[Sponsored] Staying at Kimpton Sir Francis Drake in San Francisco

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I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to collaborate with Kimpton during my west coast road trip. After a long day of driving from Portland, OR to San Francisco (leaving Portland at 5:45 AM and arriving to the hotel in San Francisco at 9:30 PM), I was fairly exhausted.

We valeted our car and left our bags for the bellhop to bring to our room. Once we checked in, I learned that we were being upgraded to the Presidential Suite - the three door room with far more space than I was expecting. When the bellhop arrived with our luggage, he asked if I was planning on throwing a party - this didn’t seem to be a bad idea honestly.

The concierge recommended that we check out the Starlight Lounge upstairs with its live jazz band and beautiful city view and provided two free drink tickets to utilize in the lounge. Unfortunately, this was an incredibly poor experience due to the manager of the establishment being quite rude.

I ordered two drinks at the bar, and showed the drink vouchers. The bartender on staff stated that these vouchers could not be used at the Starlight Lounge. I asked to speak to the manager, and he scoffed (I really didn’t think people actually did this and thought this was simply a word to exaggerate an experience, but no… it happened) at me when he saw the vouchers and told me I could not use this. I expressed to him this must be a mistake because the front desk had just given me these vouchers following check-in moments before. Turns out, the personnel I spoke with at the front desk had just left for the evening, so she could not confirm, and the manager at the Starlight Lounge was - well, let’s be real here, being a dick. This manager continued to tell me I was wrong and that there is no such voucher to be utilized there by me.

I paid for the two drinks because I no longer wanted to converse with his blatant lack of hospitality, consideration, and ill-mannered self. After finishing drinks and taking a sweet photo of the view looking down at the city, my cousin and I went down to the front desk.

I addressed this with the front desk manager, as well as additional email correspondence to the management team. The front desk manager confirmed that these vouchers should have, in fact, been acceptable to use upstairs in the Starlight Lounge, and apologized. The management team emailed me directly and apologized as well, stating this was not the service they train their team to behave or act on.

Honestly, I want to be empathetic. Maybe this manager was having a bad day. Ultimately, there is a difference between having a bad day and being short with someone in one exchange, and blatantly being rude and disregarding someone for whatever personal reasons. I am grateful the management team at least addressed this situation with me in a timely manner (less than 12 hours turnaround).

We went out to grab food at a Korean spot around the corner, and headed back to our suite. My cousin was thrilled to see that we each had our own bathrooms, as well as our own comfortable robes to lounge in. I wish I were staying in this room longer than a day and a half, because I could find myself working remotely in my room comfortably while on my travels here with the desk nook and conference space.

The next morning, before we started our day, we ordered room service (because why not), and were not disappointed. We made use of the center conference table to instead be our breakfast flat lay station (hoho, what a social media dweeb I am).

The lobby of the hotel itself was immaculate, and offered various flavors of infused water by the lobby bar. This hotel location in Union Square was within walking distance of a few places I visited in San Francisco.. It didn’t matter what time of the day or evening my cousin and I headed back to the hotel, we felt safe entering and leaving as the doormen were friendly and conscientious about who went in and out of the establishment.

I am very grateful for these collaboration opportunities to aid my travel experiences. To say the least, this hotel during my road trip certainly helped with some of my overall expenses, as this partnership included one night comped as well as an additional evening at a discounted rate. Thank you, Kimpton Sir Francis Drake, for adding to the experience and allowing us some ease and peace of mind during our time in San Francisco.

West Coast Road Trip Series