Hi everyone! I'm so glad to finally be planning another trip. My husband and I are going to San Francisco and Napa in March - 3 nights in each. I've been really happy with the hotel prices I've been finding in San Fran (esp with AAA), but now I can't decide where to stay! The Omni is $135 a night with a king bed, and the Hotel Monaco is 139 for their queen canopy rooms (which are their smallest). Anyone have any strong feelings one way or the other? I know they are in different locations, but I can't get a handle on how much that really matters. I'm a little concerned about the small rooms, but I've heard such great things about the Monaco seems hard to pass up the deal.
Thanks!
p.s. i also saw good prices at the rex, donatello, and chancellor if anyone feels those are even better..

Location-wise I would go in this order: 1) Rex, Donatello, Chancellor 2) Monaco O'Farrell @ Taylor may be iffy at night 3) Omni may be deserted area at night

Never stayed in any of the above, only talking about locations

The Monaco is a wonderful hotel in an excellent location! The Omni is nice, but in the financial district, which will be emptier (but not bad) at night -- it is walking distance from Chinatown and North Beach, and lots of restaurants.

Loved everything about our stay at Monaco. Location,friendliness of employees, etc. Sorry, no experience with Omni.

Location I'd go with Chancellor which is 1/2 block from Union Square, then the Rex, then Donatello. All safe locations. All good hotels.

The Omni is more a business hotel in the Financial District. I've picked up and dropped off people there, but have never been inside. The location would be a bit isolated at night.

The Monaco is in the Tenderloin. The other day I went to pick up a friend at the Cliff Hotel which is across the street from the Monaco. This homeless woman came by and lifted up her shirt to show us a dirty, angry red boil the size of 1/2 basketball. If you don't mind encounters of this kind, by all means, stay at the Monaco. I generally advise people to find some place else, especially when you're on vacation, but the Monaco does have its fans.

I've stayed at the Monaco a couple times and really like it, although I haven't stayed in that room type so can't comment on how small the rooms are. I've never had a problem with the location.

Not familiar with the Omni.

We stayed at the Omni about 5 years ago when it first opened and it was terrific. We walked to the waterfront and ate at the Tadich Grill (a treat AND and experience) on the way back to the hotel. We also walked to Belden Place for dinner and ate at Cafe Tiramisu which, to this day, the ravioli I had there has not been matched. Somehow we made it over to Chinatown as well. It's long ago enough that I can't remember how we got from one place to another but we certainly didn't have a car and I can't recall ever taking a taxi. Maybe a streetcar?

pdx, all the places you went are walking distance from the Omni -- the Ferry Bldg. (waterfront) is about 6 blocks, Tadich's maybe 3, Chinatown a couple of blocks, Belden Place a few blocks.

Please don't be put off by easytraveler's description of the location of the Monaco. It is on the edge of the Tenderloin, but near theatres, hotels, restaurants and blocks from Union Square. I have lived and/or worked in San Francisco for 36+ years, and I would have NO hesitation recommending this hotel to visitors (several of my NY friends have stayed there in the last couple of years, and they uniformly loved the hotel). I'm sure et's description of her encounter happened, but so what, just move on. It's a city -- stuff like that happens.

sigh.....crazy, confrontative, boil-afflicted homeless people are everywhere. what's a traveler to do?

Hahaha...I'm enjoying all the responses, thanks. I"m still hoping someone who has stayed in the Monaco queen canopy rooms can tell me if it felt too small to them, although I know it's a personal decision. So far it seems like the locations of both the Monaco and the Omni have their pros/cons. I'm leaning towards the Monaco just because I've always wanted to stay at one of the cool kimpton hotels, and we won't be spending that much time in the room. And we live in a big city so we can handle the homeless people....but keep the responses coming, thanks!

Not sure if this would help you, but we stayed at the Monaco in Chicago & loved it! Staff was fabulous. Maybe you could call the hotel directly & ask your questions about room type/size, etc.

I just noticed on the website it says the room is 200 sqft, now I just have to figure out how small that actually is. I'm not good at visualizing things!

200 square feet is 10 feet by 20 feet. I assume this includes the bathroom and the closet, which is probably why they can fit only a queen sized bed in there.

Standard hotel room sizes are twice that at 400 sf.

Yeah...on second thought, I think I've changed my mind, as I often do and will probably go with the Omni as we don't really mind if the area is not "happening" at night as long as we can walk to sites and restaurants which doesn't sound like it will be a problem there...

Well, so much for that. the Omni rate disappeared! I guess you have to move as fast with hotels as you do with airfares..bizarre.

If you do book the Monaco, I'd check back frequently as I've noticed rates at Kimpton hotels tend to fluctuate quite a bit if it's not a busy time, and can go down as your date approaches.

As for size of the room, 200 sf is a little bigger than a standard cruise ship cabin ;-). Compact, that's for sure. But keep an eye on it and maybe one of the other room categories will go down in price.

What about the other hotels tht you mentioned?

Or have you tried kayak.com aka sidestep.com?

Your dates are still pretty far out. You have plenty of time to shop around.

If you must be in the Monaco hotel area, there are several other hotels within a block of the Monaco that you might want to look at: Adagio, Serrano (also Klimpton), Cliff, and even the Hilton.

If a good size room is of importance the Donetella Hotel does have what is considered larger than average size rooms, sharbear. We use to stay there a lot but they were sold to some other company and the hotel became rather blah so we stopped staying there. But it is in a good location of course. Another Kimpton Hotel is the Sir Francis Drake but most of their rooms tend to be smallish also. The Hilton is fine but their rooms can be large to closet size depending on your luck, lol. And it is just a rather typical Hilton Hotel. The Grand Hyatt at Union Square has a lot of good size rooms, you might want to check that out. And calling the hotel direct is a good idea versus calling the toll free reservation number as calling the hotel direct will connect you to a person who "knows" their hotel and the various room information.

Thanks for all the great advice. It definitely is still far away, so I will probably wait and see what happens, and if I have the nerve, maybe do priceline. Easytraveler - I actually am not sure that I do want to be in the Monaco area. Even though the union square area is the most touristy, I think that the downtown area is actually walking distance to more things we'd want to do/restaurants for dinner, but that's just from doing only a little research....

Hi, sharbear84!

What a lot of people do is to reserve a cancellable room somewhere and then wait until they are absolutely certain of the dates when they will need a hotel room and go on Priceline and bid. If the bid is successful, the reserved room is cancelled.

Do you use biddingfortravel.com when doing Priceline?

I see on BFT that some people bidding SOMA are getting the either the Marriott Marquis or the Intercontinental. The latter, in particular, is a lovely hotel. The SOMA (south of Market) area is just as acceptable as Union Square and it's near some of the museums and some of the good restaurants as well. Or you could bid USE (Union Square East) or the Embarcadero. You could get a really nice 4* for about $115 today. I've seen the Grand Hyatt at Union Square (USE bid) go for as little as $65 in the past.

If you don't want to be in the Hotel Monaco area, then don't bid USW (Union Square West).

Good luck on your hotel search!