I love Santana Row in San Jose, California, and in my 20+ visits there, I’ve always been curious about Hotel Valencia.
Hotel Valencia on Santana Row is a boutique hotel located right in the middle of the popular Silicon Valley outdoor mall. The location is fantastic, and I always thought it would be cool to try staying there.
This summer, I decided to give it a try. I stayed at Hotel Valencia with my seven-year-old son as a Bay Area staycation.
Hotel Valencia makes a fantastic home base for a Bay Area stay. As I’ll get into, its location, rooftop pool, restaurants, and nice rooms make it a great spot to visit as a local. It’s also surprisingly family-friendly.
But as a professional traveler and the owner of a tech company, I also saw that Hotel Valencia would be an ideal spot to stay in Silicon Valley/San Jose on business.
Based on my 14 years of experience as a professional photographer and traveler (and my 7 years of experience as a dad!), here’s my review of my stay at Hotel Valencia Santana Row.
Table of contents
Hotel Valencia Basics
Hotel Valencia Santana Row is a Spanish-style boutique hotel located on the upper floors of Santana Row.
You may have seen the entrance if you’ve visited the outdoor mall; it’s a little hard to spot, but there’s a big sign and a small valet circle in the middle of Santana Row itself.
Ride an elevator up to the third floor, and you’ll find the hotel’s lobby.
Although I visited as a staycation with my son, Hotel Valencia San Jose is also perfect as a business hotel. With the right reservations and preparation, it would also make a nice spot for a romantic getaway.
Here are some basic stats on the hotel:
- Getting There: 15 minutes from San Jose Airport (SJC).
- Hotel Size: 216 rooms, including 16 suites and a Presidential Suite.
- Design: Spanish Colonial style with modern Mediterranean flair.
- Renovation: Complete renovation in 2014 by Rottet Studios.
Dining:
- Oveja Negra: Spanish-inspired cuisine (we ate there–more below in the food section!)
- Cielo: Rooftop wine bar with views of the Santa Cruz Mountains
- VBar: Ultra-hip lounge with flat-panel TVs and balcony views. Looks fancy and very popular! Again, more below.
Amenities:
- Year-round heated rooftop pool and hot tub.
- 24-hour room service.
- Custom Hotel Valencia beds with Egyptian cotton linens.
- 24-hour fitness center and business kiosk.
- Complimentary Wi-Fi (I tested it and it’s fast enough for work tasks)
Meetings & Events:
- 4,000 square feet of event space, including a 2,200 sq ft ballroom.
- Open-air courtyard, boardroom, and Cielo rooftop available.
Check-in/Check-out: 3 p.m. / 12 p.m. (I appreciated the later checkout time relative to many other Bay Area hotels, which left plenty of time for breakfast at Oveja Negra)
Parking: Valet parking available at $49 per night plus tax. We did self-park in Santana Row’s garage.
Pet Policy: No pets allowed. My dog Lance had to stay home!
Just a note that Hotel Valencia hosted me for a night so I could review and photograph the property. The Bay Area Telegraph paid for my food and incidentals.
The Location and Grounds
Hotel Valencia San Jose is located right in the middle of Santana Row, which is one of the most upscale shopping centers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
I love visiting Santana Row for restaurants like Left Bank and Meso, as well as Smitten Ice Cream and Sugarfina.
The Row has live music, amazing coffee places like Blue Bottle, and shopping, including a dedicated YETI store, many clothing boutiques, and a giant Tesla store.
Attractions like the Winchester Mystery House, offices like the headquarters of NetApp, and the Westfield Mall (which has hundreds of shops and restaurants, including the amazing three-floor Eataly) are right across the street.
By staying at Hotel Valencia, you get easy access to all of this. You can literally walk out the front door of the hotel and reach any shop or restaurant on Santana Row in under five minutes. A 10- or 15-minute walk will take you to the Mystery House or the Westfield Mall.
For families looking to do a staycation, this is wonderful because you don’t have to bundle the kids into the car every time you want to do something. I was able to easily walk out the door with my seven-year-old and go to Dumpling Time for dinner on Santana Row, totally car-free.
