Hilton San Francisco Airport Bayfront

“Good airport Hilton”

Good location if you need to be near the airport. Showing it's age, but still nice enough for a quick overnight before a flight. Friendly staff. Basic amenities for a full service Hilton. Their suites are enormous.

“1N stay was okay, but shuttle was so late”

The stay was okay, but I had expected higher quality rooms considering the price of the rooms. I think now we only paid for the location and the hotel does not care much for the quality of the rooms. It might have once been nice, but the rooms and especially the bathrooms are very dated and in need… more

The stay was okay, but I had expected higher quality rooms considering the price of the rooms. I think now we only paid for the location and the hotel does not care much for the quality of the rooms. It might have once been nice, but the rooms and especially the bathrooms are very dated and in need of some TLC. One reason we got the room is because they have a free shuttle to and from the airport. The only problem with that is we waited outside in the rain for the shuttle. We waited and waited for almost one hour and I even saw some shuttles and the same driver three times make their rounds before our shuttle finally arrived. The shuttle from the hotel to the airport did leave on time.

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“felt like a middling Vegas hotel, basically”

This felt like I stayed in a quiet Vegas hotel, for better or worse. This property is oddly, like, Polynesian themed? Little wave logo that reminds me of the Mandalay Bay one, plus a tropics vibe in the elevator, and on the carpets. It seems like they mostly cleared out what the vibe probably was d… more

