We started our USA experience on 30th August 2012 flying out of Sydney via Virgin Australia to Los Angeles and then a domestic flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
Our flight experience over was good. We travelled Premium Economy with Virgin Australia which was well worth the extra cost. Our seats were comfortable and the service good. The extra luggage allowance was a bonus especially on the return trip where we bought home an extra suitcase. The internal flight was okay as our luggage went direct to San Francisco so we did not have to juggle with suitcases between planes. The time difference had us arriving in San Francisco late afternoon on the same day we left Australia so we effectively gained a day.
Our accommodation was the Stanford Court Hotel which was at Nob Hill on California Street. We had comfortable rooms and the cable cars were right outside the hotel so we could easily get to and from the waterfront. We mainly walked our way around because it was all downhill to the waterfront and we caught the cable car back uphill. There were restaurants nearby the hotel where we could walk to dinner.
On our second day in San Francisco we had pre-booked a city tour combined with a tour of Alcatraz Island. The bus collected us from the hotel in the morning and showed us all around San Francisco including the waterfront, Pier 39, Pier 1 and Fisherman's Wharf. Lands End Lookout, The Golden Gate Bridge which we had an opportunity to walk over the bridge and also toured around the local homes before dropping us at the Pier to catch our boat to Alcatraz Island. The tour cost us about $85 per head which turned out to be good value for a full day of touring - especially Alcatraz Island which impressed us. (See separate posting) We caught the cable car back to the hotel.
That evening we met up with our Insight Tour Guide to collect our paperwork and register for the Californian West Coast Tour. We got to meet a few of our fellow travellers over drinks and nibbles.
The Third day we opted not to take the Insight City Tour as we had already done that the day before. Instead we had a good wander around the city spending more time at Pier 39 and Fisherman's Wharf, had a ride on the cable car and had a look at Grace Cathedral which was just down the street from our hotel.
We were lucky to have had two days of very nice weather when the fog lifted early. San Francisco is known to fog in so there can be very little to view. That evening we met up with our tour group for a walk through Chinatown and had a group dinner at one of the authentic Chinese Restaurants.
We really enjoyed San Francisco with Alcatraz being our main highlight.
The following day we left San Francisco at 9.00am for our trip to the Napa Valley wine country with Sonoma to be our overnight stop.
