to help us enjoy our stay and it feels like a missed opportunity as we are unlikely...

BEWARE: IF YOU HAVE A BAD STAY HERE, YOU WILL NOT GET YOUR MONEY BACK.

Although this hotel is technically four-star and has beautiful design and decor (quite frankly, the only reason why it gets a second star), I was very disappointed with my stay due to the lack of attention to detail in all aspects.

To start, when I finally fully uncovered my sheets after getting ready for bed (after my initial bed bug inspection I always do when I first arrive), I felt uneasy finding a hair that was not mine in-between the sheets. It looked like it had been there a while first. Because it was late, I decided to sleep on top of the comforter for the night and call the next morning for replacements while I'm out for the day.

The next morning before I left my room, I tried to call the front desk 4 times in 15 minutes, and did not get an answer a single time. A couple hours later, I was able to call again to politely let the front desk know about the sheets, and respectfully ask for new ones. I was granted new ones, but was not provided any remorse, sympathy, or even acknowledgement of my situation. Although it wasn't their fault, it's definitely not mine either.

Later that night, I wanted to use the hotel's fitness room (the only amenity making this hotel 4-star, btw), and was disappointed yet again to find that the cable machine had no clips to attach handlebars! I wanted to use the Pelaton they had since I missed mine at home, but it wasn't even activated! Both issues made both machines practically useless, respectively.

The hotel restaurant was closed for dinner BOTH nights I stayed here as well. Everything aforementioned in addition to the weird writing hidden in the bathroom wallpaper in my room, the poor location of the hotel, the VERY expensive parking the hotel has contracted with, lack of pool/spa/coffee shop, and more not mentioned made the resort fee a joke. I definitely think you're better off staying a couple blocks in a better direction at Parc 55 or even something in the Marina.

EDIT: After providing the Marker with my stay and contact information, the Director of Rooms at the Marker emailed me to follow-up on the claims I made in my initial post. Although acknowledgement was made to the lack of quality of my stay AND changes were made due to address issues to the hotel I, as a guest, pointed out (mentioned explicitly by DoR), I was not provided any refund for: my room that did not meet expectations set by the Marker, the resort fee for the "resort" with missing or dysfunctional fitness equipment and no pool/spq, AND/OR the extra $70 I paid for parking. You're better off spending your money at a place with more customer-centered business practices that commits to...