Mike & Sam Go West! Day 16 - San Francisco Arrival & Tours

[soarinfan]

Mike and Sam Go West!

A Holiday Extravaganza

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Wow this morning was an early wake up call! As the alarm went off at 2:30am I felt like I was back at work again a few years ago! I had to seriously shake Sam to wake her up at that time of the morning, and she remained a zombie for a good few hours after this anyway! The reason we were up so early was because we had the first flight of the day out of LAX to San Francisco for the last portion of our holiday . We did originally have a much more sociable flight time of 10am, but with Expedia screwing up to the nth degree (don't even get me started on them! ) the best we could get was now a 6am departure from LAX. So it was what it was!

We had said goodbye to Jade & Jake last night as they were still well asleep by the time we locked up and left the villa at 3am. I had made sure we were also all packed the night before, so it literally was just a case of getting up, getting ready and getting on the road. Sam slept most of the way to LAX whilst I propped some match sticks under my eye lids (I wasn't that bad - I'm used to early mornings/middle of the nights with work!) and we got there in record time as there was hardly any cars on the road at all.

The car drop off for Dollar was off airport, but we were soon at the terminal after a quick bus ride with a couple of other early risers. Check in was a weird set up. Had to see one staff member to say that we were there, followed by yet another staff member to print our boarding cards, followed by someone else to print our baggage tags, followed by someone else to weigh our bags and take them off of us - never had that before but theres a first time for everything!

Either way we went through TSA straight away as I know what the queues can be like, and I wanted to look at getting something to eat airside whilst we were waiting for the flight.

Soon as we were through, we found our gate and grabbed a seat and I went off in search of food. I found a very over priced selection of goodies, so in the end decided not to bother (boy I regretted that later! ). I got back to the bags and Sam, who was asleep again! We sat around with Sam dozing in and out of sleep before our flight was finally called about 20 minutes later and we began to board. We had a text from Jade & Jake who were also now on the way to LAX for the flight home. They were going (on different flights) to Newark, but then jumping on the same flight home to London.

The flight was fairly non eventful, apart from the fact we didn't get any food! What a disaster. I was banking on some form of breakfast or at least a sandwich on board - NADA! Wow I was hungry now! The minion I had won Sam on Santa Monica Pier caught the attention of a flight attendant who said he could have the seat next to us as it was free, so he was strapped in good and tight for the whole flight

The flight is only an hour so we were soon on the ground again in San Francisco. Love how in America the domestic flights exit out into the same area as the passengers waiting to board their aircraft! We had a quick loo break which was only a couple of minutes, and then we headed on the long walk to the baggage reclaim. When we arrived, it wasn't going around, nor were our bags on the belt! We waited there for what must have been about 5 minutes before an American Airlines rep came up to say they had taken all the remaining bags from the LAX flight to the baggage office. We literally had gone almost straight there from the flight - and yet they were still taken off! Wow. Another family was as confused as we were but we grabbed our bags just the same, and headed out to our pick up area.

I had booked a shuttle company called Airport Express, which I had used last time in San Francisco. They are really good, its about $30 return from the airport to downtown San Francisco/Fishermans Wharf (which is where we were staying) - and theres usually only a few other people in the van too being dropped off, so it doesnt take too long to get to your stop.

We had a text from Jade again whilst we were in the van. They were still both at LAX! One of the flights to Newark they were taking had been cancelled! So they had argued their point and had managed to be booked onto the next flight to San Francisco to come home via there. Only problem being - it was going to be a 10 hour wait at San Francisco! WOW!

We were at Fishermans Wharf and our hotel - the Sheraton - within about 40 minutes after just a few drop offs. Our room wasnt quite ready yet so we left our luggage at Guest Services and headed off in search of food - starving! On the way to find food, we passed by what was the Raddison which I had stayed at last time round - now some weird funky overlay and called The Zephyr!

