Hotel Des Arts

The hotel is definitely a deal considering the location. It is in a convenient and charming area of SF with all the basics a room can have, and very clean. If you’re looking for extra perks and amenities this might not be the place for you. There is online and text assistance but no front desk. The rooms are minimal- you get what you pay for. Has a more old school charm and each room is unique so there is no saying which specific room you’ll get and some are slightly nicer than others. On our last day I put my headphones to charge and something very scary happened where the outlet closest to the radiator heater caused my charger to overheat and the cable to burn. If I weren’t in the room and quick to notice this could have been extremely dangerous. I would recommend they modernize some of the original design for safety. Other than that the hotel was very clean, calm and convenient.

Traveling as a couple. This was an amazing find, especially for the price. There was daily housekeeping, it was clean, and the staff that I did interact with was very nice. They also fulfilled my requests quickly! I personally like the fact that it's not always staffed and that you download the key on your phone. No annoying check in process! We were on the first floor by the stairs and never heard any of the noise from the bar. We also didn't experience much noise from the hallway or above us. It's right next to Chinatown and sooo walkable to things. Felt more safe than other areas at night as well. The only downside is no AC so leaving the windows open is worrisome and noisy, but you are in a city of course. The stairs are also super small and narrow, but there is an elevator. Would highly recommend and stay here again!

This hotel was quite the experience, and I am split on my positive & negative feelings- so I decided on 3 stars. For the positives, the location of this hotel was great. As we drove in Friday night, the streets were sketchy and hectic a mile out. But once we got within a few blocks, it turned into more couples, groups of friends, bar crawlers, and we felt much better. The location is awesome- you can literally see the entrance to Chinatown when you open door of the hotel. Very close to a lot of public transit that will get you all over the city. +1 star for location alone. The other positive is price: 3 nights for $320 in San Fran over a holiday weekend felt like a steal. Well, I guess you get what you pay for, but it was still so cheap that I have to give another star. Saving money on our hotel allowed us to put more of our budget towards fun & experiences, and we thought "all we need is somewhere with a bed, so let's spend our money elsewhere". Sadly, that ends the positives. There were a few "neutral" parts of the experience. I had no issues with the contactless arrival, and our room key worked fine on the app. I would prefer to have a physical card and some way to talk to a person, but it did not impact our stay. The decorations were fine in our room, but we did not get one of the "cooler" designs. We knew there was no way to choose your room, but it was still slightly disappointing when a big draw for the place was the unique style. This location is a hostel, not a hotel, so we set our expectations accordingly- but we did pay the slightly higher price to have a personal bathroom which was probably smart. Because the hotel is connected to the bar, there always seemed to be someone downstairs in the lobby, and people would go through the hotel doors pretty often, which may make some people feel unsafe about having drunk people able to go up to the rooms- but we did not really care. The first and worst negative to us was the facilities as a whole. It was a bright, sunny, and hot Labor Day weekend, and we knew we messed up when we opened our room the 1st night and it was very warm & stuffy. Turns out there is no air conditioning- which may not be an issue the majority of the year, but this happened to be a pretty hot weekend for San Fran. There was no ventilation of any sort in the room or bathroom, and the window was only able to crack slightly open. We left it open the entire weekend basically, but we were facing the inside square of building, not the street, so there was no breeze or relief. Sleeping and being in the room was very difficult for this reason. Additionally, there is no fridge for food or drinks, the sink has no light above it so taking out contact lenses or doing makeup may be pretty difficult. The rickety old-school elevator was not working some days, and I felt bad watching some people haul their giant suitcases down those skinny winding stairs. The rooms were small as expected, but the shower temperature was impossible to get right. Even turning the heat on by a hair with the cold knob at max would give burning water. It seemed like the cold knob in our room just was not connected properly and did not do much. Other than the facilities, the location had some small downsides as well. Being in a busy area, and near bars, you could hear noise from neighboring buildings very easily with the window open- with it closed, not so bad. There is no parking, so if you are driving like us you will need to park at a nearby garage (which are not cheap) and walk with your suitcases. Overall, I don't think we would stay here again. But it also wasn't a nightmare like some people experienced. Really depends on your lifestyle and expectations. Good luck if you take the risk!

have you ever been somewhere so bad that when you leave you feel like you’ve lost apart of yourself and your happiness forever ? If you haven’t experienced that then this place is a great start. Don’t be fooled by the positive reviews… the location is NOT worth the trauma you will endure staying here. To start off me and my friend staying here were catfished. None of the rooms showed on the website to book are a real comparison of the run down broken jail cell you’ll be put in. It was so bad that I actually made friends with various random people in the hallways who were also in disbelief on the room situation. We are two young ladies who booked this room and when we walked into our cell the blinds were broken upon arrival and completely up showing a clear view into our room. They would not accommodate us another room even after expressing how we felt uncomfortable changing with a window wide open as two ladies and not any room in the small shack of a bathroom to change. Oh wait- they did accommodate… with a sheet they brought us to tie over the blinds to cover the view. The door doesn’t lock from the inside either and despite the “key” system you can basically open the door without it. If someone wanted to get in your room and break in they would need half a sip of red bull and a motive and they would be in there in .5 seconds. Here’s some positives- the room keeper Berta was a pleasure and as helpful as she could be and I appreciate my house and family more after this stay. I feel like they should pay me for staying here Another note the elevator is another great ride to appreciate life because you will feel like you’ll lose yours any minute… but thank gosh that it was Inspected for safety three years ago. Why wouldn’t you take the stairs you might ask? Well considering it’s the width of a small under fed child and a spiral into what feels like hell I’d take the elevator.

