Balmoral Hotel San Francisco

Never again will I stay here. Smells nasty. Door doesn’t even shut. Big gaps all around the door. No AIR CONDITIONING… IF I new that I would not have booked this place. So if it’s hot your going to be sweating. Window you can open and reach out into another room. Nasty bathrooms. Nasty people that I’m thinking live here. If you like to be hot and nasty stay here. INTERNET IS THE WORST. Good luck trying to do anything on line. Avoid. Better th o pay to stay at the Hilton street over.

This place is a f’n s!@# heap and don’t let them tell you any different.
I stayed here for 3 weeks in May while I searched for a new place to live.
BE CAREFUL — BE VERY CAREFUL — about making a reservation online and paying by credit card. Here is my story:
I made a reservation online and paid by credit card for the first week. When I checked in, I told them that I may need to stay long-​term because I was apartment hunting and it could take a while. They told me that was no problem but that I would have to pay in cash from the second week on. So, week two came around, and I paid in cash. THEY THEN PROCEEDED TO CHARGE MY CREDIT CARD WITHOUT MY PERMISSION FOR THE SECOND WEEK. THIS MEANS I PAID DOUBLE FOR WEEK TWO. I then had to cancel that credit card in case they pulled the same thing for week 3.
I contacted my bank immediately. The bank asked me to send them a copy of the receipt showing that I paid in cash. I emailed the receipt straight away. However, today — June 19^th — I received a letter from my bank saying they are still going to deduct the $ 350. I think the problem is that the receipt I got from the hotel showing that I paid $ 350 cash does not have the business name on it, so the bank will not accept it as proof.
I’m making a police report, I’m doing everything I can to make sure these people don’t get away with this. IT IS FRAUD.
I also had a dehumanizing experience when I moved out of this place. I’m too exhausted from dealing with constant housing problems to write about it here.
Do not stay here. Just don’t do it.
The room was depressing and smelled very strongly of pest control chemicals. You will need a good room spray — thank God I brought mine. And shoes for the shower.
The hangers in the closet were covered in some kind of muck — God knows what it was. I am posting a photo of them here on Unilocal.I mean, give me a f’n break, this place is very expensive as far as weekly hotels or SRO’s go, and they can’t even provide clean hangers.
The shared bathrooms are also extremely disgusting. Disgusting pigs live in this place and they piss and s!@# all over the toilet seat and floor. When I was checking in, a woman who reeked of piss came in. Lucky me, I got to stay in a room near the piss woman and the hallway near her room reeked of piss.
I didn’t realize how depressing this place was until I moved into my beautiful new home!!! I’m so disgusted by this place, and I’m traumatized from the experience. I don’t know why any tourist visiting our beautiful city would stay in this dung heap.
If you like filth and fraud, go ahead and make a reservation! I have to laugh or I’ll cry!!! In retrospect, it seems kind of sick that when I checked in, the person at the front desk said, «Enjoy» as he handed me the keys. Enjoy what!!!

Great spot for an affordable, clean, and safe stay in the city. There is no better deal in town and the Balmoral has everything you need. Excellent location.

If you are looking for an affordable, clean and safe place to stay in the heart of SF, this is the place. I stayed for three months while working as an intern for a tech company and had a short ten minute walk to my office in down SF. The onsite staff was courteous and professional, the rooms clean and neat. The property is also a short walk to the Farmer’s Market at the ferry building and is located very near to North Beach and the central business district. Overall this place is very reasonably priced while being centrally located to enjoy the best of SF. I would recommend this to any one on a budget that wants to be able to walk to the best SF has to offer.

