Wonderful city hotel
My sister and I had a planned a lovely girls' getaway in SF and chose the St Regis as our base. We were in SF to celebrate a friend's birthday (who lives in SF) and were planning on treating her to a spa day. We arrived on the red eye from NYC and were welcomed to a cozy lobby with a roaring fireplace. This was my 10th stay at a St Regis (not in SF, others) and we were made to feel very welcome at check-in. Our room wasn't ready yet, but we went off to confirm our spa reservations for the next day. The spa looked lovely and we had our three spa services confirmed, so we were all set.
When our room was ready, we went up - it had a lovely view, great bathroom, everything you expect from a St Regis. The concierge was knowledgeable and the hotel bar was great - do try their various specialty bloody marys (I drank them in lieu of having lunch each day!). Now on to the only sad part of our stay - the spa. My sister went in first and I waited in the hotel lobby for our friend, the birthday girl. When we went up to the spa, it seemed to be understaffed. The one receptionist was on the phone and when she finally did check us in, did not give us the mandatory tour of the facilities, just let us know where the locker rooms were. Odd, for a spa of this class, especially since the actual treatment rooms were on another floor and there was an internal, spa only elevator to get there. It would have been nice to have this explained to us. I was planning on using the wet facilities (steam, sauna etc) before my treatment, but to my shock, saw that there was a sign that these were not working today. The fact that nobody had mentioned this to us when we made our reservations and when we had confirmed them the previous day was unacceptable. Our plan to spend a few hours relaxing pre and post treatment was shot to pieces. I went in for my treatment but told the receptionist that I would like to meet with the spa director. My treatment itself was great (all 3 of our treatments were) but that didn't solve our problem. Luckily, my sister was able to get us a reservation for high tea right after, so we could celebrate our friend's birthday there instead of in the spa. The spa director was most apologetic, comped our services and even gave the birthday girl a goody bag, but it was still a sad wrinkle in our otherwise lovely stay.
One last thing that I must mention - do try the hotel's restaurant Ame. In a city with outstanding restaurants, it was memorable. An exceptional take on Asian fusion.