Want to know what it’s like to stay at Club Quarters San Francisco?
Club Quarters San Francisco is centrally located in the city, just a couple blocks from the Transamerica Pyramid.
It’s a typical city hotel with smaller rooms than you’re probably used to and smaller bathrooms, but it’s still reasonably priced considering how accessible the entire city is from this location.
You can see a full walk-through of our room at Club Quarters San Francisco in the video below.
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Club Quarters San Francisco King Room Review
On a recent week-long trip to San Francisco, we stayed in a Standard King Room at Club Quarters.
This hotel is centrally located in the Embarcadero area and Financial District, with easy access to the entire city.
Hotel Location
Columbus Ave is just around the corner and that street is filled with amazing restaurants, especially for Italian food.
We ate there most nights of our trip.
You can take that road all the way to the Pier, Ghirardelli Square, and tons of other tourist sites.
The hotel is right next to the Transamerica Pyramid, so it’s an easy landmark to always find your way back to.
There’s also a Starbucks right outside, so JP started most mornings with his coffee.
There’s a restaurant attached the hotel too where we ordered in a small dinner one night because we didn’t want to go out and we weren’t starving, but we needed something.
I think we just had the crab cakes appetizer.
Parking
Parking is NOT included at this hotel.
They recommend parking in the Embarcadero lot diagonal from the hotel, which is what we did.
There’s several lots in the area though so you don’t have to go with this one.
I want to say it’s something like $35-$40 a day to park here.
You pay each time you go in and out and the 24 hour max charge is $35-$40.
We only used the car 3 of the days we were there.
We weren’t going back and forth all day, so I’m not sure what the hourly charges were.
In a city, you have to expect parking to be another fee and it’s probably going to cost a lot.
Honestly most hotels with parking would’ve charged at least $50 a night, so this wasn’t a bad deal for this area.
Even when we spent the day in New York City last year, we spent $45 to park the car for like 14 or 15 hours and that was one of the cheapest options we could find.
Lobby
Below are some photos of the lobby, common areas, and some of the Christmas decor in the hotel.
You’ll see there’s a small coffee bar that is free any time of day.
The fireplace area was also very cozy.
Most of the time these areas were empty.
But around check in times, especially on the weekend there were a handful of people hanging out in here.
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Overall Experience
Typical of city hotels, the room is quite tiny, but functional.
The biggest downside was not having a fridge or even a microwave.
We always bring tons of bottled water with us when we travel and I happened to be on multiple medications at the time, so it was disappointing to not have cold water readily available.
We also weren’t able to bring home any leftovers from our meals for midnight snacks.
So that’s my number one thing I would’ve changed about our stay.
Other than that, literally everything else was fine.
The water pressure in the shower was fantastic, it was always hot any time of day instantaneously.
The heater worked great since it was such a tiny room and there was enough counter space in the bathroom and the desk to have a place for all of our stuff.
The location was perfect for everything we wanted to do!
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How We Found Club Quarters San Francisco
I’d like to start by saying it’s almost always better to book directly with the hotel you’re staying at, however in this case we didn’t.
We got this week-long stay for attending a timeshare presentation.
Timeshares love to throw out all kinds of freebies to get people in the door.
We have a timeshare already, so we know how it all works and how to make the system work for us.
So we attend presentations when we stay at our timeshare for the freebies when we have the time.
The way it was presented was that they were just offering a week-long stay for anyone who attended that day.
At the end of the presentation, we were given a pamphlet showing us how to use our week-long stay.
Since we are very flexible with when and where we travel, I don’t mind these kinds of things that much, but they really are a hassle.
The average person would never be able to use these and they’d go to waste.
We are very adamant about not letting these things go to waste, since we did have to spend a couple hours of our free time to get it.
We knew we’d want to write up a Club Quarters San Francisco review anyway, so we figured we might as well test this out.
So the company the timeshare partnered with to offer this is called Casablanca Express.
If you look at their reviews, it’s a little rough, but if you understand how their business works, it makes a lot more sense how it all works.
Casablanca Express
So first of all, the Casablanca Express “certificates” let you pick from a handful of pre-selected cities for a 7 night stay.
We originally planned to use this to go to Honolulu, but I don’t like airplanes much these days, so we decided on San Francisco instead.
San Francisco is easily accessible for us since it’s only about a 6 hour drive.
So it was really the most flexible option.
From there, you have to pick your Top 3 dates of your stay (they all have to be that same city) and you MAIL in the form.
So this already was a massive obstacle.
You have to pick a date at least 60 days out and each of the 3 proposed dates must be at least 30 days apart.
So I think we just picked a random week in October, November, and December that would most likely work.
