San Francisco -- The Hotel

So, now we are in San Francisco. We've come here with our other niece, Jordana, for a visit. We arrived last night at the airport, and took a taxi to our hotel -- the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental on Nob Hill. We arrived at the front desk, happily expecting to be whisked away to our two-room suite.

Sadly, it was not to be. Through an enormous f#&k up, the hotel had overbooked itself by an amazingly inconsiderate 35 rooms. We had a confirmed reservation (in fact, we'd called and spoken to them not 72 hours earlier to arrange a roll-away bed) but apparently "confirmed" doesn't mean what you and I think it means. And so, after much anguish and unhappy remonstrations, we were unceremoniously exiled across the street to the Fairmont Hotel.

Now, the Fairmont was quite a fine alternative. And the Mark Hopkins did agree to pay for the night, but still ... it was annoying and disappointing.

At the Fairmont we also had a nice two-room suite. We quickly put ourselves to bed and woke up to a wonderful sunrise over the Bay. Our room had windows facing East and North and we saw Coit Towers, Alcatraz and the Golden Gate bridge in the morning sunlight.

The next morning, perforce, we checked out of the Fairmont and, once again, crossed the street to the Mark Hopkins. We must say that at this point we were felling fairly frazzled and a bit put out. But the Mark Hopkins made up for our inconvenience in a BIG way. When we checked in, instead of the small 2-room suite we were expecting, we were upgraded to the Penthouse Suite, on the top floor of the hotel. The suite comes complete with a livingroom/library, a dining room, a kitchen, two TVs, a master bedroom and bath. In short, its a massive suite bigger than most rental apartments. We are now happily ensconced here for the next 3 nights and well situated for our visit to San Francisco.