Red Victorian Bed & Breakfast

DON’T STAY IN THE RED VIC UNLESS YOU COME ARMED WITH A SLEEPING BAG, A BOTTLE OF DISINFECTANT, EARPLUGS AND NO SENSE OF SMELL! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

When I first saw the Red Vic reviews on trip advisor, I was delighted! The hippy vibe, friendly staff, great location and brilliant reviews from former guests had me convinced that this was the place to stay. Little did I know how wrong I was!

My boyfriend and I arrived in San Francisco in the evening time after a long 12 hour flight from Ireland and we got a taxi straight to the hotel. We were booked into the Rose Garden room, which was one of the most expensive rooms, but we wanted to treat ourselves while on holiday.

Upon arrival, we noticed that the building was quite run down, the ‘reception’ was a poorly staffed, shoddy café and the ‘hippy’ vibe we were expecting was more that of a cheaply synthesised tourist attraction. A recording of Sammy Sunchild’s voice talking about being peace and love played over the sound system which was odd. Still, we were tired, and we thought that a good night’s sleep would help. We registered at reception and were given a giant old key. The girl told us to go upstairs to the third floor. There was no lift and we had heavy backpacks but no one offered to help us with them. The whole place smelled like strong, lemon-scented, antiseptic chemicals.

We opened the heavy, old door to our room, expecting to see it as advertised in the picture. What a disappointment! It looked as though the room had aged by about 30 years! The room and bathroom smelled strongly of urine. The sheets were old and worn, not clean at all. The bed cover & dusty, worn out cushion didn’t look like they’d been washed in years. The ceiling and walls were cracked and peeling (see pictures). The furniture was cheap and nasty, like something that had been pulled out of a skip! The sink and tiles were chipped, the towels were ancient and crusty. The shower over bath was horrible. We sat on the little broken chairs and listened to the endless stream of noisy traffic and shouting people on the busy street below. There was no way anyone could sleep with that amount of noise. It was almost impossible to close the curtains. We decided that we would go downstairs to the reception, ask for a refund and try to find another hotel last minute.

When we told the girl at reception that we weren’t happy with the accommodation, she made no effort to convince us to stay. She even said ‘it happens from time to time’ which I thought was very strange. She told us that she would be charging us a cancellation fee of $200 and that she would refund the rest of our money to our credit card but it would take a while to go through. Luckily, I was able to use my credit card to book another hotel online on www.orbitz.com. We chose Hotel Nikko near Union Square. It was a far superior hotel and much cheaper. We saved 300 dollars, even with the cancellation fee!

We left the Red Vic and got a taxi to Hotel Nikko. The place was amazing – so modern and clean! We couldn’t believe our luck…and it was a much better location. We got a great nights sleep and stayed there for over a week!

We got back to Ireland a month later and I have been phoning / emailing the Red Vic since July asking for a refund of the cancellation fee. The manager replied once to say that they do not give refunds for cancellations and we were only charged $143.75 – I emailed back to contest the charge on the basis that they do not have a refund policy for cancellations whereby guests are simply appalled by the standard of accommodation. I have been clear, kind and polite in all of my emails, and yet, I have not received any reply to date. This is clearly a case of poor management.

We’re not fussy people, we’re mid-20s backpackers on a budget, the same as most of the guests, but even we know when somewhere is beyond repair. It was disgusting. The good reviews that you have read are written by people with very low expectations of what a good hotel should be…expect less than hostel quality with lower cleaning standards, masked by the pretence of ‘hippy’ chic. If you are thinking of staying in this hotel, then keep this in mind…this is a terrible location, the best place to stay is near Union Square (the centre of it all). Otherwise you’ll be spending a fortune on buses and trains to get to the main tourist places. If you want a real ‘hippy’ vibe, then stay in the Green Tortoise hostel www.greentortoise.com and go on one of their bus tours!