Let's go... to San Francisco (pre trip report)
Pre-trip Report
Let’s go…to San Francisco March 2019 Cast (it’s the usual one!) Me: Shaun, 50’s, loves travelling, eating and drinking (not necessarily in that order!) Alison: 50’s, ditto to the above! Well, it’s another trip thanks to another bargain fare and following the brief break from tradition for our Cape Town trip we are back on track with flying indirect once again. I always thought that once we’d starting chasing Tier points we’d spend the bulk of the flights flying west to America but instead the really good deals have mainly been going east thanks to Qatar Airways. :cool2: A West coast trip has always been on the cards for us - my initial thoughts was that it’d be a 3 or 4 week trip covering all bases. However, what we’ve done is to split it up – we did Las Vegas in 2015 and Hawaii in 2016. So it’s California on the list now – but that’s a BIIIIIIG state! So we’ve decided to tick off San Francisco this time around. So, what’s the routing this time? 1. Heathrow to Inverness - (STAY OVERNIGHT) 2. Inverness to Heathrow 3. Heathrow to Los Angeles- (STAY OVERNIGHT) 4. Los Angeles to San Francisco -(STAY FOR A FEW NIGHTS) 5. San Francisco to Los Angeles 6. Los Angeles to Heathrow 7. Heathrow to Inverness 8. Inverness to Heathrow So, why Inverness this time round? In simple terms, Air Passenger Duty is not levied on flights from Inverness or any airport further north. This means that significant savings can be made if you technically start your journey from here. The higher the class of travel the higher the savings will be. :) For us it gives more Avios and more Tier Points which is what we are after plus a chance to visit some more places in the UK that we’ve not explored that much. So the actual ‘holiday’ is Inverness to San Francisco, and back again. We have to go via Heathrow, and we’ve added a stop in Los Angeles (for 2 reasons – 1 is extra tier points and avios, the other is that the aircraft are a bit more up to date on the Los Angeles flights). Because we’re starting in Inverness (and ending up there at the end), we need to book flights to get there and back again! This is where the Avios come in handy – we’ve booked reward flights to go there and back. On the homeward leg we were planning on landing at Heathrow, a couple of hours break then flying up to Inverness, then promptly flying straight back again on the same plane! :omg: As ‘luck’ would have it, after we’d booked, the schedules changed which gave us a horrible long layover at Heathrow of about 8 hours, so Alison rang up and rescheduled flights 6 & 7 to another weekend altogether! Then we realised we’d have a really early start on the Monday morning for the Heathrow to Inverness flight, trying to get round the M25 in rush hour, so after a quick chat we decided to book a hotel at Heathrow using a Hotels.com reward. So what we booked so far is: Sunday 24th March – drive to Heathrow, park in long stay parking and stay at the Sofitel (attached to Terminal 5) Monday 25th March – flight 1 Heathrow to Inverness (it's not a big airport!) pick up hire car, check into Heathcote B&B then drive out to see the Loch Ness monster! Tuesday 26th March – flight 2 Inverness to Heathrow, flight 3 Heathrow to Los Angeles (on the A380) check into Crowne Plaza hotel Wednesday 27th March – flight 4 Los Angeles to San Francisco, check into Grand Hyatt near Union Square Thursday 28th March – Friday 29th March – Alcatraz Saturday 30th March – Sunday 31st March - Monday 1st April – flight 5 San Francisco to Los Angeles, flight 6 Los Angeles to Heathrow (on a 747) Tuesday 2nd April – collect car from long stay parking and head home Saturday 27th April - drive to Heathrow, park in POD parking flight 7 Heathrow to Inverness, check into Kinnock Lodge B&B, then see a bit of Inverness Sunday 28th April – flight 8 Inverness to Heathrow, collect car, head home That’s all we’ve planned so far but we have bucket lists (as always!) Inverness Distillery tour – not sure which one just yet Loch Ness – should do this on 25th March Trip to Isle of Skye – not sure if we’ll have enough time San Francisco Alcatraz cruise: booked The rest is going to be all the usual tourist stuff, depends on how much we can actually fit in. Thanks to the all the Dibbers that have posted recently in the West Coast Planning forum. Not an exhaustive list but a starter for us to pick through and to start scheduling things. Ferry Building marketplace - Slanted Door for Vietnamese cuisine Chinatown - The Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory Lombard Street Golden Gate Park Pier 39 Golden Gate Bridge Coit Tower Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood Mission district - Burrito at La Taqueria Lands’ End hiking trail San Francisco Go Car Tour San Francisco Scavenger Hunt Adventure Walt Disney family museum Golden Gate Park USS Hornet Ferries - Sausalito/Tiburon Anchor Brewery Tour So over the next week or two we’ll start working our way thought some of the above and decided how and when we’ll do them! |
Sounds great even with all those flights! I thought I had booked loads of flights for our trip to SF but not quite, we’ve 5 to get but that includes a internal flight to Vegas!
Hope you have fun, I’ve quite a few of those things on my list for April, I’m doing the Dylan’s famous tour & Muir woods with a trip to Sausalito in the middle. I can’t wait! |
Sounds like another fab trip! Not long to go!
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Another great holiday, can't wait to read your trip report.
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Well,
Planning is moving on and we've managed to get some additional things booked. On the 25th March we are going to do the Loch Ness by Jacobite experience - nice 2 hour trip on Loch Ness including a visit to Urquhart Castle. At the other end of the trip on March 31st we'll be going to the Presidio Picnic Tagline is The national park picnic returns with food and dance that celebrate the diversity of the San Francisco Bay Area! Lots of food carts, craft beer, music etc. https://www.presidio.gov/events/presidio-picnic Looks like a nice relaxing thing to round off our trip. More planning to do this weekend. |
Well,
We had a very productive planning session at the weekend and soon realised that with such a short amount of time we can’t fit everything in so as usual we’ll cherry pick the “must do’s” and see how we get on. Latest booking is for the Anchor Steam Brewing company tour on 29th March. Definitely going to fit in The Disney family Museum somewhere along the line. At least one of us will cycle over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and catch the ferry back. |
Used to live in Nairn near Inverness. You must go to Girvans (near Eastgate Shopping Centre).
Isle of Skye is quite a long way, scenery spectacular of course, but a couple of hours to Kyle. You could explore the Black Isle (Channory Point for dolphins if the tide is right). Or drive along the A96 to Nairn to visit Culbin Forest, go inland on the B9007 between Nairn and Forres to visit Logie Steadings for cake then walk to Randolphs Leap, a narrow gorge on the Findhorn River, or drive and park there! Further east to Baxters (soup) visitor centre and you are nicely placed for a visit to a Speyside malt! Should this trippie go into the California section - might encourage more people to use airports that don't attract APD! |
sounds good
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