Please help with hotels in San Francisco............

[momtofour]

We are going to San Francisco and need help with budget hotels. We are a family of 6 so we need condo style accomodations or two rooms for 4 nights. We would love to stay in the city but it is so pricey for two rooms and parking. Close to $550 per night! Any suggestions for something close to San Francisco and then we can take the BART into the city? I have searched endlessly but coming up with little. Thanks in advance!

 

[Zerosinthecloset]

Depending on where you stay outside the city, the cost for BART in and out of the city could probably cover the cost of parking. There are plenty of private garages in the downtown area that are a lot cheaper than hotel parking. Check with Betterbidding.com to see what others have won on Priceline/Hotwire, with the understanding that Priceline only guarantees double occupancy. Also check Lastminutetravel.com for your dates, and you should be able to find a 3.5* or better for a reasonable price.

 

[NCRedding]

We stayed at Nob Hill Motor Court several years ago. It was BASIC accommodations, a little threadbare, but comfortable. The breakfast offered was pretty minimal. We stayed in a room that had two queens and a fold down sofa. I think it slept 5. Free parking. This is a motor inn from the 50s-60s with outside corridors, but we had no issues. It is in a more residential area, but there are restaurants close by. It was also about 2 blocks to the bus, and 2-3 blocks to the cable car line. It worked for us, though it isn't luxurious at all!

 

[Poodlebud]

We've stayed at the Royal Pacific Motor Inn in San Francisco a couple of times. It's basically a motel. Parking is free. I don't remember if it had free breakfast, but there are so many interesting places nearby to get breakfast. Just a few building down the street is a Chinese bakery, and across the street is Little Italy, where they have many cafes that serve breakfast. The motel is located on Broadway. The motel side of Broadway is the north edge of Chinatown, and across the street is the south edge of Little Italy. The walk to the Bart station is quite a hike, but it's all downhill, you can take the bus back to the motel. Check out Royal Pacific on Google. We really enjoyed staying there, but there were a couple of things you might want to consider about this motel. The motel building is an L shape and the street side gets a lot of traffic noise. In the mornings there are delivery trucks and garbage trucks that are really loud. Also, there is no air conditioning. It's really not needed, except one year we went, there was a heat wave in October and was really warm in the room.

I hope you enjoy your trip to San Francisco!

 

[mnrose]

If I were looking for accommodations for a large group in San Francisco area, personally I'd be doing a rental through VRBO. If you don't have a car during your trip, stay in the City...plenty of places available for $300 range in decent area (Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill). Here's an example I found looking quickly: http://www.vrbo.com/302629 If you have a car during your trip, check in areas outside the city, but still close... Mill Valley, Sausalito, Corte Madera or Larkspur are good examples. All of these are quite close to the City (if you have a car) and are "safe" areas, with a goodly number of choices in the sub $300 range. I lived in this area for 20 years...and love it.

 

[DOOM1001]

My last trip was 4-5 years ago and we ended up staying in two hotels in the Bay area and one in lake Tahoe, all booked on Hotwire.I know they were all in the $50-$75 range,none were obviously right in the city but we rented a car for like $240 for the week and none of the hotels charged for parking.The closest hotel we got was the Holiday Inn express in Pacifica,about a 20 minute drive from the city,right next to the ocean,free breakfast,nothing fancy but nice and clean.We then drove to Tahoe and got the Harvey's casino resort,right in the Stateline area of South Lake Tahoe walking distance to the Heavenly ski resort.The last hotel we got was a Residence Inn and the furthest from San Francisco in Newark closer to San Jose which was probably about 30-40 minutes from San Francisco.We only got bad traffic once crossing the Bay Bridge coming back from a half day at Six Flags in Vallejo,aside from that I got around very easily and whenever we drove into the Pier 39 area we parked for like $6 behind the Joe's Crab shack restaurant and when we wanted to go to the Union Square area we took the street cars over.