Omicron-era Trip Report: Residence Inn San Francisco Airport/San Mateo
In considering where to stay for my 7-day pre-quarantine period before my flight to China, I had a few considerations:
The San Francisco consulate which would oversee my travel code approval for boarding the flight cut down the approved labs for PCR testing down to two, and both were in San Jose. So, given that I needed to travel to San Jose twice in a week, I knew I wanted to rent a car and drive there. And my flight was leaving from SFO on Saturday morning. So, location-wise, I wanted something close to SFO, but not too far from San Jose either, so something in South Bay south of SFO, along the highway to San Jose.
I wanted to visit my sister sometime during this week, and I didn’t want to drive too far to Oakland.
I also knew I wanted to kind of “hole up” to avoid the Omicron rage going around, so I wanted to have a kitchen. And because I love baking, I preferred having a kitchen with an oven.
Because of the highly contagious Omicron variant, I was also wary of interior hallways and elevators. I wanted something like a motel - a place with direct entry from outdoors.
The only place that seemed to fit the bill was the Residence Inn San Francisco Airport/San Mateo, right on the border between San Mateo and Foster City, just west of 101 (taking me south to the testing lab in 30 minutes) and south of 92, which turns into the San Mateo-Hayward Bridge to East Bay (taking me up to Oakland in 40 minutes).
Since it was an early-generation Residence Inn, it’s composed of a series of buildings, each with 8 rooms that open to the outside. Four upstairs, four downstairs.
The check-in clerk asked if I wanted upstairs or downstairs. I’d heard that upstairs footsteps are audible when in a downstairs room, so despite having a lot of luggage, I opted for an upstairs room.
There are some amenities around the property that are meant to feel more home-like, like picnic tables, a basketball court, and laundry room.
The room itself was so spacious. I loved the dedicated work desk. In the mornings, this area got good light, so sometimes I ate breakfast here. While the room was mainly carpeted, the foyer was tile, and next to it was a coat closet. The kitchen also had tiled floors, and the bathroom had wood-look tile floors. The differences in flooring and the coat closet by the entrance really made it feel like a bona fide apartment!
That work desk was big enough to fit both my personal and work laptops, and all of my cords, papers, COVID-19 antigen tests, and masks, with room to spare!
In the middle of the room, there was a sofa which can also become a bed, and a TV - perfect for watching the Beijing Winter Olympics! Then the bed was on the opposite side of the entrance.
The sink had a very generous countertop (I love spreading my things out), and the toilet and shower were behind a door.
The big selling point of this room for me, was the full kitchen. Newer generation Residence Inns only have a 2-burner cook top, with no oven. This early generation Residence Inn was totally renovated, but still had the footprint for a full-size range oven, and full-size dishwasher. In the basket on the kitchen table (love that there’s a separate table for eating), there were coffee grounds, tea, sweeteners, and very thoughtfully, a set of small salt and pepper shakers, withe the perfect amount of salt and pepper for a longer stay.
And a full kitchen needs cookware to make it usable! There was a full complement of stainless steel pots and pans.
There were Pyrex containers with lids - perfect for leftovers - a strainer, toaster, coffee maker, and even a Pyrex measuring cup!
I loved that they even provided a sachet of dishwashing detergent, scrubber for the pots and pans, sponge, and a cute, mini bottle of Palmolive dish detergent.
I bought groceries and ate breakfast every day, except for the last day, when I was bold enough to venture out to see what they had to offer for the complimentary breakfast. I was imagining walking through a room full of people eating (without masks on, of course), but turns out I needn’t have worried. I was the only one there when I went up, and there was a sign saying “Please limit this area to one person at a time.” There was a menu on a placard to the left, and I told the attendant what I wanted, the attendant plated the hot items for me in a to-go box, which went into a plastic bag with the rest of the cold items and condiments.
On offer were potatoes, scrambled eggs, pork sausage, yogurt (strawberry, strawberry+banana, or peach flavors), oranges, orange and apple juice, Frosted Flakes, Cheerios, and Quaker instant oatmeal.
I got the eggs, potatoes, and breakfast sausages. I also asked for (to save for quarantine), Frosted Flakes and Apple & Cinnamon Quaker oatmeal. And two tiny, super cute glass bottles of Tabasco! I could have made a collection of these Tabasco bottles, and single-serve breakfast items, had I gone on the previous 7 days of my stay!
I still had some leftover ingredients in the fridge though, so I turned the eggs and sausage into a breakfast pizza, with the addition of pizza dough, yellow and red cherry tomatoes, peppers, onions, broccoli, mozzarella, and a light coating of pesto.
Overall, I really enjoyed my stay at the Residence Inn. There were only two downsides that I can think of. One was the amount of natural light that got into the room. There were only windows in the corner of the room with the working desk, so the majority of the time, including in the morning when there was the most sunlight coming in, I had the lights on. The other downside is that the property is bordering the 92 highway, and basically highway on- and off-ramps surround the property like a moat. I had planned to maybe take some walks, but there isn’t even a sidewalk on the road around the hotel. And the white noise of rushing cars is constant, creating kind of an unsettling feeling.
But besides that, I found the design of the rooms absolutely brilliant. They really thought of everything you needed, from the fully equipped kitchen to simple amenities like the roll of paper towels, cutting board, and dish towels. The touches like the tile by the entryway, transitioning to carpet really made it feel home-like.
And then there were the extra features that made me think that this hotel was designed for COVID self-quarantine! One was the direct exterior entry for each room, which meant there were no enclosed hallways or elevators. This also meant that Instacart and DoorDash deliveries could come straight to your doorstep! The other COVID-appropriate feature was the A/C system. Each unit had central A/C, not window units (I hate window units - so loud). But the central A/C for each unit was an independent system, so air did not flow from one unit to another. Avoiding interconnected central A/C is a key COVID-avoidance strategy! And finally, by default they only do housekeeping once a week, so you can easily avoid people coming into your room.
As a footnote, the staff were friendly, though I purposefully minimized contact with them.
I redeemed Marriott points for 6 of my 8 nights, taking advantage of the “stay 4 nights get 5th night free” policy. I ended up with a redemption value of $0.01 per point, which I’ve read is a very high redemption value (most people say $0.007 represents a good redemption rate for Marriott points).
I might do a quick search “next time” (if there is a next time) to see if there might be a similar hotel that doesn’t feel quite like it’s surrounded by highways, but I would be very happy to stay here again. It’s a hotel that location- and amenity-wise perfectly fit the bill for what I needed during this 8-night self-isolation in the Omicron era, before my flight to China.
