San Francisco

Today was a travelling day. We were taken to the airport by the last bus of our Princess experience and the driver was about to go through the safety brief when he made a joke about does anyone need  to hear the safety brief and we said NO!! This is because every bus we have been on with Princess has had the safety brief given to us!

We got dropped off at the airport and we know our luggage will be over the 23kg limit on Air Canada so John and Cheryl try and reorganise but to no avail as all of us were overweight. We eventually paid the price and thought we would send stuff home when we got to San Francisco, well that is another tale to tell.

Anyway we get through to the departure gate and the plane leaves on route to Seattle. We have a bite to eat as we know that we won't get a chance as we arrive quite late into San Francisco.  By this stage it is 11pm and we have been travelling all day. We get our shuttle and find that we aren't the only ones to be dropped off. It seems to take an eternity to get to our accommodation as we drop of 3 other passengers. We are all tired and just want to go to bed.

We arrived at our accommodation and there is supposed to be someone to meet us and let us in. Well he wasn't there. So here we were at 11.30 pm standing in an unfamiliar city on a street which doesn't look too good at this time of the night. Peter has rung and texted the guy a number of times and there is no response. John also tries to ring but to no avail either. Not a good way to start our time in San Francisco!!

We eventually start to google places to stay within a short distance and then Cheryl also takes note of a taxi company phone number as well. The taxi arrives and we spot a Hilton Hotel so with our luggage packed in the boot and around us the boys got out to see if they could accommodate us but while they can't the lovely girl behind the desk rings through to their sister hotel not far away and organises 2 rooms for us. All the time Cheryl and I were waiting in the taxi so we didn't know what was going on. By this stage it is almost 1am and none of us are feeling great. We arrive at the next hotel and who would think that at 1am in the morning you would have to wait to check in!!! We eventually check in and get to our rooms at 1.30am! Needless to say we were all glad to be going to bed.

Day 1

We all struggled today to get going and were all feeling a bit flat. We went down to breakfast and decided that the hotel one was too expensive so started to walk around and find somewhere. We finally found a restaurant and had some lovely pancakes which brightened us up a bit.

We decided to go to Fisherman's Wharf, so we waited for the cable car to take us down. One thing we found out very quickly was that no matter where you go there is a queue to be had. We queued up for about 1/2 an hour to ride the cable car down there and by the time we got on it was very crowded. We arrived at Fisherman's Wharf and it was overwhelming the amount of people that were on the streets. I think it was possibly the most people we had seen for quite awhile. None of us were quite the chipper and happy people we had been up to now as I think we were all feeling the negative start to our time here.

We do visit the information centre and explore the displays there about the history of the area. It was very well done and took you through from the very beginning to how it came to be like it is today. We also visited Hyde Pier which had a number of olden type boats and various other bits of nautical life as it was.

Inside a houseboat on Hyde Pier

The galley on the houseboat

Exterior of the houseboat

We wandered around and ended up having a lovely lunch in a seafood restaurant on Pier 39. We couldn't believe the amount of people who were thronging to this area of the wharf. We walked around a bit more and we made our way to the pier where the sea lions are found. They are a very popular tourist attraction and we could see why as they seem to perform at times.

After a few photos of the sea lions, Cheryl wanted to go to Ghiradelli for an ice cream as she had heard it was fabulous. So we walked up the hill and like everywhere it was packed but we chose our ice creams and got served relatively quickly. I have never had an ice cream so big. I wish I had of taken a photo go it now but I didn't, never mind. I am generally not one for ice creams but this was delicious.

As we walked through the complex which was called Ghiradelli Square it was clear San Francsicans love their ice cream and chocolate. Follow the link to read the history of this great reuse of an old factory site.

http://www.ghirardellisq.com/explore/history/

After a walk along the Municipal Pier which is falling into disrepair we decide to go back and have a drink at one of the pubs we have passed along the street. It was quite cool sitting out side as it had been a grey and very cool day overall. We thought we had left the cooler weather behind but not here today.

We then thought we would look for somewhere for dinner as it was getting late but everywhere we looked there was a queue, so we decided to hop a cab and go back to near the hotel but again only found queues.  We decided we would go back to hotel and only just made it in time to have some dinner before retiring to bed. Day one over and done. None of us were really feeling the love for San Francisco at the time but tomorrow was another day.