I spent my…. thirty-first birthday in this place, I believe. The signature tropical drinks are huge, expensive, and terrible (heavy on the Kool-Aid), and the food is edible but overpriced.

But none of that matters. You need know only two things about the Tonga Room:
1) Band on an island in the pool at the center of the room, playing easy listening classics , and
2) Artificial thunderstorms, every hour on the hour!!!

It’s a brilliant look at what someone thought was fancy thirty or more years ago, and is now even more surreal and agreeably seedy. It’s amplified by the fact that the Fairmont Hotel, despite its location in among the most expensive parts of town, is clearly showing its age a bit. Totally worth a visit. A very good time can be had in tiki-bar splendor before you stagger down one of the steepest bits of Nob Hill in the fog.