Angela Y.
Yelp
Located in beautiful downtown of Pleasanton, California, you can immediately feel the intimate, tight-knit community. When we first drove on Main St., we saw all the camping chairs set up along the sidewalks in preparation of the 2017 Hometown Holiday Parade. We were attending my college roommate's wedding at The Club at Ruby Hill, and read great reviews about The Rose on Yelp and Trip Advisor, and most importantly, the close proximity to the wedding venue. My fiance decided to book a room here for us to stay over the wedding weekend.
The Rose Hotel is somewhat what the website claims herself to be, "convenience of a motel, the friendliness of a bed and breakfast, and the luxury of a fine hotel." With all the cozy holiday decorations and lovely Christmas tree, this hotels strives to make your stay feel like you never left home.
What we truly appreciate are the ample complimentary parking spaces, with the option of garage parking to shield your vehicle. The hotel also provides generous varieties of snacks and hot/cold beverages for guests. We felt really nice to come back after the wedding celebration to a cup of hot cocoa with marshmallows made by the bar staff, Daniella (sp?). Thank you for whipping up two cups of hot goodness for us at night before we returned to our room. In addition, the complimentary breakfast in the morning was also delightful - fruits, pastries, smoked salmon with capers, cereal, oatmeal, eggs, etc...there were lots of food options. We must thank the breakfast staff gentleman on duty 12/3/2017 Sunday morning (I apologetically forgot to catch his name) for diligently attending and restocking the food and clearing the tables. He was so nice and welcoming.
Other parts of the hotel that we enjoyed were the jet hot tub with powerful shower heads, fresh rose in our room and the restaurants and shops that were within walking distance to the hotel.
The reason why I gave this hotel 3 stars is because for our experience, The Rose just did not meet the convenience and flexibility that we have experience at all other hotels we stayed, not just in the U.S., but around the world. For the $260/night stay, there were times that I felt we had to walk on egg shells. Let me explain why:
We flew in Saturday morning from San Diego and arrived at The Rose around lunch time. We had explained to the front desk staff, I believe Darryl (sp?) was on duty, if we could check-in early before 3pm so that I could prepare, put on make-up, and my fiance and I could get ready for our friend's wedding which starts at 3pm. Darryl immediately called housekeeping and asked if there were any rooms vacant from the previous night, which housekeeping replied yes. However, because of hotel policy, we were charged $99 for early check-in. Because we were caught in a difficult situation where we wanted to make it to the wedding on time, we agreed to pay the extra fee just to check-in a room that was already vacant and required no cleaning.
Though we understand hotel staff was following hotel policy, we have never been charged an early check-in fee at hotels...in our lives! Just to name some examples, when we flew to Shanghai from Los Angeles on a red-eye for my 30th birthday, we arrived at 7am and the Fairmont Peace Hotel immediately checked us in so we could shower and rest up, without any additional fees involved. Another example was when we visited San Fransisco to celebrate Pride Weekend, we took the first flight up from San Diego and asked if we could check-in a bit early so we could get some rest, and The Westin St. Francis Hotel in Union Square very willingly let us check-in a few hours earlier...also without any additional fees.
I would like The Rose Hotel to be more flexible, especially since we travel to the Bay Area a lot. I still scratch my head thinking how much would the hotel would benefit if guests check-in three hours earlier when the room is already vacant? Would they rather charge me $99 now, and potentially lose me as a guest in the future? To be frank, it did leave a sour taste, because we presented a situation that was reasonable, and any other 5 star hotel in the world would of accommodated us. Thus, because of this, I am giving the hotel 3 stars and would be more inclined to stay somewhere else next time. Which is a major shame, because apart from the early check in fee, we truly enjoyed it. The hotel staff, service and decor were great.
Another thing to remember - be sure NOT to take the stairs. We stayed in room 220, which was right next to the emergency stairs. Because there were no signs that notifies guests not to take the stairs, once we opened the door, it triggers an alert that immediately calls the fire department! Yikes!