The Monarch Hotel — Hotel in San Francisco

The property is a 2 star property so our expectations weren't high. We read previous reviews and they were unfair. |The hotel is clean and comfortable and had charm. It's not modern in anyway but has old fashioned character which is reflected in the price. I'm not sure what other guests expected as its clear its a no frills hotel when you book.|It's main advantage was its location. Walking distance to the retail and finance district and we regularly walked to and from Fishermans Wharf and China Town. Great location for the price.|You can also Uber it to any attraction for as little as 10 bucks. So easy. |I feel I need to address the' homeless and poor neighbourhood issue' raised by other guests in their reviews! Absolute nonsense, pay no attention to these snobs, they're up their own backsides. Yes SF has a real homelessness issue but that's not restricted to The Monarch Hotel or even the local neighbourhood. Their homeless population are spread all over the entire city and the issue is sad rather than scary. This should play no part in your decision to stay here. |The neighbourhood where the hotel is located is very vibrant and gritty, its not 'rough', 'scary' or 'rundown' as described in other reviews. We're from London and I've felt more intimidated walking home in my own neighborhood than at any point in SF.|According to other reviews you should avoid Tenderloin which is a few blocks from The Monarch, again we had no issue at all. |Overall a very good hotel for the price and a great location for a holiday. If you're not incredibly sensitive then you'll have no problem especially considering the Hilton is a short walk away and is four times the price....

Stayed here 2 weeks ago and it was a bit of an odd experience. I arrived on a Sunday in the early afternoon. I asked the guy working the front desk if it was too early to check in and it was(no biggie, its what I expected) I left my bags and I was just double checking there wouldn't be an issue with the time I was expecting to return later that evening(sometime around midnight). The guy working started acting a little weird with how he was communicating with me, he asked me about 3 times when I was planning on coming back, which I had already made pretty clear. Then he asked what I would be doing when I got back around midnight... this caught me off guard a little, and then he went a step further and asked if I wanted to "hang out" when I got back.... So unprofessional... and it also made me really uncomfortable. Thankfully that guy wasn't working when I returned or during the rest of my visit. The other two gentlemen that worked the front desk during the rest of my stay were very nice and helpful and remained professional. Not sure what the deal was with the first guy. The room was ok, but nothing spectacular and certainly not worth the price. The AC was broken so I had to have the windows open... that was interesting(to say the least). The bathroom was kind of gross. Not cleaned well, and the sink backed up everytime I used it. The ice machine is all the way in the basement, and its kind of creepy going down there by yourself. It smells really musty and moldy down there and It made me wonder how well and often the ice machine is properly cleaned. Can't say I would ever stay here again if I were in the area and I certainly would never recommend it to...

If I could give this 0 stars I would.

Firstly my gf and I booked our room through Expedia and the room that they had shown was not even close to what we got. They must have a renovated show room somewhere. From the moment we arrived we felt unsafe, there was homeless people all around and 2 sitting on the front stoop. Being that the hotel had no door man and no Iocking system made us feel like anyone can just come and go as they pleased. Upon entering we see a sign that says "caution this building contains chemicals known to cause cancer" or something to that effect. We should have turned away after this but by the time we arrived it was 4am to us since we flew from NYC and we were tired and just wanted to get into the room and relax. The man at the front desk was nice but after receiving our room keys we discovered the elevator is only big enough for 2 maybe 3 people and looked and felt unsafe. We got to the 3rd floor where our room was and noticed a really terrible smell. Not quite sure what it was but it smelt like a combination of urine and something else. So we make it into our room only to have that smell intensify. Also the room didn't look clean. The sheets looked stained and I felt like the room wasn't thoroughly cleaned. The bathroom had molding peeling from around the sink and the mirror was cracked.

We called Expedia to see what our options were because we were completely weirded out by the whole experience. We found the Opal which is right around the corner and decided to go there that same night. Much better experience from this hotel we didn't care about not getting a refund for the first night just to know that we were somewhere...