I just returned from a wonderful 4 day in San Francisco, and 3 nights at the Omni Hotel San Francisco was a treat. I aways stay there now, and the accommodations, amenities, and staff are the best of any hotel I know. it is well-located and to me it is paradise away from home in America's favorite city.

Martin I. Laichtman, M.D.

Giving this hotel 5 stars is easy with the type of service they deliver! I am a believer!

I pulled up after a night at the newly finished J.W. Marriott hotel in Union Square, bad planning on my part. I was denied late check out and feeling a little green; I thought I would take my chances on an early check-in at the Omni. Having booked through Travelocity, my hopes were not high. I was greeted by the extremely efficient and professional Evelyn. She was kind, sympathetic and sincere. I was not a lesser human being for booking a discount room from an online service, hurray! I was feeling better. Evelyn clicked away on her keyboard and had me in a room within 10 minutes, my day was turning around. Enter Fernando, the very pleasant and chatty bellman that seemed to know everyone. He whisked my luggage away and we had a nice conversation.

I arrived in the simple, yet elegant room to find a handwritten note from the housekeeper, Suyuak. I am a sucker for the personal touch. Slipping into a comfortable robe provided by the hotel, I decided to order room service, a Kobe burger would surely bring me around. The burger arrived and it was delicious! The meat was lightly spiced with a hint of pepper and the melted cheddar was just right! The fries were lightly spiced and delicious too. My high school reunion was 5 hours away and I was starting to feel human again. After a nice nap on the comfortable bed it was time to shower and head out for the evening.

At the end of a long night, I decided to have a couple of classmates over to continue the reminiscing. I called over from the Sir Francis Drake where the reunion took place and asked room service to send a cart of refreshments up to my room. 30 minutes later when we all arrived, a beautiful cart with stemware, refreshments and snacks was waiting for us. Two thumbs up for Ms. Joanne, the goddess of In Room Dining that was running the floor solo and made this all happen. Mind you it was the manager the next day that told me Ms. Joanne had been alone, Ms. Joanne never complained or muttered a word. She made it all seem effortless. When it was time to turn in, I was so happy to have a minty treat on my pillow and turn down service. Most hotels in the four star genre have done away with this simple pleasure, it was a real treat to see my sheets folded down.

When I walked up to the counter to check out the following day, I couldn't wait to shower the staff with praise. Crystal was checking me out and before she had the chance to ask, I blurted out "I love this hotel!" Crystal proceeded to check me out with the utmost efficiency and showered my with savings passes for Nordstrom, Bloomingdales and Macy's. What a smart move! Now I have to go back and book a room for a shopping weekend!

All around the staff were magnificent, the hotel was well maintained and aesthetically pleasing, and I left in a really good mood!

In the future I will book directly through the hotel and pay the higher price. I don't want to risk ending up at another hotel!

The Omni hotel is nice enough, and tries to offer decent service. But the rooms are definitely hit or miss and it is quite random whether you will get a nice accommodation.

On the plus side, the hotel is conveniently located downtown in the financial district. A bit far from the convention center or tourist destinations but great if you are in town for work. The staff is generally professional and helpful.

The lobby is a bit small and it can be difficult to get past all the doormen to get to the desk. Mind you, they are friendly and willing to help, but often there are 3 standing right in front of the doors, sometimes one is on the staircase leading into the hotel, so it feels like you are sneaking past the Secret Service every time you enter the hotel. At some hotels the doormen quickly open the door and get out of your way but here they are usually in conversation and don't notice you until you are already past.

Speaking of small, the rooms are on the small side as well, which is not too uncommon for an older property. Don't waste your time on a "premium" room as the extra square footage is mostly in a long hallway that isn't useable. On paper these rooms are larger but they end up feeling the same size.

Premium rooms also have two televisions but unfortunately the Omni is one of those hotels that has upgraded to 'high-def" TVs but not high-def programming. Everything on screen is stretched wide to fill the wider screen, which ends up making everything all distorted - all the actors look squat and fat. Some hotels allow you to set the TV back to the regular aspect ratio to fix this, but not the Omni. I guess they don't want the black bars on the sides of the screens. But the result is that they can claim to have high-quality TVs while the picture quality is actually worse than your average Holiday Inn.

Premium rooms offer "a courtyard view". Be aware that this means you will probably get some light through the window but the actual "view will be of a wall, or large machinery. Definitely nothing you would take a picture of if you aren't an HVAC engineer.

If they are busy don't gamble on a smoking room unless you really don't mind the smell. The Omni gets a lot of heavy smokers so those rooms truly reek.

The hotel restaurant is okay, basic big-city hotel food (at very high prices) but nothing to get excited about.

All in all, if you can book during a slow period when you can easily change rooms to find one more to your liking then the Omni is an acceptable downtown hotel. But when reservations are scarce you are better off at a more reliable property.

We had the pleasure of 3 nights at The Omni with our family of 4 including 2 teenage girls one of whom uses a wheelchair. The staff at the Omni could not have been more helpful and friendly and although there were not many families that we could see staying I highly recommend this place to families looking for an up market experience. Milk and cookies were delivered every night for our girls and every time we passed through the lobby they returned with red roses, a toy cable car, chocolates, postcards, an unused cable car pass left by a previous guest, and best of all a big smile.

The service was quite simply fantastic and very personal. I must give a special mention to Lex the conciege who was great and even helped us when he saw us looking at the map when he was off duty and we were shopping.

I would recommend this hotel to anyone - it won't disappoint. The location was quiet and yet within reasonable, relatively flat walking distance of everything we needed.