My boyfriend and I stayed at this hotel for 6 nights, so I think I have a pretty good idea of whether it's a good hotel or not. I will break it down into pros and cons, since there are quite a few of each:
Pros: great location for catching buses, streetcars and cable cars; great location for late night dining; the beds were super comfortable; they had the room ready for us when we checked in at 9 a.m.

Cons: the woman on the phone told me there was no way that they would have the room ready that early and was quite rude. Housekeeping would call us to ask if we wanted our room cleaned, even if we had a "do not disturb" sign on the door - what if we were taking a nap? It was because housekeeping leaves at 4 everyday so you can't get anything after that time. There was a pink stain on my comforter when we got there. We used the same sheets for 4 nights, then I left the "please wash these sheets" sign on the bed so they would change the sheets (clean them). The pink stain was still there when we got home and our sheets had been "cleaned", which means they don't change the sheets when you are there or in between guests. This, to me, was a very, very big CON. Gross! The room was really noisy because the hotel is old, so you could hear other guests taking showers, etc. They claim they will have tea and coffee in the morning, but they never had hot water for tea. There is no minibar so you can never take food back to your hotel to put in a fridge. Our toilet didn't flush right (it kept flushing for about 20 minutes).

All in all, if this hotel was $70 a night, I would be raving, but for over $200, it's absolutely insane. We even had a "Royal Court" room, which is more expensive, because they give you one-dollar slippers and a busted up coffee machine. I heard the Donatello was really nice and it's just down the street....

Booked the hotel on the basis of the TripAdvisor reviews. As I had left the booking until the last minute, I was lucky to get the room. On check-in there were some guests who decided that they didn't want to stay in the hotel any longer because a friend had told them that the are was too dangerous. The hotel is right off Union Sq which I thought was a great location: central and near the public transport system and certainly not dangerous (although it's a busy part of town).

Hotel room was fine. Free wi-fi, no mini-bar, no restaurant so no breakfast either. Free coffee every morning and there were some evening mixers (but I wasn't able to attend). Nice big TV in my room too. Terrible views from my window though. It was a completely serviceable hotel and I have no real complaints except not having any food facilities there. I was in San Francisco for business and it seemed more of a tourist hotel. On holiday, the lack of restaurant facilities etc isn't a problem but when you're travelling for work, busy and jet-lagged, sometimes you need convenience.

Anyway, overall, favourable hotel. Clean and relatively cheap. The staff were incredibly helpful and polite too. For a vacation the location was hard to beat.

My girlfriend and I decided to go to San Francisco, and after some investigation into the matter, we settled upon the Kensington Park. We tend to stay at hotels that are fairly priced for their location, such as Bill's in Vegas. I'm not a fan of super splurging on hotels, but then again, I'm not going to save a few bucks if it puts us in a rather unpleasant area. After our stay, I have to say it is 99.9% positive with only a few minor issues.

Located just off the main intersection of Powell and Post, Kensington Park is in a great location. If you're a fan of The Cheesecake Factory, as my girlfriend is, you will absolutely adore this area of town, as the restaurant is on top of a Macy's building no more than 5 minutes walk away. There are many other restaurants within that area, and there is little doubt that if you do not find anything within the immediate area, you can find something just a few blocks away.

The hotel is also a few minutes walk from many posh boutiques, Chinatown, the Financial District, as well as the famous Cable Cars. Public transit is also very accessible from this location, with Geary and Market St within walking distance as well, and was a very good base of operations for the time we spent in San Francisco, as we were mainly focusing on the Northern areas of the city (Bay/Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, Chinatown, Japantown, Legion of Honor, Fisherman's Wharf, and Alcatraz).

Getting to the hotel was a breeze. We simply (well, simply after finding the station) hopped on the BART, got off at Powell, and headed North to Post St. Due to the popularity of the area however, actually navigating Powell and making it up the hill with luggage in tow can be a bit of a challenge. I can't even begin to imagine the difficulties one would encounter should they have children along with them as well. It should also be noted that there are several homeless people along this route. However, they do not do anything that would cause a nuisance or disturb the peace.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by a very luxurious, old school classy, dark coloured lobby, completed with a piano, and several comfortable couches. Once check in was completed, we went to our room which was furnished with your typical hotel items, minus a fridge and cooking implements. Most important of all, the room was clean, which is something that is of importance to most people. In terms of the bed, it's difficult to quantify the level of comfort, as this is a person to person thing. I will say that the bed is a bit on the soft side, which may or may not be to your liking.

Naturally, being in such a great city, we didn't spend much time in the hotel room, other than to sleep at night. Each time we came back, the rooms were tidied professionally, with any minor messes we made taken care of. The front desk staff were equally friendly and approachable, and were accommodating to the strange requests that I made of them.

One final item of note is that light sleepers may want a room away from Post St, or perhaps consider a hotel not in this area at all. As luck would have it, Post is a one-way street, and just up the street is a San Francisco Fire Department depot, and because of our room, we could hear/see the trucks whiz by every single night. Despite being 7 floors up, there is still quite a lot of noise. Similarly, I'm guessing there is a Police Department or something in the area, as we heard those noises every night as well.

All this boils down to the bottom line: would I stay here again?

If the rating didn't quite spell it out for you, the answer is yes, assuming I'm doing stuff in this part of town, and I don't want to rent a car. Given the prices of all the other hotels in this area, Kensington Park offers one of the best combinations of location and price around.

I did a lot of research prior to booking this hotel and read all of the reviews here. I narrowed it down to this hotel and am sure glad that I did! We had a wonderful time at this hotel. The staff were super friendly and helpful. Our room was a fair size and had an updated look. The bed was very comfortable and we liked the fact they had a flat screen tv installed. The bathroom was a bit small but for the price we paid, we didn't mind. The room was very clean. Kensington Park hotel was located perfectly in Union Square close to everything. We walked to all the shops and went to San Francisco's best nightclub, Ruby Sky, which was right around the corner--very convenient as we could just walk back to the hotel and not have to pay for a cab. The Powell Street cable car stop is right near the hotel also. I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone as it made our first trip to San Francisco a very positive one!