Hotels can make or break a holiday!

Others think that hotels are just places to sleep in so they do not bust the budget to stay in decent ones. I disagree. We love our creature comforts and prefer to pay more for a good 8 hours' sleep (even more hours if you included downtime in your itinerary). We like going back to a nice bed after a tiring touristy day. For me, a bad hotel can truly break a holiday.

Hotel #4 - Courtyard by Marriott, Beach Street, San Francisco CA (stay 4 nights)

We were very happy with our fourth hotel. It had location x 3, newly renovated rooms (sans the paint smell), flat screen TV with cable, onsite coin laundry (surprise!), choice of wireless or wired in-room Free internet, and complimentary "to-go" breakfast. The free breakfast was not its usual offering. They only added it to compensate for the inconvenience of having no hotel lobby and restaurant due to renovations. Come mid-November it will all be completed, I was told.

Our new room had my favorite color scheme - maroon and red hues.

It had a large bathroom sink, lovely paintings, and the housecleaning staff did not scrimp on the bathroom items.

Other features:

- close to: Walgreens, Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, Lombard Street (most crooked street), Barnes and Noble and tram station;

- if you ask for a 4th floor room (the highest level), you may

have water glimpses (aside: buildings along the waterfront are low-rises anyway);

For a US$5 tip, the cleaning lady left me tons of toiletry items and multiple bags of coffee! Notice that they also use Kleenex tissues, a small luxury. It amuses me to wonder whether the cleaning lady was very grateful for the tip, or being sarcastic!