Cali-vacation Celebration Travel Day

[chrisdebl]

July 24th Travel Day/San Francisco

Woke up at 5am, before alarm, couldn’t believe the day we had waited for, for so long had arrived. Got up and packed room up. How can 3 people make so much mess in one night? Drove over to Purple Parking and the bus for T3 was there waiting for us. We hopped on and back off 10 mins later. We went straight through bag drop as there was hardly any queue.

We are always a bit nervous going through security as we had a lap top stolen from security in Orlando once (insurance wouldn’t cover as they said we had left it unsupervised! But unfortunately you can’t hold onto it going through the X-ray machine). Anyway we were fine and relieved to be able to start enjoying ourselves.

We went to the Bridge Café for some very nice breakfasts, I used a 15% discount coupon and paid £28 for 2 all day breakfasts, 1 veggie breakfast and 3 diet cokes. We also used their electric to charge our phones at the same time. We had a wander around the shops and bought a load of magazines in WH Smith.

Before we knew it our gates opened and we boarded our plane (Tubular Belle). It felt a bit disloyal getting on a Virgin plane as our son has been working as an Apprentice for BA for 3 years, as soon as he qualifies for discount flights we can get them as well!

Anyway, the flight was great , we seemed to eat all the way there. I had veggie pasta , DH and DS had Chicken, then we had a cheese Danish, then some ice cream, a cheese sandwich and lastly a muffin. The inflight entertainment was excellent and I ran out of time to finish watching my last film. We had clear skies all the way and I took loads of photos. I think we were over Portland when we flew over these mountains.

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Some Mountains

We landed in San Francisco and the queue for immigration was huge, never mind we were here! After a short wait for a taxi we got to our hotel, the Lombard Motor Inn for $70 inc. tip. We got the keys for our room and it was on the top floor as requested, but it didn’t have a balcony. We went back to reception and asked if we could move and they said it was no problem what so ever, amazing customer service and all with a genuine smile.

Our room was absolutely beautiful and we felt incredibly lucky. The whole hotel has been remodelled and the photos we had seen really didn’t do it justice. The bed was the best we had in the whole holiday, 8” memory foam! The hotel smelled and looked clean and new. We were there for twenty minutes before we realised we could see the top of the bridge in the distance.

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Lombard Motor Inn

We were also very impressed with the area it was situated in. The Marina District was one of our favourites in San Francisco with lots of lovely local restaurants and shops, a really relaxed and safe neighbourhood.

We changed our clothes and went down towards Fisherman’s Wharf for a walk. It was really busy, and very touristy, but we really liked it. We saw some sea lions swimming on our way and some more when we got there. Had a look around the shops, tried to buy a New York Giants hat for Jord, but no luck. Saw the man hiding in a bush. And had a look at the restaurants, to see where we were to have our first Californian meal.

We chose Bubba Gump’s, I had a child’s meal of fish and chips, DH had fish sandwich and DS had a shrimp sandwich, we had a coke and 2 lagers in a souvenir cup and the bill was $53. The atmosphere was really fun and there was a birthday bash going on the table next to us, they were a huge family and really raucous, great fun! The waitress gave us a quiz about Forrest Gump trivia against another table. We knew that they did this but have been to lots of Bubba Gump’s and this was our first quiz. We loved it, and were really chuffed to beat the other team, yay!

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Hubby With Ping Pong Paddle

We bought a ping pong paddle and walked back to our fabby hotel. We watched a bit of telly (Gator Boys – class or what), before falling asleep about 9.30 (5.30am back in UK). Phew, a good start!

[parisdisneyfan]

Looks a lovely hotel, I have noted it for our trip next year. Looking forward to hearing more

[Alyson]

Great photo from the plane, the hotel looks lovely, well you all looked very wide awake considering what a long day you had

Lovely day

[Guest]

Hotel looks great! Bargain too!

[Hannikins]

great day, cant wait to read more

[Glee Fan]

Sounds like you had a good travel day and managed to stay awake so long! Bubba Gumps - yum!

[TinkTatoo]

Great first day

Originally Posted by chrisdebl

... Saw the man hiding in a bush...

See more...

We only saw him when he jumped out at us heart attack wasn't the word

[KarenG]

Wow, you did well to fit all that in your first night!

looking forward to more

[orlandosgr8]

What a great start to your holiday, the hotel sounds fab.

[Helen0705]

Lovely first day