Going Downhill Faster than a Cable Car
I've stayed at this particular Ritz Carlton over a dozen times, but hadn't been there in about 7 years. I have anew business matter that will take me to San Francisco every month or so for the next year so was looking forward to staying at the Ritz again.
I stayed there last month and was shocked (I hadn't realized that Marriott bought them and don't know if that is the reason for the changes). When I arrived I was stunned -- they'd just completed a major "renovation" of the bar, the restaurant and the main lounge off the entry area.
The "new" areas are dreadful -- the main lounge area was a shock -- it's a bizarre mix of disharmonious colors and furniture design that can't be explained. I guess the closest description would be "Clockwork Orange come to the Ritz." The bar has a red light glow, the walls are dark charcoal, the chairs look like they were plucked from a Disney ride, the fabrics are in a visual war with each other, and for people who like comfort when they relax for a couple of hours with some friends over drinks, if you like your chairs at rigid 90 degree angles that leave you with back pain, you'll love it. I can't imagine an uglier room, and we spent some time retrying to conceive of a contemporary design concept that could explain what they did. We failed -- no design concept was apparent. 
The new restaurant lives up to the maxim: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. The closest visual analogy I could think of was one of those all-you-can-east buffet rooms in a glitzy Las Vegas Hotel. And the old bar, with its comfortable cozy chairs and warm colors has been replaced by something resembling a waiting room in one of those airport club lounges, only most of the latter are more inviting.
For perspective, I am not a big fan of the Ritz Carlton's more classic look of repro American furniture, so it's not as if they replaced something I loved. But this particular Ritz, with its admirable location and nice scale, was a good place, and now its awful. I used to spend hours meeting friends and clients in the discreet old bar and the lounge. During my 5 days I didn't spend a minute -- well, one exception, when I went to the bar adjacent the restaurant for a bar snack, I couldn't find a single thing on the menu that I wanted, and I'll usually go for anything.
Another defect? The room haven't been touched. Yes, they're clean, but they are very dated and boring. What was nice 10-20 years ago is just plain dull.
And the one thing I always intensely disliked at the Ritz -- well, they've kept that -- the staff is intrusive, indiscreet and sometimes just plain aggressive. Somehow, the Ritz is able to find perfectly nice and motivated staff and train them to intrude on the clientele at every opportunity. When you come down in the morning on your way to the entrance to find a taxi, you run a gauntlet of insincerely, robotically programmed staff yelling out your name -- I don't need 6 "good morning Mr. X" greetings when I walk 30 yards to the entrance. Whenever I stayed at the Ritz, if it was for a business deal that needed to be kept discreet, I always had my clients check in with fake names to avoid having their names shouted for every passing journalist to hear and leak to the Wall Street Journal.
In short, a good hotel has been ruined. I've booked the Four Seasons for my next trip.