The convenience of Hotel Valencia also makes it a great option for business travelers who want to go out and enjoy some nightlife without needing to rent a car. You can easily stay at the hotel, Uber to your meetings in the Valley, and then come back to a walkable destination at the end of the day.
The Lobby and Courtyard
Given this urban location, I expected Hotel Valencia to feel fairly enclosed. But because the hotel makes clever use of its Spanish-inspired design, it’s not like that at all.
As in many hotels in Europe, Hotel Valencia Santana Row is centered around a large internal courtyard. Most of the rooms open onto the courtyard and have balconies overlooking it, and there’s a rooftop pool at the top of it.
The courtyard itself has seating for the hotel’s restaurants, lovely water features, live music in the evenings, and even trees growing the hotel’s own Valencia oranges.
The courtyard is a lovely, calming respite from the otherwise bustling and busy street of Santana Row, and the chaos of the Valley. It makes a perfect focal point for the hotel and makes it feel exclusive and relaxing, despite its urban location.
The Hotel Valencia lobby, which is located on the third floor, is small but has some nice architectural elements that capture the Spanish design. Several small alcoves have seating and domed roofs, making a nice spot to sit with family or colleagues.
The lobby also opens onto the courtyard, providing more natural light. I definitely appreciated that the staff offered me a Paloma cocktail the second I checked in!
The Rooms
Hotel Valencia’s Spanish-inspired styling continues with the rooms.
For my stay, we had a fourth-floor room with a balcony overlooking the courtyard. The room had two full beds, making it perfect for a stay with my son.
Of course, you could also opt for a room with a king bed for a solo stay or a retreat as a couple.
The room itself was nicely appointed, with a long desk area, television, balcony seating, and a nice bathroom.
I appreciated that our room had a bathtub, which is nice if you want to have a soak in the evening, but it’s also essential for people traveling with kids.
Overall, it would’ve been nice to have a bit more natural light in the room. The courtyard view was quiet and secluded, but it meant we didn’t get as much light as we would’ve with bigger windows.
Nice Touches
One of the elements I loved about our room at Hotel Valencia was the beds. I’ve stayed in a lot of luxury hotels with custom pillow menus and the like, and I have to say that the beds at Hotel Valencia are some of the most comfortable hotel beds I’ve ever slept on!
The in-room magazine even mentioned the care they put into their beds.
Hotel Valencia gave us a fruit bowl and a massive slice of cheesecake when we checked in, which my son enjoyed devouring one bite at a time over several hours!
Food and Dining
Hotel Valencia has several on-site restaurants and bars.
That surprised me, as Santana Row already has so much great dining. The hotel could’ve easily gotten by with one restaurant, but they’ve clearly put a lot of effort into having a diverse set of places to eat.
We originally planned to order room service, which looked delicious! But things changed when my son saw that there was a Dumpling Time across the street, which is one of his favorite restaurants.
We ended up eating there for dinner, but we still tried some of the food at the hotel.
Here are the main restaurants:
Cielo Rooftop Bar
This was closed for a private event during our visit, but we peeked in, and it looked great! It has nice views over Silicon Valley and the surrounding mountains.
Oveja Negra
Oveja Negra, which translates to Black Sheep, is the hotel’s main restaurant. It specializes in what it calls unruly tapas.
It has a dinner menu, and you can sit in the lovely interior courtyard outdoors and enjoy live music.
They also serve breakfast and Sunday brunch. We stopped to enjoy some breakfast in the courtyard in the morning.
My son got the traditional American breakfast, with hash browns, eggs, and bacon.
I got a stack of blueberry pancakes.
Everything was delicious, and the courtyard setting next to a flowing fountain made for a lovely and restful spot to have breakfast.
I appreciated that Valencia serves Illy European coffee, too.
I ordered a coffee at the restaurant, but you can also get free coffee that’s served in the lobby in the morning. There’s even a bowl of Valencia oranges for you to enjoy on the way out!
VBAR
One of the big surprises at Hotel Valencia was the fact that it has what appears to be a very trendy and happening cocktail lounge right off the lobby.
When my son and I returned in the evening, trendy-looking people were lining up around the block to get into the hotel lobby and access VBAR.
