I love the Villa Florence. The location is very nice and the rooms are decent. They have wondrful ammenities in the room--all Aveda products.

However, my parents just got back and stayed at the "W" hotel and liked it too. It is still near Union Square, just in the SOMA.

People are mostly suggesting boutique type hotels. We stayed at the San Francisco Marriott on 4th Street this summer. We were over 20 stories high in a corner room. Very nice pool and hot tub. It is very near Union Square. They were running specials this summer.

http://marriott.com/property/propertypage/SFODT

Ths is the third or fourth recommendation for the Joie De Vivre Hospitality - we use the Andrews Hotel two blocks from Union Square..price includes huge continental breakfast in the a.m., glass of wine in the p.m. and there is a lovely restaurant, Fino off the lobby.. www.andrewshotel.com

We recently stayed at The Orchard Hotel on Bush Street. The room was very nice and located 2 blocks from Union Square. My husband and I like to walk all over San Francisco and that worked out well, except for the steep hill we had to climb back to the hotel. But, at least we got a lot of exercise in. We had breakfast at Dottie's True Blue Cafe 2 mornings in a row, even though our hotel
provided a "European" breakfast.

Nothing like San Francisco on Halloween night.

We were in the Castro last year on Halloween. We didn't plan to be in the city for Oct 31st, but it was the night before my husband's surgery at UCSF. So he wanted to have a fun evening while he could.

Thanks for all of your suggestions. I've narrowed it down to
Villa Florence for $229 a night, Palomar for $219 a night and Hotel Diva for $149. I'm leaning towards the Palomar since it is 4 star, looks like a good location and is rated #20 on the tripadvisor website. Which would you choose? Breathe