We've stayed at the Ritz from July 3rd through the 6th. Excellent hotel, service and rooms. A special thanks to the bartenders, Ruth and Jennifer and to the concierge David. A little overpriced, but it reminded me on so many ways in decor and service the Four Seasons in Istanbul. I will definitely stay at the Ritz when I go back to San Fran.

We stayed at this hotel for four days with our two young children. We had a junior suite, which had ample room for the four of us. We also experienced the club level service for the first time. It was superb.

Not only is this hotel beautiful, clean and classy, but the service was outstanding. The staff remember my children by name, made sure they were given little toys if we had a long wait in the lobby, and never were we made to feel that our children were not welcome. The concierge did a fabulous job of finding us a five star restaurant at noon on a saturday for that evening!

The food was fabulous and the buffet champagne brunch was excellent and in a beautiful setting. All in all, it was the best Ritz hotel I have stayed at and probably the best stay at any hotel.

We booked to stay at the Ritz Carlton through the hotel website, and traveled with our 3.5 year old son. We were registered for a conference held at the Moscone Centre with 22,000 other delegates - so you can imagine how packed the city was.
We had high expectations having stayed at the Ritz Carlton In Bahrain. Overall, we felt that the hotel met our expectations given the fact the city was bursting at the seams! Especially good service from concierge (David).
One of the notable down sides was that although they rate child-friendliness highly on their website - this did not actually happen in practice. Reception staff were unaware of their POLO scheme and I had to ask for the gadgets to make the room child-friendly, even though I had registered for the scheme online. No kids menu in the hotel room to make ordering room service for children easier. This was not rectified even after I highlighted it to them. Also huge mis-communication during reception staff hand-over led to our baby-sitter being left waiting at reception for 45 minutes and therefore making us late for our dinner reservation at 'Chez Panisse' (I don't even think the reception staff were aware of the inconvenience caused)!
Although this may sound like the makings of a bad review, we were won over by the spa and pool, great breakfast and room service, spacious classically decorated one bedroom suite - ask for a high level courtyard view (we stayed non-club as the standard prices had been hiked up by $200 due to increased demand caused by the conference). If compared with the Omni which rates No. 1 on this site - I think that the Ritz Carlton was better value for money because a non-club one bed suite (2 rooms) at the Ritz costs the same as California suite (L-shaped room) at the Omni. The Omni has no spa/pool and location not that great.
If you have the money to spend I would definitely recommend the hotel for location (close to cable cars, china town, shopping), good knowledgeable staff (with prompting), pool and spa, great playground a few blocks away reachable by cable car.
And as my son at the end of the stay decided that he was taking up permanent residence at the hotel rather than returning home, I can only imagine that the Ritz Carlton must be child-friendlier than perceived by an adult!

Quite simply the best. Few live up to the hype, the Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco does. We stayed two nights in May 2008. Firstly if you are uncomfortable paying the room rate at the R-C, SF then you shouldn’t stay there. No amount of service and fine surroundings will make you happy. However if you wishing to make your holiday pleasant and special (it is a holiday after all, not regular life) then the complete package of the Ritz is tough to beat .. maybe unbeatable.

My logic is this for perhaps $200 more than a ‘comfortable’ hotel you get – a very central location (10min walk to Union square) and the Cable Car stops outside, the facilities are great, the rooms a beautifully appointed and the staff are second to none (yes none). In addition the restaurants are first class, our breakfast at the Terrace was equal to the best I have had, and absolutely nothing is a bother. No little niggles or disappointments.

I have stayed at a great number of 5 star hotels worldwide (incl. the Waldorf-Astoria and Ahwahnee) and the Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco beats them all.