Tourin' Over California 2017 - Day 1 Fly to SFO

Birtie · 12 Sep 17, 01:59 PM

13 July

A trip that had been some years in the planning, as we had originally planned to go in 2010 and then looked again at 2016 but finally here we were heading off on our California road trip.

It was a nice sunny July morning as we loaded the cases into the car and set off for Manchester Airport,

Myself, Geoff

Tracey

and Megan

There was a queue at the roundabout at for traffic getting on the M6 at J19 which held us up for about 10 minutes but apart from that we made good progress. We found Meet & Greet at T1 and had soon parked up, left key at reception and towed our cases to T1.

We queued for checkin as Tracey's boarding pass wasn't issued at online checkin yesterday. As we waited there was a dark haired lad continually staring at Megan in the queue.

We were sent downstairs for security as it was a shorter queue and then got breakfast at the Grain Loft, we all had traditional breakfast with bloomer toast. Megan had milk and we had tea.

After breakfast we looked round the shops - Megan got some earrings from Accessorize, body spray from Victoria Secrets and Tracey got a top and lip stick from Next. Megan then got a meal deal from boots for the plane, who said he was very grateful but didn't like chicken.

We boarded the Thomas Cook A330 and took off 46 mins after the scheduled time. I had the a window seat for once and saw Tatton Park & Trafford Centre once in the air.

Tracey and Megan noticed a nasty smell and another passenger nearby also complained about it, who got moved after complaining.

We found some pillows and blankets in the overhead storage -got Megan a pillow and blanket and then started a stampede with man pushing Tracey almost back into her seat in his rush to get one. The pillows felt damp.

Food on the flight was beef with dumplings and for entertainment I watched Rogue 1 and Harry Potter Deathly Hallows part 1.

There were views of an icy Northern Canada, then barren landscape after that before becoming more patchwork further south, then into USA it became a dry landscape with some mountains and lakes and then turning greener over California.

The captain said we would approach SFO from the north and should get a view of city as we flew over but there was nothing from our side of plane. We flew south of the airport then turned back for final approach over the water. I was sat next to a guy from Warrington, who was doing a similar trip with his 2 kids.

We were off the plane at 3.30, where there was a big queue for immigration. We had stood in in for quite a while until we were asked if we had been to USA before on current ESTAs, which we had, so could skip the line and use the kiosk.

We got our bags and had planned to get Uber to our hotel, but the price had gone up because it was a busy time and it was giving 45 mins wait time, so we just got a taxi which cost $60 with tip.

We arrived at Pier2620, checked in and dropped bags in room then wandered 5 mins down the road to Fishermans Wharf.

We checked our pick up point for our Dylan�s tour tomorrow and got our first sight of the cable cars.

Went to and Italian restaurant for food, Tracey and Megan both had pasta I had pizza.

Back to the hotel and in bed between 8-9 at end of a long day
Tracey said that reception had given us a coupon for the restaurant that we had eaten at so we could have saved 10%

Day 2 here

Pussycat Doll · 12 Sep 17, 02:22 PM

Sounds like a hassle free travel day which is always good! Looking forward to more.

tonymc · 18 Sep 17, 06:18 PM

We flew into SFO on our recent trip, but we're lucky as I had picked up we could go directly to the Automatic Passport Control machines so we were through immigration in less than 10 minutes from leaving the plane. However, that and the speedy luggage delivery counted for nothing as it took us almost twice as long as it should have done to get to our first stop at Pismo Beach!

Animagus · 23 Sep 17, 02:02 PM

Sounds like a fairly smooth travel day. You don't say anything too negative about Thomas Cook so I assume you found them ok?
I intend to consume as many West Coast trip reports as I can. We are planning a big trip for 2020.

**dismamx2** · 23 Sep 17, 02:11 PM

Nice start, looking forward to following along.

Birtie · 2 Oct 17, 08:42 AM

Originally Posted by Animagus

Sounds like a fairly smooth travel day. You don't say anything too negative about Thomas Cook so I assume you found them ok?
I intend to consume as many West Coast trip reports as I can. We are planning a big trip for 2020.

Yes Thomas Cook were ok, a limited choice of movies unless you pay to upgrade, and you have to pay for drinks, but I would use them again.