They were all outside the holidays, so we figured our odds were good.
Also we had to send a check for something like a $100 deposit for the stay that was refundable.
Getting the Details
I THINK December was our last choice, but we booked it so long ago I can’t remember.
So anyway, a couple weeks later, we get a letter back saying they booked us for December.
Then it said someone would reach out about the details.
So at this point all we knew was that we were going to San Francisco December 8-15.
Maybe 6 weeks out I decided to call them because I had not heard anything more.
The guy I spoke with said to call at the 30 day mark if someone doesn’t contact me first because that’s when they get their inventory.
So in the mean time, I tried researching Casablanca Express to see if I could find a name of a hotel they use in San Francisco.
I read online reviews everywhere and couldn’t get a name.
But I did learn something else!
The Upsell
Here is how Casablanca Express operates: With these certificates, they book you at MOTELS in the sketchiest areas.
For example, in San Francisco, this would be the Tenderloin area.
Then the “reservations agent” aka the SALES agent, will say, “but we can upgrade you to XYZ hotel”.
So then they start with the most expensive hotel option and talk about all the perks and amenities.
They’ll usually give about 3 options and then continue talking about how bad the motels are and that you just HAVE to upgrade.
Which honestly is true, you literally have to upgrade if you don’t want to be on the next Dateline episode.
So, because I knew this going in, I knew what to expect on that phone call.
We did our own hotel research and came up with our own number that we were willing to spend for this “upgrade”.
As she listed the hotels to JP, I had Google and Google Maps open researching the places to see which ones were in good areas and to make sure we weren’t being ridiculously overcharged for these properties.
Did We Come Out Ahead?
After getting our 3 options, I decided Club Quarters was the best option.
There was 1 that was more expensive, but it was just way more than we were willing to spend.
This one was way more reasonable.
I think the 3rd option just wasn’t centrally located or something and was cheaper.
In the end, after calculating the deposit and the hotel charge, it came out to about a 10% discount from if we had just booked directly with the hotel from the beginning.
Which is okay, but it’s also such a low cost savings that we probably could’ve saved 10% on our own through something like AAA or AARP you know?
However, I would’ve never found or considered this property otherwise.
So that’s something good that came of it.
We almost always stay at Hilton properties since we’re Diamond members with Hilton Honors and have friends and family discount benefits.
However, even the lowest level properties like Hampton Inn, would have been astronomically expensive for an entire week in San Francisco.
So is Casablanca Express A Scam?
So it all worked out, but I definitely am not in any hurry to do business with Casablanca Express again.
The company is not a scam, their way of doing business is just very slow and old school.
If anything, it’s more so on the timeshare companies that are not transparent from the beginning about how the certificates work.
But timeshares are notoriously deceptive, so we just play around with these freebies out of curiosity and to share the experience with you so that you can either be prepared or avoid it at all costs! lol
Fun Things To Do When You Stay At Club Quarters San Francisco
You’re either in walking distance or a short bus ride away from all kinds of world class attractions throughout San Francisco.
These are some highlights that we most recommend.
Visit The Walt Disney Family Museum
Did you know there’s a museum dedicated to Walt Disney in San Francisco?
This place is so amazing I take everyone there when I visit San Francisco.
It leads you through Walt Disney’s entire life, career, and legacy.
The golden age of animation and the opening of Disneyland are some of my favorite areas of this museum.
The Famous Alcatraz Island Night Tour
There are a ton of boat tours that will take you close to Alcatraz, but the best tour is the iconic night time tour.
The sun will set as you’re heading out there and it’ll be pitch black by the time you’re roaming around this infamous prison.
Muir Woods National Monument Easy Half Day Hiking Itinerary
Muir Woods National Monument is just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge.
It has a short walking loop for those that aren’t as into hiking, but it also has many branches from this main loop to extend your hike a little longer.
All The Best Foods San Francisco Is Known For
San Francisco has the best seafood, Chinese food, Italian food, and more.
We tried dozens of places so you don’t have to!
These are the best places to go for food around San Francisco.
The Best San Francisco Attractions To Visit
I know I listed a few places above, but if you want a comprehensive list of all the best places to visit in San Francisco, then you’ll want to check out this post.
We vacationed here for over a week during this stay at Club Quarters San Francisco and got to see and do a ton of things!
Conclusion: Club Quarters San Francisco King Room Review
Club Quarters San Francisco is a great property, centrally located near the Embarcadero and Financial District.
The room is small, as most city hotels are, but it’s quite functional.
After reading this Club Quarters San Francisco review, I highly recommend the King Room here on your next visit.
Click Here To Book Your Stay At Club Quarters San Francisco Today!
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