I have traveled all over the world and stayed in some really unusual, unkept hotels and hostels. I have never felt uncomfortable staying in my hotel room before I stayed at the Hotel Des Arts. This hotel, however, is without question, the worst hotel room I have ever stayed at in my life. From the front desk person who just stood there and watched me struggle trying to open the locked front door, to the death trap elevator that takes five minutes to go five floors, to the electronic key app that didn’t work on my door, all these things I could move past. The room, however. No. Absolutely not. When I first walked into the room I honestly thought that it was a leftover unfinished room from when the building had been a crack house. ||||Now I understand that art is subjective and I LOVE art, and even have graffiti pieces in my person collection. This room however, is not that. It felt like someone had been on meth and locked themselves in for a month. There were naked women on every wall, profanity, vulgarities… things that you would NOT want a child to see, just on every wall including the ceiling. It was a room full of bad energy and chaos. I was greatly uncomfortable. The only way I can describe it is that I paid $200 a night to sleep in a back alley in the worst part of the city. And yes, I asked for another room, all booked up. No can do. ||||Now, that may be your style. You may love the kind of art that makes you queezy and on edge, but that is not the only issue with this hotel. Just the most obvious. Here’s a few other things wrong with this hotel:||||1. The bed. Being the cheapest model they could find, was so stiff it felt like you were laying on an eggcrate over plywood, with the exception of the large steel beam going right down the middle of the bed that you really felt dig into your back anytime you tried to move. I was in the navy on a boat and this bed was 10x worse than that. ||2. No AC/heat. This is not a nice new hotel building. This is an old old SF building and while nice hotels put in those amenities for their guests, this hotel feels it’s fine that you sweat in your room while sitting still. ||3. Ventilation. There was one window in the room. It opened onto an enclosed lightwell with a bunch of the other rooms and the cackling girls from the other rooms filled that entire space and permeated my hotel room even with the window closed. The window which had broken blinds and no screen so, you know, bugs flying in. Also, no window in the bathroom which I’m pretty sure is a violation. ||4. There were holes in the walls. ||5. There was an electric cord coming out of the wall going to nothing just dangling out of the wall. ||6. The only plug I had to use was a multi-prong extension cord just laying on the floor under the desk. ||7. The art didn’t cover everything so there were just patches of drywall and unpainted walls. ||8. I’m pretty sure someone died in the closet since it looks like a serial killer hiding space.||9. The furniture (nightstand and desk) felt like they had been found discarded on the street and put into the room. Scuffed and ugly and very old. The plastic chair was uncomfortable and honestly I felt like I was going to break it at any moment. ||10. Obviously, there were no amenities like a mini fridge, a countertop or a phone to call the front desk, which makes sense as there was never anyone at the front desk for the entirety of my stay after my initial entry. Also, I never found out where the ice machine was as there was no one to ask and no signs. ||11. The bathroom looked half-finished like the meth head finally got evicted before he could finish. ||12. If you sat on the toilet the tp roll and wall were so close you had to lean into the bathtub just to wipe your ass. ||13. Speaking of the bath… the shower. Big step out of it, bigger than it looks, easy to trip and fall out of. And the showerhead was literally at the same level as my nipples. ||14. While all the rooms are themed I could not help but notice that the room they gave me is not shown on their website anywhere. In fact the room that I booked on their website looked beautiful, as did a lot of the other rooms they showed on their website. Lovely looking rooms. That is not what I got, and they have no obligation to give you what you think you booked. You book the size of the room, not the theme. So if you are looking at their website hoping to pick a specific themed room, you have zero control over what you get. ||||Overall, while the art placed all around the hotel was absolutely beautiful, it does not make up for the experience of being in that horrid hotel room. This is not a place I will ever stay again even if I get promised the actual room that I booked as there are no employees on site to make the experience better. This was a “cheap for SF” room and now I know why. If you get a hotel so you can have a peacefully place to stay while away from home, do yourself a favor and avoid this hotel, it is not what it sells you online.

Location was great. The rest was not good. Didn’t have my correct room when I checked in. No ac so had to leave the window open which was nice during the day but at night the busy bar below kept us up at night until 2:30am every night. With a 7am flight I was not happy. Then I had to kill a huge roach in my son’s room. Gross. Keys worked sometimes. When they didn’t you had to call bc there was not a front desk to get them to send you another digital key to download. Would not stay here again. Avoid

The keyless entry using an app didn't work. There is no hotel front desk clerk (at least most times if ever), and the app provided by the hotel wasn't working. I had to call a number and get instructions to go on a long and indirect treasure hunt to find a physical key locked away in a back room. The person i spoke to said this happens a lot. If it happens a lot, it should be changed.

This hotel was cool. It definitely did not feel like a hostel to me but a modern,, hip, niche boutique hotel. It's modern with self check in, minimal fuss. Great location, clean, great staff on site.