McLarenblog

Our family stayed at The Cypress Hotel in Cupertino, California April 2010.  We strongly recommend this hotel.  Here are the reasons why.  The location was simply perfect.  We tried to find a location that was central to Santa Rose, Stockton, and San Francisco.  We chose San Jose but my daughter did not like my choice of hotels in San Jose.  She picked The Cypress Hotel in Cupertino.  The city has a relatively low crime rate.  It is nestled among some impressive buildings and fountains.

The  hotel is managed by a very professional company, Kimpton Hotels.  The staff are spot on professional with good attitudes when dealing with customers.  There are restaurants in close proximity, which is one of our requirements.  There is a restaurant in the hotel and one right next door and many more close by.  Most businesses that you might want to use to support your vacation are quite close.  A Whole Foods is just down the street.  If you want to save money, this super market offers terrific offerings for do it yourself meals in your room.  There is a very nice Starbucks across the street and next to that is a very nice bagel shop.  A pizza restaurant is within walking distance.

The hotel interior is quite nice in every way.  The room provided to us was very nice.  I love large room size and our room was spacious.  The bed was firm and pillows were soft.  We had free Internet.  We also had a home theater in our room.  The parking garage was most convenient and we did not get wet getting to and from our car when a huge storm hit while we stayed at this hotel.

The upscale amenities found in this hotel made our stay more enjoyable.  Here are my list of other impressions not in any particular order.

• Moving the luggage cart down the long hallway was a a bit difficult because the hallway carpet is so thick.

• Tea and coffee is provided in the morning.  Free wine is provided in the evening.  The wine is not all that bad and we received good pours.  We noticed that some people came  back for seconds and were accommodated.  These free drinks are located in the lobby area.
• I found free newspapers just opposite the elevators.  They even offered the New York Times.
• The work out room was, in our opinion, way better than most hotels we have stayed in.
• There is no designated concierge, but any of the front desk staff, in our opinion, appear to us to be extremely competent to answer just about any question and solve any problem.

From our hotel room, we connected to the San Francisco Alcatraz Island tour web site and found that it sends you e-tickets, tickets that you print out from your home or laptop computer.  We were in a hotel room with no printer.  I called the front desk and they suggested that I get confirmation copy and send it to PrintMe.com.  I did this and the confirmation was ready at the front desk.  The procedure was so slick and easy.  Part of the print process you can tell which hotels subscribe to this service because you have to choose the hotel you are staying in.  The Cypress Hotel, I believe, was the only hotel in all of Cupertino to have this service because it was the only hotel to show for that city.

General Impressions:

• The elevators are quite fast.  I was really impressed with their speed.
• The hotel approach entrance is so under stated that it is a bit shocking to us.  You turn off the major street with very little hotel marking to tell you to make the turn.  Once you make the turn it almost looks like your entering a wide alleyway that ends in a parking garage.  This hotel departs from a lot of hotels that put a lot of money in the entrance and lobby but take it away from the rooms.  This hotel appears to do the opposite.

• We were given a king size bed in one room and a queen sofa in a side room.  The layout of this side room did not seem to work perfectly.  Before the sofa bed was set up a bed, it faced the wall away from the TV in the room.  Once the bed was set up, the passage around it was restricted, a bit tight.  I had to lift our suitcase over a break away L part of the couch.
• The room desk was in the room with the king bed but we later discovered that a very long Ethernet cable was behind the queen sofa.  It is my guess that the queen sofa bed room originally was configured for the desk.  It still worked for us as my daughter used the Ethernet cable and I used wireless to connect to the Internet.
• The closet held a rather kinky surprise.  We found two sets of women sleep wear with leopard spots for sale and two bathrobes also with those leopard spot markings for sale.  Next to the women’s sleep wear were bedroom socks for sale.  Inside the closet, leaning against the corner was an umbrella.  An extra pillow was in a zippered bag on a shelf.  An iron and iron board was also inside that closet.
• The windows to the room could not be opened, which disappointed me a bit.  The room did not seem stuffy and well ventilated.
• Some slight noise was heard from inside our room and it appeared to be in the  building like cables hitting one another but the sound was very faint and infrequently heard.  We heard no outside street noise or sounds from the next room or rooms under or over us.
• On our last stay day, our magnetic card keys would not work.  It was most fortunate that we discovered this before anyone got locked out.  We left a person in the room to gain access.  I am sure we could go to the front desk and get this resolved if we chose too.
• We found a DVD player in the room with very nice speakers and sub woofer.  The room had two large flat screen TV sets.  We used this, in room movie theater, setup to watch two wonderful DVD movies.
• There was no room coffee pot so we could only have hot tea in the mornings when it was served with compliments of the hotel.
• The room did not have a refrigerator.  It appears to us that lower scale hotels offer in room coffee pots, refrigerators and microwaves.  This is probably because their customers drink beer and eat pizza.
• The furniture and decor was most attractive in all hotel spaces.
• When asked where to eat the staff always recommend the in house restaurant.  In our opinion, it had commensurate up scale decor compatible to that of the hotel but the food was just average.  I am sure the staff is instructed to recommend this restaurant.  We think you should find much better restaurants in the area.
• The room heater/air-conditioning system worked pretty well.  We found it rather odd that it included three fan speeds.  This was nice because as you increased the speed, the fan noise went up, which is what you would expect.   We did notice that when we attempted to close the door between rooms, the smaller room was just a bit cooler than the larger room.
• We tried to make the 5pm to 6pm free wine serving but a huge storm caused us to arrive quite late, well after 6pm.  My wife asked and she was given free wine vouchers    at the hotel front desk, which we used at the restaurant bar.  I had driven for over three  hours from Santa Rosa, normally a two hour drive that was white knuckle all the way.  I was most happy to relax with a glass of red wine.  We ordered an extra pour and were charged $8 which seems to indicate the value of getting the free house wine.

Shower/Bath

• There were no hand bars in the shower.  I really think this is a significant deficiency.
• A granny, no slip tub, mat is provided, coiled along the side of the tub ready for use.
• A hair blower is provided in a canvas bag hung along one side of the shower.
• Bath towels were found on a rack in the shower, opposite side from the water spray head.  I have never seen towel stored inside the shower before.  I must admit this did work.  The towels did not get wet during showers.  As  a test, I hung a used towel from the single bar under this rack and it dried perfectly.
• There was only one soap dish in the tub area which requires you to line up your shampoos, conditioners, and brushes along the side of the tub.
• The bathroom door used a pocket door with no lock.
• The lights inside the bathroom were controlled by two switches.  The switch closest to the mirror  but would only take the lights up to about half setting.  It was a dimmer with an off setting.  The second switch turned the lights on full power or off.

Summary
I had spend two full days using AAA book for California, Kayak.com to evaluate hotels and Google Earth to get down to street level for a final look.  Every hotel and motel that I looked at (Walnut Creek, Berkley, Santa Rosa, Stockton, Menlo Park) seemed to have one or more deficiencies that killed the deal for me.  When my daughter found this hotel within 20 minutes, I must admit, my male chauvinism and awesome dad self image took a hit.   When I looked at The Cypress Hotel on Kayak and Google Earth, it shouted out as being a winner, too good to be true, and it was just that when we arrived and throughout our stay.

Updated March 25, 2018:  Reports show this hotel is closed.
Updated March 7, 2019:  I had to reset the link for Kimption Hotel reservations but any attempt failed.