My clubbing days are long behind me! It felt a little funny to walk past this line of stunningly dressed people ready for a night out, and into our hotel past a bouncer (with my 7-year-old in tow) like we were some kind of VIPs. They were heading to the club, and we were heading to an early bedtime!
If you enjoy this kind of nightlife, though, Hotel Valencia is clearly a fantastic place to stay. It seemed as if hotel guests could get straight into the cocktail lounge, which is another big perk.
As a parent trying to take advantage of the super comfy beds to get some sleep, I was also pleased to see that there was no noticeable noise from the cocktail lounge in our room or the courtyard.
Hotel Valencia Amenities
In addition to the rooms and grounds, Hotel Valencia has some nice (and unexpected) amenities.
Fitness Center
The hotel has a small but nicely appointed fitness center on the top floor. There are treadmills and other exercise machines, as well as a fridge with bottles of water.
With my kid along, I wasn’t exactly going to spend hours on the treadmill or lifting weights! But if you come to Hotel Valencia as a business traveler or for a personal stay, the fitness center would be a great way to keep up your fitness routine.
The hotel’s walkable location would also be perfect for runners. Most of the nearby streets have sidewalks and are fairly flat, and the area around the hotel is safe.
Again, I wasn’t there to exercise, but I could see going on a walk or run around the neighborhood even in the early morning.
The Rooftop Pool
For a hotel in such an urban location, I wasn’t expecting Hotel Valencia to even have a pool. But it turns out that the hotel’s rooftop pool is one of the nicest features of the property!
The rooftop pool is located on the top floor. It has lovely views of the courtyard below, and you can hear live music wafting up there in the evening. On the other side, you have a panoramic view of Santana Row, with the mountains surrounding Silicon Valley (it is actually a valley, after all) in the background.
We went for an evening swim, and the sunset hitting the mountains made it a beautiful spot! The pool itself is heated and very comfortable to swim in. There were other families with their kids there, but it wasn’t loud or crowded.
The pool is relatively small and about 4 feet deep, so you won’t be doing any diving. But for lap swimmers or casual swimmers, it’s a beautiful spot to swim and then hang out.
The pool is surrounded by comfortable lounge chairs, and we didn’t have any trouble getting a chair. I liked that they supplied towels at the pool, so you didn’t have to bring them from your room.
There’s also a nice hot tub next to the pool. Especially if you’re visiting Hotel Valencia for a romantic getaway, soaking in that tub would be nice in the evening.
Overall, it was a pleasant feature of the day. It was really nice to take an evening swim, and then to be able to walk right out onto Santana Row for dinner.
Meeting Spaces
I didn’t come to Hotel Valencia for any kind of event, but I can see how it would be a great location for a meeting or even a wedding.
I imagine that Hotel Valencia could stage a very nice ceremony or reception in the beautiful outdoor courtyard. The Spanish architecture and citrus trees would make a nice backdrop.
This being Silicon Valley, the hotel also has meeting rooms and event spaces with full AV setups. If you want to invite some VCs to see your startup’s latest pitch and then head to Left Bank for celebratory oysters (this actually happened to me once), this would be a good spot to do it!
Overall Takeaways from My Stay
Overall, Hotel Valencia Santana Row made a great home base for a Bay Area staycation. The walkability of the hotel and its proximity to everything on Santana Row made it a great destination, especially for visiting with my son.
I would definitely recommend the hotel to business travelers, too. It’s not right in the thick of things, like some hotels in Palo Alto, Mountain View, or downtown San Jose. But that’s probably a good thing, given how hectic life in Silicon Valley can get.
If you’re traveling to the Valley from out of town, it would be easy to take meetings all day, and then have Hotel Valencia to come back to, unwind a bit, take a swim, or maybe head out to the cocktail lounge if you’re so inclined!
Even though I would’ve liked a bit more natural light, the rooms were nicely set up, and the bed was heavenly.
The rooftop pool and internal courtyard make great use of Hotel Valencia’s relatively limited urban space, and I like how the Spanish architecture and theme are carried through from the landscaping to the food, to the design of the rooms and common areas.
I would definitely recommend Hotel Valencia Santana Row if you’re looking for a nice spot for a staycation or a peaceful home base on your next business trip.
