Admiral Hotel

What did I like? Leaving. (I'd say the price, but I'm kinda bitter I paid that much, to be honest.) The area has cool bars and restaurants that're walkable from the rooms, though. Good. You'll want to get out.

Because this area of San Fran is littered with human excrement on the sidewalks (see also: urine), you'd think these folks would steam-clean their carpets. It would appear they've never done so since the inception of the hotel. (I'm not even kidding.) It's one of those places that's so cheap, people actually live there. There was a handwritten sign on someone's door beckoning the "guy who was just here, I didn't catch your name" to come on in. That's always legit, right? The elevator had little roaches in it, and it's one of those old-school kinds with two doors that you have to pull shut on your own. Normally, I'd love that, but both doors are so filthy that they're gross to LOOK at, much less touch and wrestle with. There's no TV in the rooms, so unless you plan on unpacking your stuff (I opted not to, since I wanted to leave the minute the sun came up), you're stuck with sirens and street-people talking to themselves below. There's also no A/C, so an open window next to a fire escape is your only option ... and gawd know, you don't want to sleep that exposed to the outside. The bed is ROCK-HARD. Truly a bottom-of-the-barrel choice for a mattress. The floor was bubbled beneath me, like the humidity had gotten to the cheap linoleum or a giant leak just about took the floor out. Someone uploaded pics of the place online. Look at the hallways and the walls. You really feel disgusting walking your stuff to your room. It's honestly a tad-bit scary. The front-desk guy rushed me when I came in from getting a cocktail down the way at RX. "Listen!" he scolded. "You left the elevator door open!" (You really have to make sure it clicks shut, which isn't something he told me when I checked in.) I bit my tongue and apologized, but inside I was like, "Dude. Chill. You have to explain that to people." Seriously. In all my 35 years of life on this planet ... in all the hotels I've stayed in ... I've never encountered a place with an elevator this ... old and gross. I've DEFINITELY never stayed somewhere in which the carpets (which appear to have been white or cream at some point) were literally brown-black and sticky from decades of dirty shoes and no cleaning. If you absolutely MUST stay here (which I bet is the case for so many people who've booked, as they don't have a cancellation policy) just go out and stay out of your room as long as you can. Then come back and crash. (I slept on newspaper on top of the comforter because I didn't want to risk bedbugs.) Anyway.