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Best Sausalito View and Waterfront Hotels Near the Ferry
I admit it, I’m one of those hotel guests who loves to be right on the water when I’m visiting a coastal city. Coming from Sausalito (where our offices are less than a block from the Bay and we’ve lived in two different neighborhoods in the hills) I’ve become completely spoiled.
The trouble is that the terms “waterfront” and “on the water” and “by the Bay” get used in different ways by different people. We can get careless about reading if all of a hotel’s rooms have water views, or just some of them.
Here’s a guide to the Sausalito view hotels that are close to the Bay, with a description of the kinds of views you can expect at each. You can click on the hotel name to see our page with more details and links for the hotel. They are listed in what in our opinion is the order of their views, starting with the best.
The List
All of these hotels except #2 are close to the Sausalito Ferry pier.
1. Inn Above Tide — Pictured above, this luxury hotel is perched on the shore of the Bay next to the Sausalito Ferry pier. Almost every room has a deck and a sweeping view of the water, so this is the king (and queen!) of the Sausalito view hotels!
2. Cavallo Point Lodge — Near the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge is a small inlet in San Francisco Bay called Horseshoe Cove. The land here slopes gradually down to the water, and the hotel is about two city blocks up the hill from the Bay. Many rooms have views of San Francisco Bay, the San Francisco city skyline, and/or the tops of the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.
3. Casa Madrona — This hotel, with modern and Victorian era wings, is located one block from the Bay near the Sausalito Ferry pier. Most rooms have a nice view of San Francisco Bay, and the Victorian side of the place is both a fabulous icon of Sausalito view hotels and a setting worthy of a Bond movie.
4. Gables Inn — This B&B is located on the side of a hill just a couple of blocks from the Bay. Some of the rooms have great views of San Francisco Bay.
5. Hotel Sausalito — Just half a block from the Sausalito Ferry pier, Hotel Sausalito does not have big Bay views but is very close to the water. If you walk out the front door and turn right you’ll be at a railing on the edge of the Bay in about 15 seconds. Some of the rooms have partial views of the Bay and Mt. Tamalpais.
6. (Tie) Holiday Inn Express and Hotel Acqua in Mill Valley — Although located across the town line in Mill Valley at the north end of Sausalito, each of these hotels is located on the edge of Richardson’s Bay, one branch of the northern part of San Francisco Bay. At low tide both these hotels are bordered by tidelands, and at high tide they are very close to the water.
