"Now that Jet Blue flies into Oakland, you may want to look into staying on the east side of the bay when making hotel plans. If you do, check out Jack London Square in Oakland Harbor, which is a flutter with activity both night and day…in a good way. The Waterfront Plaza Hotel puts you in the midst of it all, ferries to SF, BART, the Bay, are all at your mercy. The hotels design theme is nautical, highlighted by colorful, airy rooms reminiscent of a beach resort. Most have balconies with views of the San Francisco Bay, or Oakland, depending on which side of the hotel your room is on. The amenities include free wireless Internet, a fitness center with pool and sauna, though walking Jack’s Square will keep you suitably toned. You’ll need it too, breakfast in the hotel’s Jack’s Bistro, where tasty pancakes and eggs are served in full view of the harbor…mmm pancakes.What’s to do? Catch a flick at the multiplex Jack London Cinema, stroll a short distance to Heinold’s First and Last Chance Saloon, where London himself once held court. As a youngster, he’d pass hours here, soaking up the dubious tales of sailors and longshore roughs. The yarns served as material for his literature. Book a date to see a jazz great at nearby Yoshi’s nightclub- Oakland Mayor (and former California Governor)Jerry Brown was dining there when I visited. For families, the Square itself has shops, bookstores, and in the harbor you may tour Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidential yacht, The Potomac.Come on back for dinner at Jack’s Bistro, wood-fired rotisserie style, or dig in to wood-fired pizza with the kids. "

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"We stayed at the Waterfront Plaza Hotel in Oakland again this year, and it was even worse this time. Since we’ve had bad luck two times now, we will never be returning to the Waterfront Plaza. There are so many hotels in the area that are good and even great, please do not waste your time here. I honestly wish I could give this place a negative rating, and I am going to be writing a letter to the management and CEO because of our most recent stay. We were in town on business, and upon checking in we were given room 255. The room was adequate as before; the place could still use a good updating, but nothing glaringly bad was noticeable about the room. It looked out onto Jack London Square and had a balcony that was shared with several other rooms. Everything was just fine until we returned to our room at 10:30pm to get a good night’s sleep for our business meeting in the morning. The moment we entered our room, we noticed loud music coming up through the floor of the room; we surmised that we were over the bar area and that the live band would probably stop playing soon. At 11:00pm, the band has not stopped and it was definitely loud enough to ensure that until the band stopped, we were not going to be able to sleep. We called the front desk and were told that the band should be finishing up soon. We called the front desk again at 11:30pm and were told the same thing. We called the front desk yet again at 12:00am, a bit disgruntled at this point, and were told that the back would finish in “just a few minutes”. At 12:25am, we called and were put on hold while security went to see if the band would cease playing soon. The music stopped at 12:26am. We relaxed and tried to settle in for some sleep. But, at 12:27am the band started up again!!!!!! We put yet another call into the front desk and let them know that we’d not been told about the band playing late into the morning hours upon check-in, and as we were in town on business we needed to get up early in the morning and needed sleep in the interim. We ended up being moved to a new room one floor up at 1:25am. After packing up our belongings and shuffling them to the new room, then settling in again and climbing into bed, we were finally able to get to sleep at about 3:00am. The next night we again arrived back in our room at about 10:30pm as once again, we had a business meeting in the morning and needed some shut-eye (especially after not sleeping the previous night). We settled in for the night, and were just drifting off when someone on the floor above seemed to walk heavily across the floor and start moving furniture. We heard this quite loudly in our room, and thought that perhaps our upstairs neighbors would be settling down soon. This noise and ongoing ruckus continued for an hour, so we called the front desk. We were told that they’d check it out and stop the noise. Another hour later, the noice was still nonstop above us so we called the front desk once again. They informed us that they’d been up to the room above us and were told by the occupants that the noise was not coming from them. We were then told that there was nothing further that the front desk could do about the noise, which continued while we were on the telephone. We had no recourse, and so listened to the ongoing noise as we tried unsuccessfully to go to sleep. Another night with no sleep. In the morning as we were checking out after a weekend of no sleep, my beau met with the manager of the hotel, a gentleman named Terry. He told Terry the issues that we’d had with our hotel rooms that weekend, and Terry told my beau that he really didn’t feel like doing anything to rectify the negative situation. Great customer service, huh? So, I will be forwarding this review to the general manager, Sam W. Nassif as well as as many “higher-ups” I can find for the Waterfront Hotel. What a disappointment."

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