Review of Taj Campton Place 5*

The hotel is great. Great location right next to Union Square and all the shopping. We took the subway here from the airport which cost $10 which saves a lot of money too. The room is nice. Great bed. Great cleaning staff too as they do a great job putting it back together every day while we're gone even going as far as folding clothes our clothes. Staff overall has been extremely nice. My main complaint is that they charge $30 a day for incidentals. This is a tonne of money when converted to Canadian (approx. $200 more on our cost to this trip) for services that could never cost that much (coffee and muffins in the morning. Water bottles in the room. Gym which we never used. ). It was also never mentioned anywhere when we booked this place and honestly, we would never have booked here had we known. That alone has left a really bad taste in our mouth as we had no choice in paying it or not when we checked in. The Wi-Fi is free apparently but when you log in, it says it's going to cost $12 for premium internet but the front desk said to ignore that. When we booked, it was clearly written that internet is free as that was important to us when choosing our hotel. Overall it's the hidden costs that this place fails to mention that keep me from giving it 5 stars. We ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant and the food was amazing. It's a Michelin star restaurant so expect great food with higher pricing. We did not eat dinner there as it was outside of our budget. Lastly, and this is in no way a reflection of the Taj Campton though it it must be mentioned that San Francisco has a major homeless problem. It is impossible to ignore. Expect to see abject human poverty, drug addiction and misery at every turn in this part of town. Expect to feel unsafe. We have seen feces on the ground, heroin needles left adjacent to makeshift cardboard beds and sections of roads with as many as ten homeless people all together that you would definitely not want to walk by. We thought Chicago was bad but this is much worse. It's sad that such a rich place chooses to turn a blind eye to what is clearly a huge problem. I would say that we will not ever come back to California knowing this rich city is this bad I wonder if the millionaires who live here are not embarrassed by this issue. Again, this has nothing to do with the hotel but this review is for people planning a vacation. Be prepared if you're coming to San Francisco to encounter this in a way you might not be ready for.