Sam had spotted IHOP just down the road next to my old hotel - it was a no brainer! We did have a reservation at Hard Rock Cafe for lunch, but we were both so desperate for food, we just had to eat. So it was going to be a mid morning breakfast FIRST at IHOP

I told Sam not to order anything too large because a huge lunch was just around the corner. I ordered a stack of Choc Chip Pancakes, and Sam was going to go for a kids meal - though the server quite strongly said NO that she wasn't allowed to order that as she was over 13. The stupid thing is, is that Sam then ordered pretty much the same items seperately, for LESS money, off the regular menu. Sam 1 - IHOP 0...

We had a nice stroll around Pier 39 next, and Sam got to see the Golden Gate Bridge for the first time. Unfortunately there was only 1 solitary sea lion on the Pier as this was the time most of them head out to other places in the world, which was a little disappointing!

After our quick stroll around Pier 39 before heading to the Hard Rock Cafe. We love it here, and I hadn't been in this one on my last trip so it was a must do. We were already hungry again (pigs I know! ) so we ordered fairly quickly. I ordered a BBQ burger of some form I think (I forget which one!) and the food came fairly quickly as it wasn't too busy.

After lunch we headed back to the hotel to see if we could check in yet, which we could. We grabbed our luggage and headed on up to the room - it was a hell of a trek but it was nice when we finally arrived! Stuart the Minion took pride of place straight away on the bed, and we got ourselves sorted before heading out for the rest of the day.

We had a city tour booked this afternoon with Super SightSeeing tours - the same tour I had taken before when in San Francisco - and guess what? We had the SAME tour guide again (just like in LA!) these guys really do like their job if they're in it for nigh on 3 years (and who knows how many years before!).

The tour was essentially the same as it was before but with a few subtle changes. We started off with a trip across the bridge to the other side for some photos, before driving along the coast line for a quick drink stop. We headed up to Twin Peaks next for a beautiful view over the city of San Francisco, before diving into downtown San Francisco itself to see all of the sights in the city. The tour is really good, and the tour guide we had was so knowledgable. Great to find your feet.

Twin Peaks was my favourite - although a bit cold. I love to see over views of the city, and the chance to take a cheeky panorama

We headed back to the room for a bit of a rest after this. We were both absolutely shattered, and as interesting as it was, I was dropping off to sleep on the coach (fail! ). After a half hour rest and warm up (as we were freezing from being up on Twin Peaks - San Francisco is generally on the nippy side at the best of times! ) we headed on out.

This evening we had booked an awesome Sunset Bay Cruise with Red & White which takes you out into the bay, up towards Sausalito (which is where we would be going tomorrow for lunch), around Alcatraz, and under the Golden Gate, whilst serenading you with live music, and allowing you to dive head first into an all you can eat hot & cold buffet inside

The views were absolutely stunning. The clouds rolling down the hills which you'll see in the video were absolutely breathtaking. Funnily enough soon after we took this photo, we saw Jade & Jake finally heading off home to London overhead on their plane back home - their 10 hour or so wait at SFO clearly had come to an end!

I couldn't help but stop and think how lucky I was. I was sharing a city I absolutely loved with someone I loved, and look at the scenery - wow! It was absolutely amazing. And plus the food was pretty tasty too I grabbed a few cheeky cookies from the boat as it docked and took them back to the hotel with us to scoff. We also popped into 7/11 to buy a few drinks and things for the room before heading back.

Sam was absolutely knackered so pretty much went straight to sleep. I was fairly tired and napped a little, but ended up watching some hideous show on the tv whilst scoffing cookies But we had another long day tomorrow... as we were renting a car and driving out of SF!



Thanks all for watching and reading Day 16 folks. Be sure to visit and subscribe to my YouTube channel for lots of videos, and you'll be able to enjoy all of the vlogs for this holiday and more Day 17 coming soon!

[carolynne67]

Sounds perfect, San Francisco is our first stop and were really looking forward to it.
Off to watch your video now.
Carolynne

Oh no I'm getting its not available

[soarinfan]

Carolynne67 - its a YouTube thing - they don't like that I've included music in the video! So some of the videos aren't available on mobile devices/tablets etc - but they should work on laptops and computers. Sorry!

[carolynne67]

Thanks Mike, I'll try on my computer (when I'm supposed to be working) tomorrow.
Carolynne