Unilocal reviews are essential to a thriving business in the age of social media and the Balmoral Hotel truly deserves one. But not so much as for them to thrive on, but mainly so no one else gets conned like I did.
After having an awesome experience as a guest at the San Remo Hotel for the Bay to Breakers, I went back on
to make a reservation for the San Francisco Marathon. Unfortunately they were all booked up. So I went looking for a hotel within the same price range of $ 140 a night. It seemed that all the hotels were starting to fill up for the SF Marathon and I made the poor choice to not look into any other place and wanted to get a hotel as close as possible to the starting line. So I booked this ill-​reviewed slumhole without reading all their awesome reviews about the smell, the filth and the drug addicts that frequent there. Just reading one review would have been enough to get me to steer clear. Obviously, there’s a reason why other (if you get past the two bullshit 5-​star reviews that were probably made by the «new management» of this hotel of charlatans) people chose to relive their experience from this place and took time to write a bad review. How ignorantly naïve of me to not have read the reviews first. Well, here’s my chance to piss (which is probably what’s permeating the air in every room at the Balmoral) all over this hotel for their shady business practices.
Anyways, after getting a confirmation email for my reservation from
, a day later I got another email saying that the Balmoral Hotel needs me to call them because my card isn’t working. So I did. A lady by the name of Jessica answered the phone with a «Hello» and then stayed quiet. That should have been a red flag because normally from my experience, places of business have always answered their phones with at least their name and a warm «How can I help you?». But then again, WTF do I know? Long story short, she did work there, and confirmed who I was and asked me for my credit card information right down to the last three digits on the back of my card. I think that was my second mistake. But then again, that might be the norm.
So then a day later, after checking my bank account, the whole $ 280 was taken out immediately, which then made me rethink my options because I have friends up in the bay that I could have couch surfed at, if needed. So I did some research and found that the Balmoral was not my best, cheapest, or safest option, if all I needed was a bed to sleep on. I read the reviews in both Unilocal!and
and was disgusted at myself for how poorly-​planned this trip has started to become and the race is still two months away. I found the Hotel North Beach was half the price, better reviewed and even closer to the starting line. So I cancelled my reservation for the Balmoral Hotel on
and booked a room there.
Now, after a week later, I still haven’t gotten my refund from Jessica & Co. I called the hotel location and was met by another whispered «Hello» by some dude at the front desk. I told him I cancelled my reservation and I haven’t received my refund. He said he couldn’t help me and referred me back to Jessica and to call her cell number. I called Jessica and explained to her what happened. Apparently they don’t give refunds to reservations even if it’s fucking two months away. In the year of our lord, two-​thousand-​and-​fucking-​fourteen, they don’t give refunds to hotel reservations even if your cancellation is more than 56 days (that’s 8 weeks for you math majors) away. She told me i tsays it loud and clear on their website as if it was some kind of amenity to be bragged about or searched for when looking for a hotel. I can understand if I was some flake and cancelled within 72 HOURS before my trip, but 8 weeks away is taking your cancellation policy to desperation mode. It’s basically a con job. Are they having trouble filling up their rooms for a peak weekend such as the SF marathon? Gee, I wonder why?
I told Jessica I didn’t book through their website, I booked it through
. So she told me to call them and have them deal with me. Which I did. I had to supply them with screenshots of my bank account to prove that the Balmoral Hotel took 100% of the rate of the room as a deposit. A non-​refundable deposit. I also called my bank and opened up a claim with them.
Moral of the story: I shouldn’t even have to deal with any of this. This is not the type of customer service that would make people write raving 5-​star reviews for their business (or your business if you’re reading this Mr. New Management #15 679 273).
So this is why I’m writing a novella on my non-​stay at the Balmoral Hotel. You shouldn’t have to make me resort to adding another crappy review to my short list of reviews. But if this «too long;didn’t read» review helps others to not have to go through the con game of a «non-​refundable deposit» and «no cancellation EVER» policy, then, so fucking be it. Cheers. ~Anh

Love this place! Very quiet and in a great location! Would highly recommend it!

This place is the cheapest and NICEST SRO in the city
THE Rooms sport flat screen TVs and cable. Many have refrigerators and Microwaves, good luck getting a private bath though. I have a friend that has lived here years at 180 a week, I stay with him when ever I am in SF. The staff is friendly and helpful, Mark at the front desk always sports a smile. The toilets are cleaned daily and kept immaculent, showers are also clean an have endless hot water and there is never a line.
The place is QUIET, except for the laughter of children in the playground next door. On weeks the most wonderful music floats through open windows.
I would be hard pressed to find anything to complain about, but if there is a complaint it is that residents leave the bathroom windows open and they can be Cold late at night when the fog rolls in. People here are nice and personable, most are foreigners that work in the financial district and are living on the cheap to send more money home to their families. There are no crackheads. this place is under new management I was told and most problems have been dealt with

The worst smell ever, poor security, mentally disabled people. The bathrooms are disgusting and the management is useless. Never stay here.

Dank and loud, the Balmoral Hotel North #3 is a place I finally came to know well, over the two years I lived there due to a combination of circumstance and my own questionable priorities.
I’ve thought to myself, from time to time, «I should write a Unilocal review about this place» but then the tidal wave of dark experiences I’ve had there collapsed over me, and I don’t know where to begin. Early drafts sounded more like a crime drama or a science fiction story than a hotel review.
The basic version is: you don’t go here on purpose — you «end up» here. You endure it. There are maniacs screaming profanity through the walls at all hours of the night. From time to time there are blood stains on the doors where the police have slammed somebody’s head during a bust. Quite regularly there’s excrement in places you shouldn’t have to expect it. A couple times, the ceiling-​mounted pipes exploded and flooded the place.
The managers always seem to need some new type of payment method — sometimes it’s checks, and sometimes the person you write the check to changes. Sometimes it’s cash-​only, and sometimes it’s «we never take cash.»
I once returned to my room after a week out of town to find that my sink had been ripped out of the wall. So I had to go the whole night with no water, staring at the ominous mildewed gash where my sink used to be and wondering.
Looking back at my time at the Balmoral Hotel North #3, I have to smile a little bit. It’s scary, funny, loud, and probably dangerous. When I checked in, I told myself I’d «have stories» and «learn.» But in retrospect, it probably wan’t worth risking my life, or at least not worth staying for quite so long.
Even if you’re seeking adventure, or you’ve hit rock bottom, I’d advise you to limit your stay.
*I’m marking this review as «No Wi-​Fi» because the entire time I lived here, it never worked.

I had the fortune of staying here a few weeks and will have to agree with the previous reviewer. Definitely cheap but a little shady. My neighbor kept knocking on the door and when I opened it all he would do was stand there and smile. Hmmmm. No wireless so the only place to pick up a signal was on the second floor at the window that opened up to a local elementary school’s playground. So you risked people thinking you were a pedophile, which in that sro might have been the norm. You were able to listen to a local bar emptying their bottle bin at 4 am every morning though. That in itself was priceless not to mention charming. UGH! O ya, forgot the older gentleman working the desk. His name has to be Dick.