This felt like I stayed in a quiet Vegas hotel, for better or worse. This property is oddly, like, Polynesian themed? Little wave logo that reminds me of the Mandalay Bay one, plus a tropics vibe in the elevator, and on the carpets. It seems like they mostly cleared out what the vibe probably was during their last renovation - the theme is otherwise non existent. You enter breakfast by going down the left, past the bar. For the holidays they had a slightly animatronic Santa and raindeer, which was cute. Not the largest seating area, but there are in fact, views of the Bay, if by Bay you mean the body of water. The breakfast was not as jaw dropping as the reviews I read made it seem. It’s a pretty standard Hilton breakfast buffet, kinda giving a simplified version of the ones I’ve seen in my stays in Asia, actually (they have congee, along with pork bao buns, potstickers, egg rolls, little custard tarts, and chow mein). They have little school plastic cups of apple juice by the individual Chobani Greek yogurt cups, for some reason (if you’re wondering, US Foods is their supplier). The potstickers were good! Eggs were the typical scrambled eggs that you’d see at a hotel breakfast of this tier, nothing special and no omelette station. They didn’t have hot sauce but they did have a generic sriracha. Sausage is not labeled for which type of meat it is. Pricing is $31 for the “full” buffet, or $13 for a continental (no hot food included, just fruit, breads, yogurts, and coffee) version. Considering the buffet is pretty standard by international Hilton standards, I can understand especially how those visiting the US would be miffed that by default, you have to pay out of pocket for it even as a Gold member. Went back for more potstickers and came back for the bill - for one person, with an 18% tip, it’s about $40 for the full buffet, or $17 for the continental, which I went for my second day. I personally don’t think the addition of eggs is worth paying double, but to each their own. Silver lining: if you wanted to, say, take a banana and an apple juice cup (or even one of the Chobani or cereal cups) and put it in your bag for later, no one will stop you. Bathrooms need to be renovated (beyond what they’ve already done - the was a modern-looking circular LED light fixture in mine) for sure. Shower/tub was actually slightly worse than the one at the Hyatt House I stayed in on this trip (which is not a compliment!) - and at least that one had an offered bath mat, since I guess management thinks having grips on the bottom of this tub is an adequate replacement despite the fact it doesn’t feel nice. Typical shower gel / shampoo / conditioner attached to the shower wall, though I have never seen lotion and hand soap be attached to the wall near a sink before. Were people really swiping the soap like that? Feels oddly shady to have it set up with the presumption you’d steal the bottle otherwise. There are no overhead lights in the room outside of one near the entrance, and one in the bathroom. All other lighting is lamp based, and the lamps aren’t centrally controlled so you will have to turn them each off - the bedside ones are at least close enough to the bed, though. No reading light or anything fancy, nor an alarm clock, but there is a wireless charging pad on the one bedside table, with additional outlets and USB/C ports. There’s another set of outlets and ports next to the (free to use, empty) mini fridge. A tea kettle and coffee machine are offered, with Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf branded coffee packets (Brazil blend / decaf), and tea (English Breakfast / Chamomile). Equal sugar substitute and Coffee Mate packets are offered with those, along with paper cups / plastic lids in single-use bags, along with cardboard cup cozies. Closet has three clip hangers and around four standard ones - all wooden - plus a small safe. Table nearest to the entryway is set up to be where your luggage rests. There’s an office chair by the desk corner, along with a comfier chair with a matching ottoman, and little side table. The TV has your typical American cable channel selection, along side very Vegas coded (not complimentary) options to buy stuff, including renting individual movies for $25, “hours of [music] listening time” for $13, etc. You can also in theory check your folio through the Settings page but it kept showing as blank for me. Interface was pretty slow. No Chromecast / AirPlay or Netflix / YouTube logins. IThe “heated” indoor pool is in fact heated but is nowhere near hot tub levels of warm - more like lukewarm. Pool was a ghost town when I went - though I had some lookie loos peer in when I was in the water. Towels are provided. Two separate signs let you know you should not go in if you have diarrhea. Hours are 5am - 11pm. Gym (which is labeled as “powered by Precor” with some not-quite removed window cling) was a decent size compared to some other exercise rooms I’ve experienced. Outside of the 2000s era Precor treadmills and elliptical, it has a Smith machine and hand-weight rack, along with one bench. It also has exactly one Peloton. After messaging the first night that it still was on the setup screen (as in, the hotel needed to set up the subscription on the bike), I came back the second night to find that it still wasn’t set up, or connected to the internet. I had to gently explain to the maintenance folks what a Peloton is supposed to be able to do, because neither seemed familiar with it. They were helpful and apologetic after the fact, but I figure a decent amount of folks during my stay also wanted to use it and had given up before I reached out the first or second times. I saw several people wander into the gym (in non-gym clothes), take a look, and then cycle back out. On the little card they give you at check in, there’s a QR code to a website you can use to live track the airport shuttle (the link is also in the app, under “Transportation”). It is free (there’s a sign to tip if you want), and does run frequently. They claim that it’ll arrive every 30 minutes, on the hour/30, but that was not true when I used it. Use the tracker to get a sense of when to be outside - it stops at the Burlingame parking lot for the airport, outside the International Terminal, T1, and T2 (all from the departures tier), before coming back to the hotel, and taking about 5/10 when they do. It’s a black coach van with logos for the Hilton and the Burlingame airport parking, though there seems to be at least two - one has USB plugs, the other did not. There’s no room for luggage larger than a backpack where you sit in the shuttle, so do not claim you can hold stuff in your lap - one guy tried and was pointed to the luggage storage in the trunk. Didn’t time the time from the hotel to the International Terminal, but it felt like maybe 10 minutes once we got moving. The surroundings of the hotel are an interesting contrast. There’s an empty office building and an abandoned Red Roof Inn on the one side, but also a cute little walking path with a pricey seafood restaurant on the other. You can walk up to some nearby restaurants (the street isn’t too busy nor wide), and/or the Meta Reality Labs office. The hotel staff I interacted with was professional. Housekeeping came around 6pm (???) and took out my trash / swapped towels - no turndown service offered, and the water wasn’t restocked. Someone else came around 8:30 am to ask if I had checked out, which I have not experienced at other hotels of this type, to be frank. Not super warm & fuzzy, outside of the maintenance folks after the Peloton incident. I think that’s the way folks eventually learn to interact when dealing with such a a large contingency of international travelers - it seems like this hotel’s main clientele are (1) folks from other countries who assume this will be a more luxury property than it is because it’s a Hilton, (2) airline employees, and (3) the occasional tech worker. It’s also the cheapest Hilton near the airport, though that’s probably a function of the quantity of rooms (14 floors!). I don’t think I’d stay here again, necessarily. Not that this was a bad stay but that there’s nothing really remarkable about it from what you’d assume with a Hilton.

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