Wandering around the West Coast - Day 16 – Bay Trail, Walt Disney Museum and Ghirardelli Square

[jocat]

Index is here.

Day 16 - Wednesday 9th August 2017

I had a really restless night’s sleep for some reason and woke up at around 7:30 am, feeling more tired than when I’d gone to bed. I let Martin sleep in as he's usually the first one up, and we'd had a conversation at 3am this morning about neither of us being able to sleep well.

I struggled to get moving as I wasn't feeling too well either this morning. It was nothing I could say I was suffering with, just that I wasn’t feeling quite right. Looking out of the window, we could see it was raining, so we weren’t really in a rush. Eventually we got moving though and we were up and ready for about 10 am.

We decided to go to the Blue Mermaid for breakfast again. I just had some wheat toast and iced water, and Martin had an American breakfast with poached eggs. We had a $10 off voucher again so the cost was only $23 to pay inclusive of tip.

We went back to the room to pick up our things for the day, then headed out. I was still feeling a bit queasy but the fresh air helped. It wasn't actually as cold as it looked. The rain had stopped so we started walking along the Bay trail, by the piers and all the way to Crissy Field.

That water must have been a bit chilly!

I was getting a little stressed at times on our walk this morning by cyclists who had no regard for pedestrians. Groups of cyclists would appear behind you on the footpath, taking up the whole path and ringing their bells for you to get out of the way - we often ended up in the road. There were places that they were signs directing cyclists to dismount and walk with their bikes, but these signs were ignored.

It took us almost 2 hours to walk to Crissy Field, but we stopped and read the information boards all the way and tried to take lots of photos of me not having a bad hair day! We failed. It’s a great place though for photos of the Golden Gate Bridge, as long as it’s not foggy or windy!

We then carried on walking to Presidio, past the Palace of Fine Arts.

We got to the Walt Disney Family Museum and went in and bought our entrance tickets ($25 each.) We decided to go to the café first for a drink and something to eat as it was already 2pm. We ordered a tuna salad sandwich, a grilled cheese sandwich, a Diet Coke and a water. This was quite reasonable at $22.

We then started touring the museum and spent a very interesting couple of hours looking at the exhibits. The last part was quite emotional though.

We made our way outside and I got my phone out and opened the Uber app. I wasn't walking all of the way back! For $8 we got taken to the top of the crooked part of Lombard Street and began our walk down.

We paused for photos at the bottom, then walked back in the direction of Fisherman's Wharf. We decided to go to Ghirardelli Square for a look round, got our free chocolate sample from the café there, then went to ‘The Pub’ for a drink. Martin had a couple of their beers - Apocalypse IPA and a Mirror Pond pale ale. I stuck with a Diet Coke as I was feeling quite dehydrated.

We wandered around the shops at Ghirardelli Square, and purchased the obligatory chocolate gifts for home. We also spotted a restaurant with a lovely view, so booked a table online for this evening.

We arrived back at the hotel for 6:30 pm, jumped in the shower and got ready for dinner.

We left the room at 8pm, and walked the short route to Ghirardelli Square. We were shown to a fantastic window table overlooking the bay.

We ordered drinks to start - an IPA for Martin and a sparkling wine flight for me. We then ordered our food. Dungeness crab cake for Martin to start - I had a little bit of it. Martin then ordered tuna steak and I ordered beef medallions bordelaise with a side of garlic mash. Martin ordered another couple of different beers and I ordered a second sparkling wine flight - each flight was really good value at $13 for 3 drinks and we couldn't fault the food.

We realised that we hadn't been offered a dessert menu, but after a while decided to go without anyway, as felt it was embarrassing to keep asking every time we wanted something. When we asked for the check, our waiter had to explain that he'd only charged us for one wine flight and two of the three beers, due to some mix up with our check and that of another table. When we looked at it, the total bill was only $32.

We called him back over and said there was no food on it, but he said he wasn't legally allowed to add it, as the food had already been charged to a different table. They'd paid for our check as it stood when they left, so our tab had been closed - he'd had to pay for their table’s bill. We said we couldn't not pay for our food, so asked if we left extra as a tip, would he get it or would it have to be shared. He did reply that he'd get it, so we left him around a $70 tip - we were quickly trying to work out in our heads the cost of the food we'd had, but realised later that we'd forgotten a couple of things, such as Martin’s starter and my side of mash.

We still ended up better off than it would really have cost us, but that was all the cash we had on us and actually his service hadn't been great. We had to ask each time we wanted another drink, and we hadn't been asked if we wanted to see a dessert menu. It wouldn't have been fair to us if we'd just paid our normal 20% tip because we felt sorry for him.

We laughed about it as we walked back to the hotel, but wondered about the people who'd been quick to pay a check that obviously wasn't theirs.

Even though the service had fallen short, I'd still go back like a shot. The food and the views were fabulous, and we did have a really lovely evening. It just made our final night in San Francisco even more memorable.

[Pussycat Doll]

Lovely day! Quite odd about your food bill! The food did look good though!

[Disney Wishing]

Great day, you must have clocked up some steps! The hair photos did make me smile and yes that ended at the family museum is a tear jerker

[Melbatb]

Wow - you must have walked some miles that day!

How strange about the bill - at least it worked in your favour!

[tocpe321]

Great day.

Like the drawings of Mickey Mouse and other characters mourning Walt.

Food looks lovely at the restaurant.

[jocat]

Originally Posted by Pussycat Doll

Lovely day! Quite odd about your food bill! The food did look good though!

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The food was yummy.

Originally Posted by Disney Wishing

Great day, you must have clocked up some steps! The hair photos did make me smile and yes that ended at the family museum is a tear jerker

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We definitely walked a lot, but really enjoyed it. I have so many photos with my hair all over my face - we just ended up laughing about it every time I tried to have a photo taken.

Originally Posted by Melbatb

Wow - you must have walked some miles that day!

How strange about the bill - at least it worked in your favour!

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We did walk miles, but it was a really enjoyable day. We hadn't got a clear plan so could just wander where the mood took us.

I'm not sure what happened really, but I get the feeling that restaurant weren't used to their staff making a mistake. I felt sorry for our waiter, as mistakes do happen, especially in your first few days of working somewhere.

Originally Posted by tocpe321

Great day.

Like the drawings of Mickey Mouse and other characters mourning Walt.

Food looks lovely at the restaurant.

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Those drawings were all in the national press after Walt died. There were hundreds of them displayed. It was so moving.

The food was fab, despite the strange service and the bill mix up.

[WileyCoyote]

Oh shame about the mix up there for that waiter, well done you for trying to make it good. I'm sure I would know if our bill had been overcharged so that other table either didn't notice or were not bothered ! Food and drinks looked lovely
Sorry you felt a bit poorly to start with, you certainly made the best of the day, the museum looks fascinating. The bicycle give way sign makes me laugh..

[Jake71]

A lovely day. I’m so gutted I missed out on the Disney museum. Such an odd occurrence at the restaurant!